OK, now I’m really pissed off. I knew my phone had been stolen from our room but was too convinced that my brain had gone to mush to pursue it. It’s nowhere to be found. Will has made several phone calls to the Lane Xane Hotel, even offering $50 for it’s safe return, via an amnesty agreement, and still nothing. I had completely put my faith in the Buddhist karma, but once again, I’m disappointed. I am so angry, not just for losing all of my numbers but for not kicking up more of a fuss when I knew it had gone. That’s what not working for a year does to woman like me. Completely saps your confidence until you don’t trust your own brain anymore. And yet people used to trust me with millions of dollars only 12 months ago.
We leave our house but the key is missing. We search every nook and cranny, the freezer, the shower, our bags, but it’s gone. Will has to pay 500 Baht, and we set off for our minibus. 30 minutes into the journey and I open up Harley’s backpack….there’s the key. Will’s now more convinced than ever that my phone wasn’t stolen but magpied away by Harley.
Another stunning, if long, journey past Hmong hill tribe villages built literally on the edge of sheer cliff faces, inches from the road. Sunday seems to be washing day and most of the kids are naked whilst their clothes hang out to dry. A lot of the men are crouching down at the side of the road skilfully hacking down the grass with scythes. There’s chillies and bananas lying on sacks in the road, drying, kids darting in and out of the houses and into the road, chickens, pigs, cows and goats wandering around.
Following our previous “VIP bus” experience from Vientiane to Vang Vien, we’ve taken the mini-bus option this time and paid for Harley to have his own seat, hopefully guaranteeing a slightly more comfortable journey than the last. All on board, and there’s even two spare seats. That is until we’re about an hour into the journey and our driver stops and picks up two pretty, local young women who are walking up the hill and tells them to hop in, whereupon, after a moment or two’s hesitation, they both squeeze into the front seat. We think he’s just being kind and is giving them a lift to the next village and he’s rewarded by the girls being very giggly and flirty. An hour further into the journey and we’re wondering exactly where these girls were walking to as we climb higher and higher into the hills. As we pull into a local village where a few people are hoping to catch a ride with us, we notice the girls have pulled their coats over their faces so they can’t be seen. A man hops into the final empty seat in the back and all conversation from the front stops, but it would have been difficult to flirt with a coat anyway.
As we pull into Luang Prabang, the local man hops out, the girls suddenly spring into life again and there is much mutual “accidental” brushing of arms together across the front armrest. Which is when we realise that old Romeo in the front has persuaded these girls to take a little Sunday drive to Luang Prabang with him. A little detour of 6 hours there and then the same back again. Not sure if that 11pm curfew applies in the villages, but if it does, I somehow think they’re going to miss it.
Piling into the back of a songathew (which Will describes as a tuk tuk with attitude), we ask the driver for our guesthouse, Senesouk. We don’t know too much about it except that it’s opposite a Wat (Buddhist temple) Sene, which certainly doesn’t seem to be the case when we pull up outside a little guesthouse that is opposite a washing line. The driver tells us we’re here and starts hauling our bags out. We refuse to budge, except to haul our bags back in and ask him again to take us to Senesouk. “Yes, yes, Senesouk, here” he says. No, no, we say, that sign doesn’t say Senesouk. Out comes an old lady to the gate, nodding her head and trying to prise our bags away. The kids are bemused, we just want to get into a shower after our 7 hour bus ride. Eventually, Mr Trickster hops back into the drivers seat, old Auntie Mabel totters back indoors to put make her dinner and he takes us to our hotel. We jokingly scold him in French (not because we’re being pretentious (although I understand why you might think that, bien sûr), but because a lot of people here have a better understanding of French than English and our Laos vocabulary doesn’t quite stretch that far yet) and he accepts defeat graciously. Senesouk 4 new guests, driver’s aunty 0.
Why is nothing ever straightforward? When I try to book rooms online through various bookings sites, I get emails back saying that 2 adults plus 2 children exceeds the maximum number of people allowed in one room, so they suggest that I request a room for 2 adults and then, in the additional comments box, ask for extra beds for 2 kids. Ok, that works. Until we arrive at the Senesouk and find that the additional comments box hasn’t translated itself here so they’re showing us into a cell-like room with not enough room to swing even a newborn kitten. We finally get shown to a slightly larger room upstairs with a balcony, still cell-like and painted a delicate shade grey on the walls; a snug fit and the kids have to sleep on a makeshift bed on the floor. Of course, this is the first time we’ve had to pre-pay online, so there’s no option of finding another room, but at least this affords us a good view of the Wat opposite and I can perve on all the saffron robed monks.
Luang Prabang is now a World Heritage Site due to the significant amount of cultural sights of interest, but it’s pretty much a three road town. The main street, running through the middle; to the left a road that runs along the Mekong and to the right, a road that runs along the Nam Kham river. Luang Prabang sits at the confluence of the two. All very lovely and we decide to do a bit of exploring; bring on Green Discovery again to book a couple of trips. The first is a boat ride to the Pak Ou caves. Not very interesting. Small caves, lots of Buddhas. 4,500 to be precise, but most of them are only a few inches high. Our guide, Settha, is doing a good impression of a mute and seems to know very little about anything at all. I’m not impressed, to put it mildly. We’d paid an extra fortune to go further up the river and see the annual boat racing festival and things start to improve slightly once Settha pulls out the most amazing picnic (the best food I’ve eaten since I left home, and I’m fussy) complete with a whole fish. We tuck in whilst he sucks the head of the fish dry of every bit of flesh, eyeballs, brains… Even more interesting when the locals decide we’re the afternoon’s entertainment. So Will is challenged to eat a huge flying cockroach (they clearly don’t know Will), which he does with minimum fuss, only choking once he’s swallowed the body, head and wings and finds that the legs are hairier than mine, and certainly stick in his throat more. The local pop star and her fans take a shine to us and give us endless drinks, video us and drag me up to dance (I’d be happy to dance normally, but I’m wearing Birkenstocks and my cave-exploring dress. I’m a Londoner with at least a little finger on the pulse of fashion, don’t do this to me, not on video, please!). Bidding a fond farewell to our new-found friends, we head back to our boat with Settha leading the way down the local sewerage path. We stop at the local Lao Lao (a local brew made with rice, which Settha was at a loss to explain exactly how it was made, but the end result was fiery, to say the least, and contained a snake) producing village, sample their wares and head off back down the Mekong in slightly better humour than the trip up. Silent Settha is still mute.
We spend the next couple of days trying, unsuccessfully (twice), to see the Royal Palace, visiting the beautifully decorative Wat Xieng Thong (built in 1559 and one of the few to survive the Chinese raids at the end of the 19th Century, just in case you’re interested in a little bit of history…), visiting both the morning and the night markets and eating. And then there’s more trouble around the corner. We find a restaurant serving great food, which not only sells cocktails, but also has ½ price happy hour from 6pm everyday. Caiparoska-a-rhumba! And they’re good. A match for E&O, but at only £1.50 a go, I can have 6 here for the same price as 1 there. Except I can’t because by my third one, we’re being hassled to death by about 10 kids on the street, with crys of “buy from me, buy from me”, trying to sell the same bead bracelets and doll key-rings that we’ve already bought off one of the others 2 hours ago and our kids are getting restless, so 4, 5 and 6 will have to wait until tomorrow.
I’m woken at 6.30 in the morning by the sound of the Buddhist monks banging their drum, which signals the start of their morning alms round. I peek through the curtains and am greeted by the sight of about 200 monks, resplendent in their orange robes, walking very closely together along the pavements, collecting gifts of rice handed out by woman kneeling along the pavement. David Bailey’s dream. The photo opportunity, not the handfuls of rice.
After 2 nights in Wormwood Scrubs, we manage to change to a newly vacated cell, slightly bigger than ours, with an extra bed. We never did manage to work out why the head of the beds we up against the windows, meaning that, from our beds, we have a lovely view of the grey brick wall.
After we’ve served our 4 day sentence, we use our Get Out Of Jail Free card and manage to secure our release. We’re so delighted that we book ourselves straight into the Villa Santi Resort and Spa (www.villasantihotel.com), which is not only out of town, but out of our budget too. But since Will seems to have established himself as purse-holder as well as expensive hotel finder, I concede without fight.
It’s the first time on this trip that we’ve had the luxury of both nice room and nice pool. Previously, we’ve had one or the other. We spend our days sightseeing in the morning (finally getting to see the Royal Palace – third time lucky) and swimming in the afternoon. Ruby’s now ready for the duck-diving championships and Harley is now officially a swimmer after doing a doggy-crawl-paddle for 15 seconds, without armbands.
Another trip with Green Discovery and this time our guide is a match for Orphaned Ola. He’s called Nyi (pronounced Knee High, which he certainly isn’t), which means Big. At 5’ 10 ft tall, he’s certainly the tallest Laos person I’ve seen, but c’mon…..big?! In thankful contrast to Settha, Nyi is a mine of information and keeps us enthralled the entire days with local history and information. As we’re chugging downstream on our longboat, he tells us about the three tribes in Laos. The Lao people, the H’mongs (who live in the hills) and the Khmu (who have no written language, only spoken and live in the middle ground; a bit like the Swiss). The Laos are Buddhists but the H’mongs and Khmu’s believe in spirits. Girls marry between the ages of 15-17, after which age they’re considered too old. A bit like Lewisham. The H’mongs can take up to 5 wives. A bit like New Cross.
First stop off at the side of the Mekong is a Lao village where pottery-making was the order of the day (we misunderstood when he said we could buy some pot) and then to visit the Khmus (not allowed to take photos, otherwise they set the dogs on you, just before they barbeque them for lunch…). Another fantastic picnic is pulled out and, washed down with some cool Beerlao, we’re ready for a short walk up to the beautiful Kwang Si waterfall where we find a pool and hop in for a much deserved swim. Just gorgeous.
On the way back, we stop off a Hmong village where they spend their days sewing beautiful cushions, bags and bed covers. Since we’re down almost on the banks of the Mekong and yet the Hmongs are traditionally hill-dwellers, we figure this lot must be ex-bandits. Until 2 years ago, there were problems with bandits holding up the tourist buses so the government struck a deal with them that, in exchange for them not ruining the blossoming tourist trade, they would give them prime plots of land down on the river-edge. Who said crime doesn’t pay?
Saturday night, we get the babysitters in and Will and I head off for a hot night on the tiles. The Lao Lao Garden does us proud and, 3 bottles of Chablis later we agree that, come morning, we may find ourselves with our first hangovers in three weeks….the hangover was nothing compared to the badly twisted ankle Will wakes up to, which may have just perhaps, possibly, been inflicted by the naked balcony and hedge jumping performed with aplomb once the babysitter had scuttled off. And if he tells you I bribed him to do it by promising him something, he’s a liar…
We’re reluctant to leave so extend our stay by another two days. So today I leave the kids with Will (not reluctantly at all) and I head off to the Tamnak Lao restaurant for a cookery course. I’m joined by 5 other girls and a hottie Brazilian male chef. Starting with a tour of the local food market where you can buy any part of any animal, including blocks of congealed blood, I’m starting to lose my appetite. As we watch our chef Leng Lee prepare the first dishes, I’ve got my eye on the Brazilian dish of the day. We make a total of 5 of dishes, and I share a total of 5 Beerlaos with the Brazilian dishy. Bloody excellent food and a really good, fun day. I hope you like Lao food ‘cos that’s what you’re getting next time you come to ours for dinner!
Leaving tomorrow for the madness of Hanoi. Think it may come as a bit of a shock after the mellowness of Laos.
Oh, one more thing Nyi told us….1/3 of the Laos population contract malaria at some point in their lives. But don’t tell my mum.
Right, that’s it. See you in Vietnam. x
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