From Chiang Mai, Thailand ---> Huay Xai/Luang Namtha/Luang Prabang/Vang Vieng/Vientiane/Pakse, Laos
I met a girl from Germany (Mari) on the border of Thailand and Laos, so we started traveling together. We took a mini van with a French couple up to Luang Namtha. We had planned to take a long boat down to Luang Prabang but changed our minds.
The day after we arrived, Mari and I decided to rent motorbikes to ride out to a waterfall near a village. She had ridden loads of times but had been in a bad accident a week before; it was my first time. They didn't have automatics, so we rode geared motorbikes.
We set off and soon realized the road was a dirt and gravel road that wasn't the easiest to ride on. The ride was gorgeous though. We rode through a few villages; the rice fields and mountains were amazing.
At one point there was a hill that my bike decided it didn't want to go up and I didn't gear in time, so it and me rolled backward down the hill and the bike landed on me. I just laid there for a bit while Mari helped get the bike off of me. I just sat while village children surrounded me as I tried not to black out. Luckily we had helmets, so that wasn't a problem. I scraped my left elbow and hurt my wrist pretty badly. We cleaned off my elbow, and I told Mari we should keep going. This was before my wrist really started to hurt.
So, it was just a short ways to the waterfall we were going to climb up to. We sat down at the small store in the village and an old medicine man immediately realized what had happened. He crushed some sort of plant in alcohol and spread it on my elbow (OUCH) and my wrist. He pulled my wrist a bit as well. I had hit my back during the fall, so he gave me a massage. Really, he was very very kind. They were all so worried for me.
Mari and I sat there a bit and decided to go ahead and walk up to the waterfall. It was a little less than incredible, but it was a nice climb. When we came down, there was a French man who had biked in. We sat and talked to him and the villagers for hours. The villagers allowed us to take pictures of the adorable children!
As we got ready to go, Mari asked me if I could ride the motorbike. I, being stupid, said yes. It was obvious after just pulling it out of a parked position that I couldn't. The medicine man offered to ride me back to the city and then Mari could bring him back and go back to the city on her own. We agreed, happy that he had offered. I didn't mention that this man didn't really speak that much English, but we were able to use hand gestures to figure out what was going to happen.
When he dropped me off, a really sweet 22 year old Laos man who works at the guest house we were staying at, held ice on my wrist for a while. I soon realized that I had to go to the hospital; I was afraid it was broken. He took me to the hospital where I learned that if I wanted an xray, I had to come back the next morning. I had planned on leaving the next day to Luang Prabang but decided to stay for the xray.
The next morning, the same 22 year old took me back. He really was so sweet, telling me not to worry and making sure I understood what was going on at the doctor's office. Luckily nothing was broken...just hurt like hell.
That day, Mari and I decided to do some trekking on our own. We went on the main road until we got off a bit and ended up sitting in a bamboo hut in the middle of a field for a few hours just talking. We headed out, and of course I was on a streak of bad luck, and my foot ended up in a giant mud puddle...mud covering my shoe. Haha! We walked back through some beautiful rice fields occasionally taking some scary chances by crossing sticks (they were sticks really...not even logs) across small streams. We walked through a village until we finally made our way back to our guest house. I washed my shoe and it actually ended up cleaner than the other one. :)
I decided then to go on a 2 day trek with Mari and a group of a 22 year old Israeli guy, a 28 year old French couple, and a dutch girl my age. The people at the agency asked me if I could go trekking with my wrist as it was (it was wrapped at this point). My response, "You trek with your feet, right?" Haha!
The trek was good. A little intense at times with a mountain to one side and quite a long drop at the other side. There was actually times where I had to use my arms because the climb was so steep, but I tried to use my left arm as little as possible. We had lunch on the way at a little bamboo shack. Lunch mostly consisted of rice and a few roots and some wet seaweed. It was quite nice. I'm not so used to wet seaweed as dried, but it was decent.
We arrived at the village around 4PM where we would spend the night. We walked around the village with our guide Keo while our guide Noi cooked dinner. Dinner was rice, cooked cabbage, some egg and tomato mixture, and a few other things. We met the chief of the village afterward and a few others from the village. It was a great time! Asking questions and laughing. The chief told the French couple they should get married while he told me I should move to the village and teach the children. He was fantastic!
Apparently as a way to welcome visitors to the village, they give massages. So we had a massage before bed.
The next morning I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking and I walked into a bamboo shoot sticking off of the school. I had an "X" shaped injury on my forehead until just recently. Haha! Luang Namtha has been a rough area for me.
We had about 4 more hours of trekking, stopping to eat lunch and nibble on some amazing mint candies called Dynamite with a delightful chocolate surprise in their centers. :) Oh, to add to the ridiculousness that I experienced in Luang Namtha...the bag with all of the cabbage juice spilled and was all over my pants and sweater. HAHAHA! It was a sign that it was time to move on to a different city.
We arrived back at 4PM where we all moved into the same guest house down the road that was cheaper. We met for dinner and some beer. The group also tried Laos Laos which is something we were offered by the chief of the village as well. It's a potent rice wine. Similar to the soju some of you tried from Korea. It wasn't as strong in the village as it was in town. Yuck!
The next day Mari and I traveled 8 hours south to Luang Prabang.
The next day, we climbed to the top of a large hill to see Wat Phousi (a temple) and had a gorgeous view of the city. We also bargained our way into a tuk tuk (a taxi like vehicle) only to find out that the tuk tuk didn't actually have room for us. So we just went to a travel agent for the same price to go to an absolutely AMAZING group of waterfalls and to see black bears at the entrance (no fears...they were in a cage). I swam in one of the waterfalls. I'll try to get pictures on facebook soon or send them. It was a torquoise blue. We started climbing not knowing where it was going to take us. I was in flip flops and it was very steep and very dusty, but we made it to the top to find out that it was the top of the waterfall. We carefully walked across the waterfall happy to find that the descent on the other side was much less likely to die from. We both went down in bare feet.
We spent the rest of the day drinking nutella and oreo shakes, eating, and exploring the enormous night market.
We left the next day for Vang Vieng. It was, next to a ride in Kenya, the worst ride of my life. It was horrible! I sat in a fold down chair in a mini van thinking I would have window access and more leg room only to find that fold down chairs are the least comfortable seats ever. I was holding on for my life as we went through the mountains for 4 hours. Our driver made everyone in the van angry after 4 hours of no food and no bathroom breaks. A laos woman with us luckily said that if the driver didn't stop, she was going to go the bathroom in his van. So, where did he stop? Of course, on the side of the road. We all peed in a field. Eh...at least he stopped. We stopped shortly after that for lunch as well. I changed seats with a man in the back who was bigger and not so tossed around by the shittiness of the fold down seat.
Mari and I decided to stay outside of the city in Vang Vieng at an organic farm. It was very peaceful. We went into town and found a great little chill out bar (unlike the music thumping that was coming from most of the bars). It was called Bamboo Restaurant. We each had a bamboo bucket of mojito ( ~$4) and I ate at their vegetarian buffet ( ~1.50/plate). We had rented bikes to travel the 4km from the farm to town and back.
The next day, we ate breakfast on the farm (mulberry pancakes and laos coffee!) before heading into town. We had to walk b/c the woman we rented bikes from was a little crazy and didn't want to give us bikes again. Mari had laid the bike down instead of using the kick stand, and she hated us from that point on. So we walked into town and rented bikes. We met up with a Dutch girl (Fieke) who we decided to travel with to the caves. We wanted to go to Phoukam cave but got off track somehow and ended up at Lusi cave. The ride was not easy, especially with an injured wrist. We were riding through a dry rice field. Fieke and I decided to go ahead into the cave. It was cool, minus the guide we had to pay. After a few inappropriate jokes in his minimal English and some unecessary handling of our butts to "help" us in the cave, we had had enough of him. He actually wanted a tip after that.
We rode on to find Phoukam. We ran into a friend of Fieke's she had met the day before. His name is Tom, he's a model in Bangkok from the states. Well all headed to the cave together only to realize it was 7 km of utter misery. Rocky, dusty... When we finally made it there, we jumped in the blue lagoon at first chance. Mari went into the cave before us because she didn't have her swimsuit. Tom, Fieke, and I went in later. It was actual climbing around on rocks once getting into the cave...pretty far from the ease of the Mammoth Cave trails of Kentucky. It was amazing though. Huge!
Mari rode back, but the other three of us decided to tuk tuk our way back. It was the best idea for my wrist. The four of us met up at the Bamboo Restaurant for dinner and mojito buckets and spent the whole night talking. Mari and I were a little lost trying to find her bike after walking Fieke back to her guest house but found our way eventually.
The next day, I went tubing alone after a goat cheese sandwich and laos coffee. Mari was sick and couldn't do anything all day. Tubing is getting a tube to float down the river while stopping at loads of bars along the way. The goal: To get drunk and stupid. It didn't turn out to be my thing. It was fun for the first few bars. I met loads of nice people and ran into an Argentinan couple that we met in Luang Prabang, but I guess I'm not the type to enjoy getting drunk while floating down the river. Not to mention, everyone who tubes gets injured somehow. They swing into the river and fail to avoid missing the rocks, they aren't careful while climbing out of the tube into the next bar and spear their foot with a rock, they (like the American model, Tom) are so drunk that they fall off the bridge while trying to cross the river at 4AM. Toward the end of tubing, I was very ready to be done. Most people get a tuk tuk back to the tubing place to get their deposit by 6PM. This is what the Argentinan woman and I did as well.
Mari was feeling a little better, so we met to return our bikes and eat dinner before walking back to the farm.
I headed out early the next morning to Vientiane, which is where I am now. I found a guest house and had way too much pizza for lunch. This might have contributed to why I'm sick now. Last night, I went to a laos traditional dance show which was fantastic, but I didn't feel well all day. I met up with some people, including Fieke from Vang Vieng and we went for Indian. I didn't eat because of how I was feeling and left early. It turns out that I left just in time; I definitely threw up all over the streets of Vientiane. I, just a step above crawling, found my way back to my guest house and slept all night minus the few times I had to wake up throughout the night.
I woke up finally around 11AM this morning having to check out by noon. I'm still not feeling great which is part of why I'm spending the day in an internet cafe. I'm leaving soon to go to a meditation session at a nearby Wat (temple). Tonight, I'm taking an overnight bus to the south of Laos and then a plane to Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Peace and Love,
Stacey
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