The trip up north

Many thanks for your comments on my last blog, I have been in constant touch with Jazz back at Erawan and he has been keeping me abreast of the fire situation in Victoria, I can’t really think of words to say that would adequately cover it, it is a surreal feeling watching the images on the TV. You get used to seeing images of disasters on the news; Katrina, Asian Tsunami, George Bush etc. but to see them from your home is shocking. On BBC world this morning, the top story was the Memorial service from the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, although I am not in Australia at the moment, I would express my solidarity with my countryman, all I can do is wish people well and hope they all get through this OK.
Its been a tough few days in Vientiane with one thing and another, things not running to plan etc. realising I needed a break from the city. I do like Vientiane, it’s a fascinating place, but it can be hard going sometimes, not as much as Bangkok, but I guess if you add heat and humidity to anywhere it can be a strain. Myself and Vene talked about over dinner with Somjan and his wife Ng and we decided to hire a car and drive out to the country for a couple of days. I was up for driving to Louanphrabang which is about a nine hour drive but Vene said it was too far for just a few days and suggested Talad instead ( meaning ‘market’), a town by the side of big lake which was just a few hours drive north in Vientiane Province. I picked up a 2006 Ford Ranger, I wanted a normal sedan but the hire car companies said you can only have a sedan if your staying in Vientiane, the roads get so bad outside of the city that they insist that you have a 4WD, normally you get a driver at no extra cost but not my way of doing things.

Dinner at The Moon The night with Somjan & Ng

Takes about an hour to get out of the city traffic although the city limits get a little blurred, it is just a gradual thinning out of the traffic chaos and more wildlife on the road. We took the opportunity to drop in at the Hui Hanna waterfall, which is where myself, Chris and Somjan were going to ride to for a cold drink on our return from the RTC the Sunday before, but the 18 km round trip from the main road on top of the 1 ½ hours that we already had covered was too much. There is an enormous sign pointing the way and local talk suggests that it is very beautiful, so as we had a good set of wheels I thought it was worth a look see. Vene try to discourage me saying that there wasn’t anything there, I said that there doesn’t have to be anything there I just wanted to have a look at the waterfall. OK OK OK, always listen to local knowledge, on the plus side it is very peaceful, you are certainly not going to be disturbed by falling water, a bit of poetic licence was used in the naming as I would not consider a weir a waterfall, specially one that doesn’t ‘weir’. There appeared to be some sort of aquatic park with bars/restaurants and such which was completely deserted and run down apart from a sultry young girl who approached us to relief us of 15,000 kip (about $AUD3), I did inquire exactly what we were paying for and the response was ‘ everybody pays’, which is not a answer at all. The word disappointment didn’t quite cover it. So back on the road.

The cascading waterfalls at Hui Hanna

Just north of Kilometre 56 the road hits the mountains and twists and turns at a steep angle. According to Vene this is nothing compared to roads from Vang Viang to Louanphrabang, the roads are not to bad it was the suicidal driving that was the biggest concern, overtaking on blind bends is the norm. Also the road winds through a lot of small villages and is quite narrow, the houses come right up to the edge, there are small children and school kids everywhere with simply no sense of the danger, the idea of hurtling through at 80 kph is just plain stupid. We arrived in Talad after about a 2 ½ hour drive, must admit didn’t look much of a town apart from a picturesque river. Anyhoo, after a few inquires we were pointed to towards a decent hotel, I was expecting it to be in the town but we crossed the river towards Lake Namnyung. The centre of Laos is very mountainess and covered in forest, this would explain why there are no trains in Laos; I don’t think I have ever been to a country that does not have trains before. The mixture of mountains and lakes mean that they are very big on hydro electric power and we passed a large dam and then up again into the mountains. After about 30 minute drive we found a hotel which had a simply spectacular view of the lake, so we decided this was our pitch. The location of the Namnyung view hotel was a small fishing village of about 200 people and the port for boats travelling the lake. All though the view from hotel room was spectacular it was rather odd that we were the only guests in the hotel. We decided to have a walk into the village for dinner and this was also strange, there were many large restaurants which all had inviting fulang names and were completely empty, again we were the only people eating out. I suspect that the village were used to having a large number of fulang, and I would guess at construction of the dam, now that the dam was finished there was nobody here and the village was dying as a consequence. It would be interesting to reflect on the cause and effect of large injections of cash into a community for projects such as this, the amount of different variables are long and complex but there is one thing that is certain in any project which effects communities it is essential to understand to reap the true benefits you have to be prepared to be in for the long haul (Are you listening George Bush). I was OK with the room, it was a great view and the peace and quiet after the noise of Vientiane, but Vene was a bit freaked out by it (the Laos equivalent of the twang of banjo’s) and cajoled me into driving to Vang Vieng the following morning.

Smart set of wheels

Lake Namnyung

Breakfast with a view

Hydro electricity

I had heard of stories about an Vang Vieng being bit of a tourist trap, but if there is one thing that I have learnt is don’t take anybodies word for it, go have a look for yourself, plus gives me a chance to see a bit more of this fascinating country. The three hour drive north was fairly uneventful, average speed was about 50 kph, traffic, windy roads and slow driving through the towns and villages keeps the average speed down. The approach to Vang Vieng is beautiful, the mountains jut out of the flat countryside the product of a violent tectonic movement at some prehistoric point in time. A shallow river runs between the town and the mountains and the choice places to stay are river side. The town itself is exactly as described, the Laos equivalent of Torremalenos or Sanur beach, Bali with a bit of Ibiza thrown in, thousands and thousands of pissed backpackers from every conceivable corner of the globe descending on this small town in the middle of Laos to drink, dance, partake of ‘de ‘erb’ and attempt to breed. I shouldn’t be too harsh; it is exactly the sort of thing I would have been doing ¼ century ago, so I shouldn’t be tut tuting at the following generation’s excursions. Having said all this we managed to find a real good hotel which the view from the bedroom balcony is simply breathtaking, especially the sunset which I completely failed to take a photograph of. The river below our balcony was in the process of being dredged, by hand no less. I watched the six guys for about 10 minutes and I was exhausted watching them. I took a short video on my camera but the file is too large to load onto the blog but I shall describe the process.
There are two rickety wooden pontoons which are hardly above water level, they walk a wheel barrow down to the end of the pontoon and turn it round, grab a shovel and jump into the water, at this point the water was up to their midriff. They commence to shovel the rubble out from the river bed and toss it into the barrow. When the barrow was full they pushed it back up the pontoon and built up the banks with it. When that bit was dredged sufficiently the all jumped into the water and dragged the pontoon to the next bit. Keep this up all day and add heat and humidity, (although the water would be keeping them cool), they would be earning about $2 a day doing this.
We took a walk down to the riverside and bought a couple of cold drinks at a riverside bar, who looked like they were just starting to wind up for an evenings partying so it was pretty quiet, Vene said the bars usually close about 5:00 AM. We sat ourselves on one of the river bank drinking couches and watched the spectacular sunset over the mountain. The choice entertainment for the backpacker was to hire a truck inner tube and jump in the river at the top end of the town, park yourself in the inner tube and let the gentle flow of the river take you all the way to the riverside bars. So there was a constant stream of semi inebriated backpackers passing in a inner tube in front of us. The new game of “guess the nationality of the pissed backpacker” was created, a more sophisticated version of Pooh sticks.

The view from our hotel

The following morning we went to the Tham Jang caves for a quick look see before setting off back for Vientiane. For those that followed my blog of my travels through Thailand last year may remember I visited the Erawan Caves near Udon Thani which I found on the off chance, they were a bit off the beaten track and although they were pretty spectacular the facilities were pretty poor (including a very poor lighting in the caves).Tham Jang caves being in a large tourist trap was a different matter. Like the Erawan caves there were more than sufficient steps to get to the entrance 147 of them this time( as apposed to the 610 to the Erawan Caves), these were much steeper and alarmingly hard work. The cavernous interior was much smaller than the cathedral like Erawan caves but the rock formations were more ornate and the stalactite and stalagmite formations were exquisitely detailed. The interior was well lit and had solid walkways and steps, the use of coloured lights emphasised the beauty of the rock formations which was a bit touristy but effective.

Tham Jang Caves

It was going to take most of the day at a steady pace to get back to Vientiane. The drive back was the same as the drive up except heading south instead of heading north. Vene wanted to stop and buy a fish for her mother on the way back, apparently the fish is cheaper an fresher in the country and is ‘free range’ as apposed to ‘fish farmed’, I could not say weather there is any difference in the taste, it would be easy to say it’s rubbish, but I have been caught out too often by my ignorance. We stopped at a small town called Tha Heua about 50 km south of Vang Vieng, a town famed for it’s fish, this was apparent by the shear number of fish mongers, in fact the whole town appeared to be entirely fish mongers. I was reminded of one of Douglas Adams creations, can’t remember the book exactly, possibly ‘long dark tea time of the soul’, which had a planet called ‘Frogstar’ which fell into ruin by being over run by shoe shops. Fish purchased on our way again.

A town entirely comprising of fish mongers

Our final stop was at Nam Nik Kayaang, an eco village which had a huge signpost by the side of the road, I thought with the biogas, sustainability thing I was getting involved in it might be good to do a bit of networking. A new road and plenty of signposts were of ominous sign of style of substance and I was not disappointed, although there did seem to be some small holding banana plantation, there was nobody there, the only thing of substance was a shallow river which was pretty and had a group of ‘river urchins’ as apposed to ‘street urchins’ who were having the most enormous fun dragging a long bamboo pole up and down the river for no apparent purpose. I must admit the kids here are great, they smile all the time and will often shout ‘hello’ to you or ‘ sabai dii’ the Laos equivalent. They are always interested in the fulangs; I think they are just as curious about me as I am about them. On the whole it’s not a begging thing, they never seem to be after anything, the street beggars in Vientiane are quite confrontational which is a bit off putting, the Thai beggars are very placid and if you give them anything will return with a blessing, I have found some of the Laos beggars quite aggressive.
After dipping our toes in the water we headed back to Vientiane to hit the Friday night traffic, filling the Ford Ranger up with diesel was a bit of a shock ,I don’t know why I think I was used to filling the step through up for about $AUD3, the ranger came to 210,000 kip over $AUD40. We were both pretty tired, the Ranger is not an easy car to drive and although apart from the odd detour it was all highways. Having said that a highway which is not the smoothest, very twisty and steep in places and shear concentration to avoid everything else on the road. So the fatigue was a little understandable. Imagine my delight when they told me that my room had been let out and I would have to stay in a different hotel for the night, this was the second time they had done this so I told them to shove it, I did get the feeling that someone at the hotel didn’t want me there, you would not normally do this to a guest who tends to stay for months at a time. A quick decision was made and we decided to check in at the Hotel Vansana which is out on the Road 13 South, a bit out of the city and the drive across town in Friday evening rush in the Ranger was pushing my stress needle into the red, remember in such a tall car you can see the any of the step-throughs flying around you, at night it is worse as they don’t use their lights, they don’t look and the don’t stop. If you hit one, you are a fulang so it is your fault. The Vansana Hotel is a bit more expensive but has a very good swimming pool. The rooms are very pleasant and the cable TV has Australian network so I managed to catch the Hawks and the Demons game from Launceston. The internet is pretty poor here, there are “ETL Wi-fi available here” stickers everywhere but why should you pay for a service when the free stickers will do the job just as well.

Vene amongst the river urchins