Thank you everybody for my birthday wishes etc. It was a nice birthday, with a nice Lao-style massage and sauna and a cosy meal with some fellow travellers - there was a boat-racing festival starting at the weekend and a bit of a funfair had already started up and lots of food and clothes stalls. There was even a band playing cheesey asian pop music, and we went and danced, although we were surprised when the music stopped abruptly and everyone got off the dance floor and went back to their seats - they don't seem to have the continuous non-stop boogying here! Vientiane isn't really a party city though - the curfew at my guest house was 10.30pm!
It was well worth the bus journey to get here however, even though this is the first country where things seem to keep going wrong for me...don't know if it was the lead up to Friday the 13th??
Vientiane, the capital city is like a big, friendly laid-back and chilled village. Ok so there was a search team when we first arrived which checked our bags and gave us a very brief pat down to check we didn't have guns and bombs on us (the last bomb attack was just in 2004), but this was also because of the boat festival, so just a precaution I think. None of it detracted from the loveliness of Laos.
So at 10.20pm I ran off to my $1.80 dorm room - cheap as chips! - not the nicest but the cheapest and I just don't care about a/c and tvs and fridges nowadays - my standards have lowered a lot, just as long as I remember to kill off the ants before I go to bed, then its all fine. However I do keep forgetting that important point - and in fact I discovered I was actually the source of the ants the other night - they'd found some extra strength cough sweets I got and set up home in my rucksack, which explained why they were all over my clothes and biting me constantly!!
I went up to Louang Prabang on the bus a couple of days later - another long and winding bus journey taking about 10 hours. Yes the bus broke down at one point, but only held us up for about half an hour, and was even slower going up hills after that!! The scenery of lush green karst mountains and bright green rice paddies and the odd pig or chicken running into the road was gorgeous, though the drivers are picking up that annoying SE Asian habit of beeping the horn every 5 seconds and taking corners (of which there were lots) on two wheels.
In LP I arrived at the perfect time. The first day I was there, there were boat races in a nearby village, and it was full on festival time with loads of food and drink stalls and music playing. We watched the races for a bit, which were supported with lots of screams and cheering from the side of the Mekong. Two boats with about 20 rowers in would race at a time, for a distance of about 500m. It was good fun, and the best part for everyone I think was when one of the boats sank! They just kept on rowing though, even though only their heads were visible above the water! Tee hee. After a bit we got bored and me and this Australian girl and a Singaporean guy went and sat in the "beer tent" area and had some Bia Lao and kebabs of unidentified meat, watching people dancing to the karaoke singers - very refreshing.
The next night was even better, as it was "Boun Ok Phansa" the last day of lent for the monks, who had been stuck inside their temples fasting for the past 3 months. The night before there was chanting and singing over a loudspeaker across the whole town until about 1am, and then about 4am I was awoken again by the sound of the loudspeaker - the monks were now allowed out of the temples and to go collecting alms again - hooray for them! Pretty much all day this loudspeaker was twittering out prayers and songs - then at about 7pm, the fun started: people had been making boats out of paper and strips of bamboo all week, as well as small pretty floating flower and banana leaf decorations - the boats were all lined up down the main street in LP atop
wheelbarrow contraptions, and all lit up with candles and oilburners - some of the boats set on fire there were that many naked flames! The people that had made them and their friends/family/hangers on all stood around the boat singing a cappella and banging on drums, and of course it wouldn't be a celebration without the firecrackers!! Five-year-olds holding aloft roman candles bigger than themselves and 8-year-olds chucking those little - and big - banger things under your feet. There were these two little fat kids walking along in front of me just chucking these things over their heads and willy nilly into the crowds - I wanted to knock their heads together!!! I did get quite scared at a few points, but in the end learnt to avoid the areas with the groups of 8-12 year olds. In the whole town I think they had one fire engine. I didn't see any ambulances at all tho! Anyway, the boats were carried along in a procession down to the Mekong where it just looked magical as people had already started floating their flower/banana leaf things with candles in the middle, so there were all these lights floating gently down the river, and then the boats were added and it all looked very beautiful.
I'll tell you about my horrible trek in the next entry...
The photos won't add!!! Will put on another time...
It was well worth the bus journey to get here however, even though this is the first country where things seem to keep going wrong for me...don't know if it was the lead up to Friday the 13th??
Vientiane, the capital city is like a big, friendly laid-back and chilled village. Ok so there was a search team when we first arrived which checked our bags and gave us a very brief pat down to check we didn't have guns and bombs on us (the last bomb attack was just in 2004), but this was also because of the boat festival, so just a precaution I think. None of it detracted from the loveliness of Laos.
So at 10.20pm I ran off to my $1.80 dorm room - cheap as chips! - not the nicest but the cheapest and I just don't care about a/c and tvs and fridges nowadays - my standards have lowered a lot, just as long as I remember to kill off the ants before I go to bed, then its all fine. However I do keep forgetting that important point - and in fact I discovered I was actually the source of the ants the other night - they'd found some extra strength cough sweets I got and set up home in my rucksack, which explained why they were all over my clothes and biting me constantly!!
I went up to Louang Prabang on the bus a couple of days later - another long and winding bus journey taking about 10 hours. Yes the bus broke down at one point, but only held us up for about half an hour, and was even slower going up hills after that!! The scenery of lush green karst mountains and bright green rice paddies and the odd pig or chicken running into the road was gorgeous, though the drivers are picking up that annoying SE Asian habit of beeping the horn every 5 seconds and taking corners (of which there were lots) on two wheels.
In LP I arrived at the perfect time. The first day I was there, there were boat races in a nearby village, and it was full on festival time with loads of food and drink stalls and music playing. We watched the races for a bit, which were supported with lots of screams and cheering from the side of the Mekong. Two boats with about 20 rowers in would race at a time, for a distance of about 500m. It was good fun, and the best part for everyone I think was when one of the boats sank! They just kept on rowing though, even though only their heads were visible above the water! Tee hee. After a bit we got bored and me and this Australian girl and a Singaporean guy went and sat in the "beer tent" area and had some Bia Lao and kebabs of unidentified meat, watching people dancing to the karaoke singers - very refreshing.
The next night was even better, as it was "Boun Ok Phansa" the last day of lent for the monks, who had been stuck inside their temples fasting for the past 3 months. The night before there was chanting and singing over a loudspeaker across the whole town until about 1am, and then about 4am I was awoken again by the sound of the loudspeaker - the monks were now allowed out of the temples and to go collecting alms again - hooray for them! Pretty much all day this loudspeaker was twittering out prayers and songs - then at about 7pm, the fun started: people had been making boats out of paper and strips of bamboo all week, as well as small pretty floating flower and banana leaf decorations - the boats were all lined up down the main street in LP atop
wheelbarrow contraptions, and all lit up with candles and oilburners - some of the boats set on fire there were that many naked flames! The people that had made them and their friends/family/hangers on all stood around the boat singing a cappella and banging on drums, and of course it wouldn't be a celebration without the firecrackers!! Five-year-olds holding aloft roman candles bigger than themselves and 8-year-olds chucking those little - and big - banger things under your feet. There were these two little fat kids walking along in front of me just chucking these things over their heads and willy nilly into the crowds - I wanted to knock their heads together!!! I did get quite scared at a few points, but in the end learnt to avoid the areas with the groups of 8-12 year olds. In the whole town I think they had one fire engine. I didn't see any ambulances at all tho! Anyway, the boats were carried along in a procession down to the Mekong where it just looked magical as people had already started floating their flower/banana leaf things with candles in the middle, so there were all these lights floating gently down the river, and then the boats were added and it all looked very beautiful.I'll tell you about my horrible trek in the next entry...
The photos won't add!!! Will put on another time...
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