Dalat

Another stretch on the North-South coast of Vietnam was completed by our bus ride from Nha Trang to Dalat, the place of eternal spring, as locals call it. And it is really very much different from the rest of the country we have seen; it is 1475 m above the sea level with a cool climate, beautiful mountains and lakes and a highly organized agriculture full of greenhouses. It is a famous honeymoon spot for locals, and in general seems like the former French hill station made itself a famous local tourist attraction. The city of Dalat itself did not especially impress us with its hundreds of hotels mushrooming next to each other with very little creativity other than copying the neighbor's business, but the surrounding countryside is really worth the effort.

We decided to rent a scooter and drive to Lang Bien Mountain for a trek and climb to the 2170 m peak. We had a lovely spring day with small fat clouds floating in the blue sky, beautiful evergreen forest, red soil, 4 bananas and a bottle of water in our bag, wild horses gazing at us on an ideally 3-4 hours return trek. All was like in a fairy tale - though a bit more sweaty - until the macadam road ended and changed into a narrow path leading into the depth of the rain forest. The familiar pine tree forest changed into a full jungle so dense, that you had to make your way with your arms to get through the diverse fauna of a totally unknown forest for a European eye. We had 4 km behind us and another 2 to get to the peak, when we realized that our almost invisible path has been swallowed by the jungle and simply turning back to leave the mountain unmounted led us into a labyrinth of thin traces leading to other thinner paths. We finished our bananas and most of our water, had no watch with us to calculate how much time we have till sunset, when we heard human voices. After a not especially relaxed 1 hour rush to the direction of voices hoping to bump into other than jungle living creatures or at least a signed trek we found a reasonable path with a red arrow pointing uphill. By that time we were ready to leave the place and surely uphill was not a guarantee, but since the voices came from the same direction we started climbing up basically on all four. You cannot imagine my relief when the voices manifested themselves in the form of two little Vietnamese boys, and then another two and finally a big group of boys with one single of them speaking English. As it turned out they also lost their way after 5 hours of climbing, but just before finding us they reached the peak, which was 5 minutes uphill from us. Miracles truly do happen; they turned out to be almost on their way down and offered us help downhill. So we finally mounted the monster and a breathtaking panorama and threatening storm clouds greeted us - not that we could catch our breath anyway. Why would life be simple? Our descend was a good two hours struggle in the tropical rain, but accompanied with Vietnamese songs and all kinds of fruits offered by our little friends, who by the way turned out to be all catholic novices :)))

Of course by the time we reached the village the rain disappeared and the "eternal spring" was in full swing for one more hour, before the moon came up... We were becoming a little bit bored if I can say so, hence our little adventure made us feel alive again. Especially when we found a big bloody bruise on Tomek's foot, without doubt caused by a leech. Luckily I did not have to perform an operation, because it had sucked itself full andw fell by the time we realized the damage. After all I am glad this was the biggest price for our experiment to find out is we are still alive :)

Nha Trang

There was one highlight of our visit to the Vietnamese Riviera - our day trip to neighbouring islands. We did not expect much of it since we were hoarded on a boat together with 30 other tourists early in the morning (also locals - Vietnam seems to have developed local tourism quite well). The visit to the first island with an aquarium full of weird fish generally made us feel quite depressed as the trip seem not to develop in any way that would seem like fun. Our next stop where we went snorkling did not improve our mood. Since there were several boats like ours docked around the sea life moved further and we could not see too much. It was good though to be in the water for a while. Lunch on the boat was the time when the first brakethrough took place - the food was good. Then after lunch something extraordinary happend. The whole vietnamese crew stood up and performed - one guy playing drums (or to be more precise something that resembled a drum plus two buckets), another playing guitar that remembers probably the sixties and our "captain" singing in Viet-English and Viet-Spanish. Their performance was great! Then the crew gave an ultimatum to all passengers. Basically everyone had to jump to the water. I had no idea what was going on since I have some trouble with understanding Viet-English and forgot to read the leaflet describing our trip before we got onto it. So we jumped in and found out that a floating bar with a crate of Vietnamese has "opened" right next to our boat. We had to "dock" around it with our feet on the bar while floating in the water and basically got flooded with literes of Vietnamese blueberry wine by the "floating bar tender". Saying "No" was forbidden and every offence of such type was punishable with wine poured straight from the bottle into you.

The next hour we chilled on the beach nearby to recover...Whole thing was very entertaining...

Our stay in Nha Trang coincided with the Name Day of Rita. We have celebrated it on the beach in a very nice restaurant with a pool while playing chess and drinking Mojito. Rita had shown her mastery and won for the second time. This time however in a very sophisticated, fast and smooth way. Respect! - I think I should not let her read the advanced chess book which we have bought somewhere on the way otherwise I will have to get used to the feeling of getting swiftly beaten...

Nha Trang as such has a nice beach, lots of hotels for very good money ($7 gets you a very nice room with AC, minibar, hot shower etc.) and nice restaurants. In general if you are looking for peace this is not a place to be. If you are after some action like diving or to some extent partying you have found the place.

Hoi An

Hoi An, the former imperial capital - another of the numerous former capitals and another UNESCO World Heritage Site :) - looks like the imagined dream of Asia, or rather Indochina in the mid twenties. Or 200 years ago.

We arrived with our spaceship bus from Hue on the 19th of May in the evening and got drifted by the charm of the Old Town with its lovely little houses, the river and the number of tailor shops beyond imagination. Tailoring anything which goes, ready within a couple of hours is one of the local attractions with very inviting prices, quality fabrics and a temptation to get a dress made here which you would otherwise never think about. OK, I did resist the devil to get a full length silk evening gown and also a red hand made pair of shoes with a little flower embroidery, but I gave in for a thick cotton coat :) You can choose any model from most recent catalogues (how about made to order Puma sneakers?!) and have them ready next morning. In addition Hoi An is full of bookstores with only photocopied books...look "same same but different" but we thought it is a disgrace to books to have them sold like this :)

Other than indulging in such vanities we tried Hoi An culinary specialities, like White Rose and Wonton, which I do not even try explaining, but they were delicious! We bought a combined ticket allowing us to visit five historical locations from a greater choice, including the former Assembly Hall, local traders' houses, temples and even a singing-dancing folklore performance. My ever favorite, most beautiful instrument is the Vietnamese "violin", which has only one string, otherwise quite similar to the violin in concept, but the sound it makes is sooo wonderful, that young girls were forbidden to listen to it in order to prevent falling in love with the musician. We could have spent more time in this miraculous place, where Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Hoi An-ese cultures used to live next to each other in peace, but decided to continue our stroll down the coast of the South Chinese Sea.

By the way, today we learned that Viet Nam in Chinese means "More South", implying that Vietnam is actually the Southern part of China :)

Hue

We finished our visit to Cat Ba island by taking a 5.45 am boat - kind of to punish ourselves for getting up late during a couple of last days and to catch the best light for photos in the morning. Once on the boat around 6.00 am the national anthem was played on TV. No-one though paid any attention nor bothered to stand-up - then in the middle of it a little girl stood up and switched the channel to early morning aerobics which we have seen live on the streets in Hanoi - no one protested. This is in great contrast to Thailand where even in cinemas before a movie is played everyone stands up while the anthem is being aired...

The research which we have made on finding the right travel agency for our Halong Bay trip payed off in a very handsome way. Although we ended up doing the Halong Bay and Cat Ba island trip on our own we did use the travel agent services - we bought ourselves an open bus ticket down South to Saygon. Basically, we can travel any day and stop anytime along the route. We have also decided to buy a sleeper bus since it was only marginally more expensive. We did not expect much considering our previous experiences with sleeper buses in India and with travel agents in general. The moment of truth came yesterday. We got picked up by a nice taxi to an unknown location for the departure of the bus - nice taxi's do happen...but this time a nice vehicle arrived which considering all what we have seen so far resembled more a plane than a bus - we boarded and felt almost like flying in business class. At least this time we have not gotten screwed :) Newertheless lately Rita has been slightly disappointed with my general unwillingness to bargain - in general it was my job to get the prices right but somehow I run out of steam. Since our adventure with the Cat Ba 'mafia' I have however regained my willingness and it is quite tough to take advantage of us or even get slightly more than what it should be. Hotel rooms feel now like real bargain and pineapple like it would come for free. My confidence came back and it is as easy as before. Our ususal initiati0n period has been completed, though it costed a bit more than in the previous countries...

We have arrived to Hue early in the morning, checked in, took shower and set off to discover the town. We also had an excellent breakfast (Rita nowadays already eats local breakfast - I cannot in-take additional noodles for breakfast - eating noodles or rice twice per day is the maximum I have achieved so far.) After breakfast we rented bicycles as this is our favourite mode of discovering new places.

Hue served as the political capital from 1802 to 1945, when the 13th emperor of the Nguyen dynasty surrendered to the communists, opening up the Imperial Enclosure with the Forbidden Purple City to the public. The sights in town, especially the Forbidden Purple City which in the past was reserved only for the private life of the emperor have seen greated times than today, but being listed amongst the UNESCO World Heritage Sites it is now under renovation. We did not emabark on discovering the Demilitarized Zone which served as the dividing line between South and North Vietnam during the last war, nor the Royal Tombs, which can be visited in the frame of organized trips, instead visited the Thien Mu Pagoda which was quite different from what we have seen in any other country we have visited so far. Chinese seem to have much more influence here so the pagodas here have 'courtyards' which you have to cross before you get to the most important place.

Hue during our visit was preparing for celebrating the The fifth United Nations Day of Vesak - a Buddhist festival - both locals and foreigners see it as a prove that religious freedom is being restored in Vietnam. Before I guess communism was the official religion - I think earlier religions had to be banned because communism is as vague as a religion - you just have to believe in it since you will never see any benefit of it during your mortal life :) Anyway in the evening we saw a huge parade of portable shrines - something a bit similiar to Songkran celebrations in Thailand but without splashing the water.

Halong Bay

After a Sherlock Holmes like investigation to find THE Sinh Cafe - which mushroomed to an incredible number of copy-cats after being mentioned by Lonely Planet as the most reliable travel agent, we took a bus to discover Halong Bay on the 15th of May without the "help" of a travel agent.

Taking a bus to Halong city from Hanoi is not a big deal and if you arrive before noon you have a good chance to hop on one of the thousands tourits boats for a tour around the bay or to Cat Ba Island. Of course we did not arrive before 2 pm, so we could choose between a private boat trip for 1 million VND and upwards, or spend a night in Halong city, which is described by our guide as an option to avoid. We did not have to consider the first option and the second was not so bad after all; it is an oversupplied tourist town for the local crowds with an OK beach and overpriced restaurants - which is not much different from the establishments we found later on Cat Ba Island. Hence the following day we took a toursit boat for less than half the price the agents started selling it (do not fall for the compulsory insurance without which you are not allowed to enter the boat, nor the tax or the Red Little Riding Hood they will come up next to lure you into further expenses). The bay is truly wondeful; as if God played dice with rocks and threw hunreds of islands to the sea, which accidentally landed on their sides (most of them are greater in height than latitude).

Arriving to the island we soon understood that we are the only ones making the effort on our own putting ourselves into a not too favourable negotiation poition with the local bus and motorbike maffia. I will waste some of my thoughts on this very educative event in order to possibly save fellow travellers from similar excercises: as an individual traveller your first option is to agree with the tour group to give you a lift to the city still on the boat (matter of fact 18 km from the harbor, but you will hear everything up to 60 km if you listen to the local mob). Your second option is to take the local bus, which is the cheapest and most reasonable solution unless you let yourself bullied and not allowed to enter the public bus by the same mob. You third option is really miserable - get a lift on a scooter or a minibus for double the price of the roughly 300 km return trip between Hanoi and Halong city. Well, you can imagine that our two men little commando voted for the most extreme action after being forcefully deprived from all options and followed by the scooter drivers to threaten all possible by-passers willing to give us a lift for less than their price when we walked out on them. Our solution was far from elegant, but served all of us right: I stopped the last passing minibus, agreed their outrageous price, declined to pay them in advance and upon arrival Tomek told them we were not paying unless they call the police to clear things up. He also took photos of the driver and the bus which flipped them out so much thet they would have rather left without any payment then get into further trouble. We collected a pretty audiance and interpreters for the scene...at some point it looked like they will pay us to get lost and not make any more trouble with police. At the end we payed them some money just to clear things up which they were reluctant to take :)

We spent the following day in perfectly opposite mood - on the remote and peaceful Cat Co 2 beach, which was apparently our "private" beach for the whole day, reading, swimming and chilling the whole day. However attractive would have been to stay one more day for a trek in the national park, we decided to leave and spare time for other parts of Vietnam.

Though we are still in the awakening stage to get a grip on the magnitude of the phenomena of cheating and lying in every single possible interaction. Hard to swallow, but probably one should just think beyond the worst intention whenever someone approaches you. For instance it is quite possible that a bus pushes another off the road and then the driver threatens the passengers with a hammer to disembark and get on his bus. This is not science-fiction, it happened today on our way back to Hanoi! Fortunately we were on the bigger bus.

Hanoi

It was precisely 24 hours sitting on a bus from Laos to Hanoi in Vietnam which made my bum hurt so much, that I am not willing to torture myself in a similar fashion in the closest future. Arriving 5.30 am to a suburban bus station in Hanoi after all does not seem to be the best apetizer to fall in love with the place; 20 motorbike riders and twice as many taxi drivers were more than willing to give us a ride for 10 USD, which was quite a contrast to the peace we enjoyed in Laos an more or less also in Thailand. Our Indian experiences flashed back and made us wake up which was enhanced by a morning rain, too. Miraculously I found the way to the center with a local bus (lately my greatest achievement according to Tomek, but not too flattering). Though we could have enjoyed Hanoi waking up with the street sellers and the group of ladies excercising on the lake side, but our wearyness made us crawl into bed after a shower (these showers after a 20 plus hours travelling are revelative experiences; even the filthiest bathroom makes you feel like in heaven, especially if you know that a clean bed is waiting for you. :)

So after a good 6 hours sleep and a bit of a jet leg we walked around the Old Town and soon found out, that the thing here is more the charm than a great historical or cultural heritage. Unless you get a kick from the Uncle Ho and communist stuff, which is plenty and is not especially our cup of tea. Though it is fascinating to see a place which is happily communist in its ideology and bureaucracy and seemingly comletely capitalist in its economy. There are a few things to visit though, like the Hoan Kiem Lake with a small island and the Ngoc Son Temple on it. You will find a lot of veteran Vietnamese men playing games under the pagoda's shelter, which appears to be quite an exciting competition supported by an audiance giving constant advices for the two players and big aplauses for a good move. Van Mieu, the Temple of Literature is a bit prettier attcation, even if more so due to its historical importance, being the fist royal university in Vietnam from as early as 1070, than its actual shape. However, the Vietnamese Communist Party declares itself open for religion, the shape in which you find temples seem to prove quite the opposite. To be on the fair side I should mention that the French and Americans probably took their part in destroying a lot of Vietnam's architecture during the unnumerable wars this country suffered from. On the contraty the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex is in its full grace and tip top shape with similarly endless que as in front of the Lenin mummy in Moscow. For some strange reason the museum closes at 11 am and we never made it there so eary in the morning :))), so I can narrate only about the exterior, which is competing with the Red Square (but this is grey).

For a change we enrolled to an organized one day trip to the Perfume Pagoda outside Hanoi just to make sure we will not do it again; we started to feel outcasts already on the bus among very neatly dressed senior tourists from the part of the globe, where paying five times the normal price goes without notice. Though the landscape was beautiful with a lovely boatride and a 1 hour climb to the cave, which used to be the center temple of Buddhism in Vietnam, it was more of a disappointment. The trek was full of trash with sellers offering all the same shameful plastic kitch and you'd better be on the watch if you do not want to enter into a bargaining about how much you should tip on top of the "tourist" price.

But not to sound so grim I should mention also the fun part: we treated ourselves with a performance in the Water Puppet Theatre, which is a traditional music and puppet show just on the lakeside, really nice! But the biggest fun for us in Hanoi was roaming the streets on foot or on a bicycle, which is a guarantee to get lost and drifted by the river of traffic made of a constant flow of scooters and bicycles. For culinary delights we had two inspiring experiences: Highway 4, which is famous of its choice of traditional spirits made of all sorts of things alive and its menu listing similarly incredulous specimens, just to mention a few: cricket salad, crocodile filet and smoked dog meat. KOTO is another favorite, being extreme on the other side of the scale: it is not only a gorgeous restaurant and bar, but a fascinating concept how to create future for street kids with an immediate evidence, that it works. Check it out!

Phonsavan

Our last destination in Laos was Phonsavan - it is a less touristy place which proved to be intersting for a couple of reasons. In order to get to Phonsavan we had to take our usual share of pain - a long bus ride through the mountains. We got however upset right at the beginning of the trip. We had the pleasure to be on the bus station together with some locals taking a small pig for a bus ride. This as such is ok with me but not that the little big was put into a sack without any opening for air whatsoever - it was squeeking like hell - definitely suffering. See the picture of the sack in our gallery. This is not the first time we have seen bad treatment of animals in this country. The most shocking sight was a truck full of dogs in cages on the top of each other. The truck was the size of huge European truck and had hundreds of dogs in cages frying in the sun - we were so shocked we even did not take any pictures...Barking was overwhelming...

Anyway we got to Phonsavan - a relatively grim town with a couple of small restaurants and one that catered to expats that live there (as we learned later). There was however a decent choice of hotels. The town itself is around 1500 meters above the sea so it was really chilly in the evening - probably around 20 degrees celcius but we felt cold when dinning outside :)

The reason while we came to Phonsovan were mysterious fields of huge jars in the surrounding area. At first we thought that we will rent a motorbike and look around ourselves (even found a Hungarian speaking owner of a rental shop!) but we ended up in a small organized tour...

The most interesting part of our visit however was the "enlightment" to which we were subjected. First of all during Vietnam war between 1964 and 1973 US dropped over two million tons of bombs over Laos and most of them are still laying around - the so called unexploded ordnance (UXO). Basically it is dangerous to walk anywhere outside an offbeaten track. Moreover, people in villages do not dare to use more fields for their crops because they find more and more bombs which explode and injur or kill them. The most shocking fact is however, that more or less nobody is doing anything about it. There is a British organization called Mines Advisory Group which is doing a great job clearing UXO since 1994 (why only since then?) which is sponsored by European Union and a couple of other governmental organizations from around the world. However, its operations seem pretty limited. We watched a movie about their work in Laos and learned lots about the current situation with UXO in Laos in their office in Phonsovan. Why is UN, US or anybody else who has serious resources or is able to mobilize such is doing close to nothing about UXO in Laos remains a mystery to us. Or perhaps it is incredible that Lao government is doing so little about it - in the end it is their business...

Anyway, three sites which contain dozens of huge jars have been cleared by MAG and are now open to tourism. UN is working with the local authorities on making the sites certified as UNESCO World Heritage and progress is visible. In the whole area there are around 20 sites with jars and they all need to be cleared of UXO and then can be put on UNESCO World Heritage list making them a magnet for tourists and uplifing the local economy which is in dire straits. It was very uplifiting to see such initiatives and talk to people directly involved in working on the project.

The jars themselves are huge - up to a couple of tons and nobody really knows what was their purpose. They lay scattered in the fields - a couple with huge lids. Among them huge craters from exploded bombs and around beatiful greenery of Lao fields.

Luang Prabang

After yet another long and windy bus ride we arrived to Luang Prabang, the former royal capital. This is where the Mekong meets the Nam Khan river forming a nice, long peninsula, the home of the so called temple district and the center of tourist attractions. I could also say the old town is like an open museum full of ancient Buddhist temples, French colonial villas, local handicraft market and street food stalls, a complete mix of what you can wish to see together. After our first day stroll across the tiny streets of the old town zig-zagging from one beautiful temple to the other what stroke us most was the silence; despite of many tourists, typical laid-back Lao everyday life and hundreds of monks and novices in the temples, the place is sooo charmingly peaceful as none of our previous destinations alike - if anything like such is possible at all. It took us by hand and slowly, comfortably let us sink ourselves in to its live and stay one day longer than intended.

We missed the Royal Palace Museum unfortunately - Tuesday is the only day of the week when its is closed, guess when did we want to pay our visit? - but it definitely looks something you should see if you are around. Phu Si is a landmark in Luang Prabang, the stupa and small temple on top of a 100 m high hill in the middle of the old town, which I think is mostly beautiful due to the view you gain over the city if you make the walk, and the walk itself through a foresty park full of strange colorful bugs and smelly frangipany flowers (we saw also Buddha's footprint there). But the most unique theme in is observing the life of monks and novices - as it is an integrated part of the daily city life starting at 5.30 am with the silent walk of monks collecting alms every day till sitting through the chanting ceremonies in one of the numerous temples around.

The third day we took a deep breath and hired a tuk-tuk to visit the Pak Ou Caves 25 km out of town, with some suspicion after witnessing other tourists attempts to make their way through the lengthy bargaining process from irrationally high prices just to learn on the way that the driver took it as a one way price... Though we were prepared for the unexpected, I have to admit our driver exceeded my imagination: first he took 50% of the price for petrol, then we found ourselves in a village where we did not intend to go and shortly being stopped on the roadside for a lengthy conversation in Lao with another driver. It cleared only quite some time later what really was cooking, but the immediate outcome was an attempt to take us to a different cave pretending that there was a misunderstanding about the destination. When we stopped the third time and our driver sat next to a checkpoint looking hut without saying anything I learned that our vehicle is not allowed to drive outside the city limits. It might have all been possible to sort out if our driver would have not considered that the half price we already paid for a trip which never got even close to its destination is not to be returned. Now I am not going to describe in such detail what happenings followed, only the conclusion: never loose your coolness, forget about time do not panic and it will all sort itself out. After an hour or so we were riding to our destination - I guess it was a calculated risk or rip off attempt we did not buy and there was no other choice on either side. Anyway, I do not recommend this ride on a tuk-tuk, there is a reason why these hardly vehicle-like creatures must not ride on dirt roads... I think instead of 1,5 hours which was the original quote it was around 4 hours excursion including a river crossing to enter the caves and getting acquainted with the local kids, who were selling small birds for your improved karma and luck. Maybe we have seen enough caves to be too fascinated by these ones in particular, but it is a nice trip, especially if one can avoid the tuk-tuk drivers. Before I forget to mention, when we returned to the city he did not miss the opportunity to ask us to pay more than the agreed price. I wonder and wonder what is on their minds, but about this some time later. By the way Tomek developed a general allergy to tuk-tuk's since we always end up in some trouble and the guys notoriously lie.

Vang Vieng

Our following destination on our way to the north of Laos was Vang Vieng. As usual we took a bus (just 4 hours ride) since there is no other way unless you hire a car or rent a motorbike and return it in the same place you took it - kind of nonsense if you want to proceed in certain direction.


The good thing about our journey to Vang Vieng was that we went through the "BACI" ritual on our last day in Tham Kong Lo homestay. Lao people believe that everyone has 32 spirits. Sometimes one or couple of our souls may wonder away and that is pretty bad. Therefore the ceremony makes sure that all of them come back to you. So we are back to our state of 32 spirits and ready for more travelling...

Anyway the atmoshpere Vang Vieng can be best described by the picture of Rita in the hammock with the cat - very easy going. For some reason cats nowadays adore Rita and this one took special pleasure in letting himself be petted.

Vang Vieng is sort of an intersting phenomena of the ubiquitos globalization in sort of wierd way. It is located amid greenery of the surrounding beatiful hills and right by the Nam Song river. Beautiful setting for relaxation one could say - some years ago though the town has been discovered by tourists - mostly backpackers. By now the town is a neverending stretch of restaurants, bars, interent cafes, tourist agents, late night discos etc. A very artifical creature in itself feeding itself on neverending stream of tourists. Whether it has anything to do with Laos is questionable. It has been created entirely for the tourists who would like to get similiar experience as at home while eating pizza and drinking beer - just cheaper. It has indeed helped the local economy but it is wierd - imagine that there are about 80 guesthouses in what really used to be a small village...Now everyone sells banana pancakes.

Nevertheless, the scenery is great and as usual it is up to you what you make of it. We rented bicycles and went to a blue lagoon near a big cave where we had lunch. The way to the cave was an ordeal because the sun was frying us, but during lunch a short lived storm arrived and our way back was very pleasant. We missed the tubing on the river due to our late morning wake up. We usually make it before 9am to breakfast but that day we did not.

In Vang Vieng Rita found us another great accomodation in a little bungalow right next to the river. Though again we had the pleasure to get scared to death during yet another powerful night storm - a bit freaky especially considering the typhoon in Myanmar...Hope it gets better there since we have already got both the visas and the plane tickets.

In the evening we decided to enjoy a little cake and watch one of the blockbusters on a big screen in one of the cafes - Vantage Point. I got more hooked up since it was all action and I do not go to the cinema too often nowadays but somehow got dissapointed in the end. Rita was really bored - to the point that she sipped my beer (and she hates beer).


All in all we spend two days in this civilization made especially for tourists and boarded yet another bus to Luang Prabang.

Tham Kong Lo

While waiting for our Myanmar visa we endeavoured on a little trip South from Vientiane, to visit the cave in Tham Kong Lo. To be more precise it is a river disappearing in a monolithic limestone mountain creating a 7 km pitch dark cave, which you can cross on a boat. Honestly, when Tomek came up with this idea I was not full of enthusiasm, as a black hole is not a most attractive thing I can imagine, especially if you ought to spend a couple of hours in it. But since this is supposed to be one of the natural wonders of Laos I gave in hoping if nothing else but for personal development...

We took an early morning bus from Vientiane to Ban Khoun Kham, a good 6 hours shaker on a local bus accompanied by live stock chicken, a couple of sacks of rice and a bus driver, who thought himself to be also a DJ entertaining the full bus with Thai pop music on maximum volume. At Ban Khoun Kham we figured that we do not have to test our fresh motorbiking skills across rice fields, because the road has been built to Tham Kong Lo. So we took another local bus, which was apparently a pickup and we were seated on its back with gallons of petrol in plastic barrels, 50 kg rice sacks and some Laotians. Within 3-4 hours we arrived to our destination where we headed to look for accommodation before the sun would disappear. It was not long before we understood that the only option we have is to stay at one of the local homes, which institution is called Home Stay, including a mattress to sleep in their home, breakfast and dinner. Luckily we found one where we had our own room and enjoyed the hospitality of a 3 generation Lao family without a single person in the nearby speaking even a word of English nor anyother tourists.

Next morning we walked to the riverside, where the Boat Committee had its' headquarters, a dozen of boatmen sleeping on benches, but in a strong cartel with regards to the price - which seems to be the case all over Laos; that is all about communism so far :) So we got our two men with headlights and a wooden arch and a long tail engine entering the mouth of the cave. Soon I realized that my personal development has begun, because within 1 minute we were totally cut from daylight in a 20 something meter high, 10 meter wide cave, in a shaky arch. But actually not long after my eyes got accustomed to the new light, or rather dark conditions and could start relaxing and enjoying the view provided by the torchlight of our boatmen. Not yet being in the wet season the water level inside the cave dropped so much that 4-5 times we had to get out and walk in the water while our boatmen earned their hefty fee, which in light of the harsh working conditions did not seem so much expensive. After a good hour we saw the sunlight again at the other end of the cave for a half an hour break when we understood that we shall make our way back through the cave. It turned out to be a good half day program including a walk inside the cave to a "gallery" of stunning stalactites, which meant that the only bus back to Ban Khoun Kham was gone for that day and we are to spend another night with our hosts. Well, it is not only hearsay, you really have to take it easy in Laos; time is very cheap over here and there is plenty of it. So we decided to enjoy the rest of the day getting acquainted with the local restaurant-grocery-petrol station-garage-in-one and its customers and returned to Vientiane with a similarly bumpy and lengthy multiple bus and pick-up ride. Good that these guys are so practical that they build their houses on stork legs a good 2 meters above the ground, otherwise we would have been seriously terrified, not only scared out of our whits that the night storm will wash us out from our bed.

By the evening we were fully set for glass of red wine and fettuchini with pesto, blue cheese and walnuts to celebrate the Labor Day, which is actually only a cover story for humankind to commemorate my birthday.

Vientiane

Our last stretch from Sukhothai to Laos went suprisingly smoothly. We were prepared for yet another nightmare the sort we had when crossing from India to Nepal. Nothing like that materialized. Though we had to take a night bus and change twice, everything went smoothly and by early afternoon we arrived to the capital of Laos - Vientiane. We read that it is a very laid back place and indeed it is. It does not feel even like a capital - there are not too many cars on the streets and generally there is no rush whatsoever. The best thing though about the place is the French legacy - with it the possibility to eat baguettes and all sorts of nice cakes - I might not be a person that especially needs bread or sweets but after 4 months of basically not eating anything except rice and occassionally bad toasts, real bread tasted awesome. You do not even need to go to a fancy restaurant to buy it - it is sold everywhere on the streets. For me it is definitely the highlight of the place :)

Otherwise, the center of Vientiane can be criss-crossed within one hour by foot. It is really cosy in that sense. It is clean and with very few cars it has this unique communist feel - empty streets and from outside everything looking good. Anyway it is a very light version of communism as private enterprises are everywhere and doing well.

We have rented bicycles and went outside the center to look for additional adventures but honestly we have not found them. Somehow everything seems to work - we could even get information about buses in English at a remote bus station...

One other very nice thing about the Vientiane is the stretch of "restaurants" that are being set up every evening along Mekong. We had some local specialties there but failed to order (to Rita's despair) a soup which you cook on your own table in a little clay pot. We will still try though.

As to the phenomena of white guys having local girlfriends - it seems that it is as big as in Thailand. Honestly, it is amazing as it seems that half of the guys coming here end up with local girls. Somehow it does not work the other way round...

Our next stop is in a middle of nowhere - no road leads there and you need to take a 3 hour local boat to get there :)

Sukhothai

Before saying so long to Thailand we stopped for an overnight in Sukhothai to visit the Historical Park. With another straining, long and hot bus ride we arrived on the 23rd of April and just had time for an evening stroll in the so called New Sukhothai, where we took a room. The highlight of the evening was a questionnaire we were asked to answer on the street by a local English teacher about tourists opinion of Thailand. As usual Poland was understood as Holland and as Eastern Europeans - probably a statistically underrepresented proportion of tourists - we shocked the interviewer by describing Thailand as modern and developed... The other highlight was two very promising herbal licquores we tasted in a lovely restaurant with the power to enhance respective manly and womenly qualities, but it was so strong and bitter that it made us forget to follow up if the effect worked or not.

The Sukhothai Historical Park is a good half an hour drive from the new city, which we covered with a local bus, more precisely a half motorbike which has been transformed into a pickup in the rear with seats on benches for the passengers. Some less advanced forms have the driver behind the passengers, but something had to be done with the rear parts of the motorbikes I guess :)
Anyway, it serves the purpose and we made it to the park, where we rented two bicycles and rode around the park. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, covering a wast land scattered with over 40 ruins from the 13th to the 15th century, when it was the capital of the Sukhothai kingdom, part of the Khmer empire. We were riding so much that I mastered my long desired dream to be able to let the steering go with both hands - which is a hilarious feeling and I am very happy for myself - but it did not serve us as much to cover roughly half the ruins. Though we saw all sorts of Buddha representations from calling the rain, meditating to laying, my favorite was the one on the photo with a hand bigger than twice my height, golden fingernails and sealed in a tiny temple with an opening to the sky.

We killed time till our night bus finally arrived at 1 o'clock at night and darted to Laos.