Blog 4 - Laos

We immediately notice a better quality of lifestyle. The best of Cambodians rural homes are not as good as the worst of Laos homes! (Many are still dirt poor – just less dirt! more substantial)

Michael is determined to “follow the dotted lines”, so we take the road (even) less travelled! Much is potholed, and some bridges are very suspect!

We hope to take an elephant ride, but trying to convince the staff at the eco lodge that 80,000 kip only equals $10 .. they cannot possibly see how 10 of ours can equal 80,000 of theirs! and we have to forfeit this excursion!At last, a little cooler!

1.7.10, and at breakfast (of pancakes!! And fruit!!)

Amazing breakfast for us!

We speak with an English woman working for Care. She has been here 13 years, and loves it. We have headed onto the plateau – cooler, many beautiful waterfalls, coffee plantations. Some very dense jungle, and we are near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We stay on the road, or clear tracks, as there are still many, many unexploded bombs (UXOs) in the area.

On a remote section , we meet a young guy from Perth, who has a puncture, and he is sun burnt, hot, exhausted & frightened. He could not believe his luck, to find 4 Aussie trucks in a remote spot in Laos, and we tied his motorbike to our truck, and drive him to a village for repairs. He was convinced he would die! He had only about 500ml water left!

2.7.10 & Michael leads us down more dirt roads, to some magnificent caves, hidden in spectacularly beautiful massive limestone karsts (mountains). One cave was discovered in 2004, by a monk who shimmied up a vine to find bats, and discovered this cave containing 229 bronze buddhas, from 15cm-1m tall! Another, at the base of a 300m high cliff, hidden deep in the jungle, we are lead by a young local girl, and we enter this massive cave, climbing (with difficulty – quite challenging) deep into the cave for about 200 metres, till it emerges to the other side. Just awesome!

Michael leads into a shady spot for our night camp – and gets bogged! His 4WD has failed. It was serviced before the truck left Oz, but obviously not correct, as this is the 2nd time he has got bogged, and he is a very experienced driver. A man stops to watch, and he can speak some English! He invites us to dine at his restaurant nearby, and it is beside a huge dammed lake. A lovely spot, and we order pork ribs & papaya salad for dinner. We wait, drooling, for over 2 hrs and become concerned (not enough pigs??) and find him sound asleep under the counter!! When it eventually arrives – it is awful!! Our worst meal! (and it wasn't pork...??)

Double pull for Michael

3.7.10 After Kym’s cooker explodes in flame & damages his fibreglass, we head north west, through an enormous flooded area (from hydro power),mountainous jungly country, over some of the worst roads imaginable! 40kms takes us 2.5 hrs. Lots of fun. The scenery is superb – more huge jagged limestone outcrops. Photo opportunites at every corner, such as Michael driving through a huge puddle with the village ducks swimming in it too;

a ‘chain gang’ complete with the usual ‘hardware’ guarding them, working on the roads; a child on a drip on a scooter; rice workers in coolie hats; buffalo up to their horns wallowing in water; boats – made from discarded long range fuel tanks from military aircraft; 2 trucks full of dogs – hundreds of dogs ??? Possibly heading to Vietnam where they are a delicacy. Uuugh. At a high viewpoint, Michael attempts a 3 pt turn – and gets stuck again. His patience is wearing out with this 4WD problem (we joke - currently 3 nil to New Zealand!!) Incredibly, at ‘smoko time’ we run into the guy from Perth again!

Our destination is a 7km long cave which we will boat thru. Well! Truly magnificent.

One of our best moments. This MASSIVE cave goes right thru one of these 300m karst. At times it can be 100m wide & 100m high, then narrows to only a metre above our heads. If too shallow, we walk a little, then continue till we climb several stairs and enter a wonderland of stalactites & stalagmites. We emerge to daylight on the other side of the mountain, then return. About a 2 hr trip of awe. Just incredible.

Lovely grassy campsite near the National Park, and we watch 2 young girls fishing for frogs, tiny fish, and buffalo visit us for breakfast!

4.7.10 We head to the Plain of Jars. Michael chooses a short cut, taking almost 200kms off the route. We ferry across and begin on this atrocious road, which rapidly deteriorates into bog, and not long till Michael is stuck once again! We are 2nd truck, so try to tow him out & our mount breaks under the strain!. Kym arrives to tow us both, and can’t...., so John and Kym must reverse about 500metres thru this knee deep mud. We get stuck again! And Kym tows us again! Then the boys turn the trucks, and reverse all the way back to Michael. Hook up again, and this time the 2 of us get him out. What a drama! Takes us about 2 hours, and our trucks are covered in mud – some of it on the roof!! Quite an experience for us, and wonderful to be with men who have competed in this sort of stuff!

We head the long way, and it is a great trip thru dramatic scenery – very mountainous. The roadside villages appear deserted, except for the occasional old person, and under 5s. The rest are away working the fields!

Very few kids go to school. They just toil in this heat! Little kids look after the smaller ones.

We arrive at Phonsavan, near the Plain of Jars, after travelling for 7 hrs, over approx 350kms! Sealed road, though, but so winding!

Lunch stop at a high point

Plain of Jars 9 range in size from 600kg to 6 tonnes!

We only visited Site 1 (there are about 45), as there is open warfare around Site 3. Discretion is the better part of valour. We also viewed a couple of movies about UXOs. Unexploded ordnance. It was so very sobering and sad. The Americans bombed Laos, 1965-73, even though they had signed the Geneva Convention, and Laos was neutral. However, the Nrth Vietnamese were using trails (including the Ho Chi Minh Trail, further south), to infiltrate, so The Secret War was fought on Laos ground. 200 million bombs dropped, and 40 years later (and forever) they still clear about 100,000 bombs a year! We have decided to ONLY toilet in the trucks from now on! They are anywhere & everywhere. This province was the most heavily bombed.

This town of Luang Prbang is the prettiest (by far!) we have seen in 5 weeks of Asia travel. It is Unesco Heritage listed, and no trucks or buses allowed in town. So we are parked at a guesthouse & enjoying luxury of showers & air con! Sometimes we park in a hotel carpark, and pay for one room – 8 showers later, we are all clean, washing done, and have safe parking!!

Some of us rise at 4.30am to “feed the Monks”. They learn to be humble, and live from what they are given, so it is an early morning tradition that they file past the locals, and any interested tourists, to be fed. Approx 300 monks here. It is quite nice to be involved, even if a little touristy. We have seen many monks standing outside shops or properties, patiently waiting to see if someone will feed them! (I don’t know how long they wait!) They give a blessing to those who feed them, but I don’t think we were blessed. Probably too “heathen”- esp with cameras draped to record the action!! After, we climb to the “wat” at Mt Phousy, 372 steps, with nice view over the town, and pass many different Buddha statues, plus the Buddhas footprint, safely tucked in a tiny cave. We also enter a bigger cave, coming face to face with the most serene statue, complete with beard. He seems to me more of a Tibetan priest, or such. Dinner that night at a stunning outdoor restaurant. Slightly more expensive, and Kym & Lyn have a BBQ, but it is too hot at the table, was not enjoyable!

10.7.10 And we head out of town, on our way, clean & refreshed, and looking forward to life in our trucks again.

On Monday, we start our China sojourn!