Struggle Bus

On Saturday morning we boarded the struggle bus going from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang. It was a public bus that was supposed to take 12 hours. Of course it left late, we were the only nonnatives on the bus, and no one spoke any English. When I got on the bus, I couldn’t even see the floor because the entire isle was covered in huge 50kg bags of rice. I had to walk over them, as well as people’s luggage piled high to get to my cramped seat in the back corner. We stopped about an hour in and pulled into a lumberyard where people proceeded to load planks wood on the roof of the bus for a solid hour. At one point after leaving with all of the wood, I looked out the window and saw a foot of one of the wood loaders just hanging off the side of the bus. Welcome to Laos. To make matters worse, the most obnoxious pop music was blaring from a speaker right above my head for the entire 14-hour trip. We almost didn’t get off when we arrived at 2am because no one spoke English well enough to confirm that we were actually at Luang Prabang. It was definitely a struggle.

Thankfully, Luang Prabang did not disappoint. We befriended a new sandwich lady, who also sold Oreo banana shakes for 5000 kip (~60 cents). Needless to say we had many. We explored the town and checked out what the street vendors had to offer. We climbed up the massive hill in the center of town to the summit where Wat Chom Si stood. It was awesome to see the whole city from above, watching the Mekong and Khan Rivers snake their way around the perimeter of Luang Prabang. The temple itself was also very interesting; it was made up of multiple shallow caves meant for meditation. From there we went to Kuang Si Falls, which was just what we needed after a hot day (well, that and more smoothies). We climbed up to the top of the falls and looked out on the wonderful Laotian mountainous landscape. We played in the falls, swam all around, and had a lot of fun with the rope swing. After such a taxing day we all got Laotian massages to wind down.

 

The next day, we explored the river town further, finding a mouth watering bakery that sold the most amazing banana bread for only 4000 kip (50 cents). I have been particularly partial toward bananas this trip because they were the most expensive in Sydney, trading at $12 a kilo, so these are the first bananas I’ve had since Kenya. We also ventured on to the country’s oldest temples, Wat Xieng Thong. Built in 1560, the temple is one of the country’s oldest and most historically significant temples. It was great to see the entire temple complex, from where the monks meditate to where they live alongside the river. I definitely have a greater appreciation for the way monks live after spending 30 hours with monks in Chiang Mai. We were unfortunately not awake to see it but every morning in Luang Prabang at 6am, all of the monks go out into the town and people bring food to offer them, free of charge. It really integrates the Buddhist way of life into the town and gave the whole area a great community culture.

Wishing we could have stayed longer but excited for our next stop, we boarded our next bus on to Vang Vieng. Thankfully, this ride was much less of a struggle. It was only five hours, we had a bit more room, no rice, no wood, and no music playing on full volume. When we arrived in Vang Vieng, we instantly realized that it was a touristy but lively place. Music was playing, people were calling out to each other, and generally everyone was enjoying themselves. We walked down the main street that our guesthouse was on and every single restaurant was playing the TV show Friends. We took a seat at one of them, ordered some green curry, and proceeded to be mesmerized by the commercial free TV series. We called it a night relatively early so we could get up the next morning for what the town was known for: river tubing.

When I woke up the next morning, I stepped out onto our balcony and saw the serene river flowing by just 50 meters away with colossal mountains looming only a couple of hundred meters beyond. Because we had arrived after sunset the night before, I had completely missed the stunning view. Eager to beat the crowd to the start of the river, we rented tubes, grabbed the underwater camera, jumped on a tuktuk, and started our adventure. We quickly realized that the river was just one big gathering of people enjoying the sun, the water, and Laos. The entire river was covered by bars and restaurants, left and right, blaring music and attracting people as they tubed down the river. We went from one restaurant to another on our tubes or just swimming through the refreshing water. There were floating picnic benches where we grabbed a bite to eat. We played foosball at one restaurant and threw a Frisbee around at another. As the day went on and we moved down the river, more and more people started flocking, the music got louder, and everyone was having a great time. At one point everyone at one of the bars stood up and did a choreographed dance to “We No Speak No Americano.” We quickly caught on and joined in, of course, putting on quite some entertainment for the people floating downstream. Many of the restaurants had huge rope swings or big towers where you could run jump off into the river where it was deep enough. Overall we had a great day relaxing in the sun, floating downstream. After a night of casual fire limbo, we called it a day.

Now we are spending a short day in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, before we wake up tomorrow at 3:30AM to catch a flight to Cambodia, the last leg of our Asian adventure. Laos has been awesome, especially the Gibbon experience and river rafting in Vang Vieng. But I am really excited to see one of the Seven Wonders of the World tomorrow!