Laos: Trials and Tribulations!

Well Laos as a country shouldn't have been enjoyable at all with the amount of crap we had to endure, but surprisingly I think it's one of my favourite countries in the parts of the world I have been to. Laos is a beautiful country with really nice people, who although do try to rip you off, it's nothing like Vietnam or even Thailand.

The first drama occurred whilst we were still in Thailand so I guess I can't blame Lao. There were "technical difficulties" on our plane and so we ended up being taken back to the waiting halls whilst the Thai Airways staff tried to fit us on a flight to Bangkok so we would make our connection. With a lot of worrying, running and amazing airport staff we did make our connection, apparently however, our bags did not, and so here starts the fun and games of Laos. Trying to get our bags back was a huge task. Obviously they just hadn't made the flight but when we called and they still weren't there and they needed bits of information we never got it was ridiculous. This story does have a happy ending though, when we came back through Vientiane (the capital) on our way back to Thailand our bags were finally awaiting us.

Vientiane as a city is really nice, it has some beautiful building and temples that are incredibly impressive. The worlds largest gold-leaf stupor is just one building that makes you stand up and pay attention to this tiny country. We decided we'd bicycle around town. It was so much fun but by this point we were exhausted and all we wanted was food, bed and clean clothes. We did see however an Arc De Triumph inspired building which is quoted as being "a monster of concrete up close", not great advertising on the Laos' governments part, but I thought it was really cool. From a distance this monstrous building looks very European but the closer you get the more Asian it becomes, very impressive! We also went to That Dam and a few other temples around town, finishing off of course with cocktails and great food.

The next day we were straight on a bus to Vang Vieng, minus any clothes or toiletries, pretty safe to say we smelled...... The bus took about four hours and by the time we ate lunch, found a hostel and decided on what we wanted to do in the next three days we only really had time to take a quick stroll around the city, stopping at a few street food stands and a temple. For dinner this night and every night we ate Western food and watched Friends, the food thing wasn't by choice but there was a crazy lack of Lao or Asian food on anywheres menus, watching Friends was our choice though, love it, most restaurants in Vang Vieng play Friends all day everyday, just working their way through the seasons.

Well the next day was interesting to say the very least. We originally had a tour booked to go caving and kayaking all day however, when I woke up my eye was at least twice the size it should have been (we're having great luck so far). After a few minutes of, "oh it'll be fine" I started to worry about the fact that I couldn't open my eye properly and so Kristal helped me get to the hospital. We were seen to straight away and the doctor spoke enough English to help me but, he used a torch (a huge camping flashlight style) to examine my eye and then just prescribed me anti-biotics and eye drops. Once my eye finally started deflating later in the day I found a bite mark and came to the conclusion that I was bitten by a spider, it was a scary experience. The whole episode ruined the day for us and so we spent it at a restaurant eating and watching Friends, it sucked that it happened but it could've been a worse day I suppose and luckily we could move our tour for the next day.

Finally something went our way and we were on our kayaking tour by 9am. We first went caving which included going inside a water filled cave (with the original name of Water Cave) on a tube. You get fitted with head lights and a tube and off you go, following a rope and a guide through the inside of a cave which stands hundreds of metres above sea level. It was incredible, cold and dark, but the experience was very humbling, makes you realise just how insignificant and recent human history is. The cave was by far one of my favourite moments in Laos and one of my favourite things I've done in Asia. From here we went inside another cave which has a huge reclining Buddha inside it. Kristal hoped to redeem her horrible luck with fortunes and so asked our guide to translate a Lao fortune for her. Apparently Lao Buddhists like her about as much as Thai Buddhists telling her she'll graduate and that being the end of her good luck. Kayaking was next, down the Nam Song River back to Vang Vieng. Kayaking was so much fun, again cold (in the water) but a lot of fun. There were a few white water parts and we stopped to walk along a really high, dodgy looking bridge. I got to the top, walked a bit out and decided I value my life too much, Kristal was braver than me and one guy in our group braver than her, walking across the whole bridge. On the way back there was also a series of "floating bars", not so much floating but they are situated on the bank of a river and they're definitely bars, the people we met were not by any means sober! I tried a giant water slide that probably sat about ten metres off the water and another ten metres from top to base of the slide. It was so scary, a lot of fun, but scary and a little bit painful.... I'd do it again though. In the end our only real day we got to spend in Vang Vieng was amazing and definitely worth the wait.

From here we started the LOOOOOOOOONG journey back to Hong Kong. Bus to Vientiane (sitting on broken seats with no air-conditioning), trying to get our luggage back (a task), a bus from Vientiane to Bangkok (not really a sleeper like promised, more so a bus that you can in theory, sleep on) and then a plane home to HK. It was a long two days. I know that I have made Laos sound horrible but, it was amazing, beautiful and just a lot of fun, I hopefully will go back one day and actually see more of the country, free of lost luggage and spider bites.