Communists, caves and chocolate mousse

You’d expect the capital city of a country like Laos to be ravishing, but Vientiane was just OK. It had its charms – sparkly wats, a gleaming golden stupa, labyrinthine markets and some delicious restaurants. Other than that it’s a little bit ugly, all office slabs and grey government buildings. Plus it was muggy as hell, so we bezzed around the sights, ate some incredible Belgian chocolate mousse and fecked off out of there.

We caught the overnight bus north-eastwards. An unrelaxing night rumbling along under speakers blaring out Thai ballads ended in the spooky morning gloom of Phonsevan, a gritty town surrounded by hills scarred by the acne of American bombs. Phonsevan was our first proper glimpse at the wreckage caused by the “secret” war on Laos – nine years of vicious bombing during the Vietnam war to stem the spread of Communism. The Americans actually set out to bomb this area “back to the middle ages” and local folk took – and still take – the main brunt of that. Little tennis ball-sized bombs are still tucked away under farmland, exploding in the faces of innocent farmers and children.

Phonsevan got even more spooksome when we visited the Plain of Jars. There are thousands upon thousands of these weird olden-days stone receptacles sprinkled across the hills and no one really know why. They could have been built for funeral rites or to brew whisky.

We made our way up towards the Vietnam border, taking in battle-hardened Sam Neua and gorgeous Vieng Xai. The communist Pathet Lao hid out in caves for nine entire years in Vieng Xai, building up burrow communities with printing presses and hospitals and everything. They bore out the war with sheer determination and thank god they did, because you will never meet sweeter, more welcoming people than the inhabitants of Vieng Xai. They’re breeding like crazy to re-establish the population – the place is crawling with little squidgy people.

Within about two hours of arriving we were beckoned into a bar where a group of young Lao men were merrily drinking shots of Beerlao and playing table tennis – loser buys the beer, so of course Joe got involved and ended up buying plenty. Despite the language barrier we communicated fine for hours, them laughing at our noses and (Joe’s) body hair, us prodding their long fingernails in awe. The following night we were lured once again, this time to a village summer school to help the shy teenagers with their English pronunciation.

I felt a bit sad when we eventually boarded the rickety little bus to Vietnam. Laos was good to us. We made friends, had loads of fun in the rivers and jungles, learnt a lot and got well and truly into the horizontal pace of life.

In Vang Laos the tubing Vieng

And so to Vang Vieng, another riverside beauty, this one famous for booze buckets, mushroom shakes, “happy” pizzas and bars showing endless Friends and Simpsons DVDs to monged backpackers. We decided to take this place with a pinch of salt. But while the town centre might be a 19-year-old gap year kid’s wet dream, all inviting bars and grammatically incorrect souvenir vests, the rickety bamboo bridge transports you into another world, a gleaming green village inhabited by giant butterflies, kittens and smiley fisherfolk. Over there, everything smells of baby cows.

The monsoon well and truly arrived in Vang Vieng, so each night we picked our way cautiously across the slippery bridge and along the gooey bank in the moonlight while flashy storms raged, giving the Nam Song river a much needed drink.

The other thing Vang Vieng is famous for is tubing. You hire an old tractor inner-tube, jump in and float down the river, stopping at various riverside bars to drink and play on immense rope swings, slides and mud pits. It sounds like hell, but it’s not. We’d found Aimee, Rick, Audrey and Herman again, from the trek, so we faced the blaring music and frightening rope swings together, got tipsy, rolled around in the mud then floated on down the river back to town admiring the view. It were grand.


A couple of days later we went back for more, this time starting further up river with kayaks, exploring caves along the way. The caves were a bit of a disaster. We were just strapping giant torches to our heads and climbing into the tubes we would float into the first watery cave in when we heard an almighty banging sound. It sounded an awful lot like bombs so when the Lao guides yelled RUN, we ruddy well ran for our lives like mad people, thinking of all the unexploded American bombs sitting around Laos waiting to go off. But it was “just” an enormous rock tumbling down the mountain and crash-landing at the cave’s entrance. A minute later and someone would have been under that rock. “That’s never happened before,” a guide mused. Needless to say I waited outside the cave playing with ducklings while some brave souls went in.

Kayaking was fun though. The sky clouded over and there was a huge thunderstorm; we learnt what Forrest Gump meant by “Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath.” And then we capsized.

Riverside

I don’t like making sweeping statements about an entire nation, but it seems to me Lao people like to sleep. Walk into a market and half the stall-owners will be asleep under their tables, or at least their children will be. We saw a man splayed out in the middle of the road, head under his lorry, snoozing – as if he just got bored fixing it and fancied a nap. If a shop or café is empty, the owners will nod off. If you need help, or want to buy something, people are happy to oblige; if not, they’ll just carry on sleeping. It’s not surprising the currency is called Kip…

Laos also seems like a very fertile place. There are squidgy babies everywhere, dangling from their mums’ hips or dancing naked in the rain. Then there are bumbling puppies, flimsy kittens, velvety calves and wobbly ducklings to make you smile all over the place.

After our visit to the jungle, we spent a few days winding up and down the Nam Ou river, staying in pretty wooden villages in picturesque valleys. First stop was Nong Khiaw, a tranquil little place sandwiched between jagged karsts which glower down at the river. Clouds of white butterflies swarm around the muddy banks, children splash and giggle in the water and longboats glide past.

An hour up the river on a longboat is Muang Ngoi Neua, more remote and more delightful. Electricity is scarce and farmyard animals are plentiful; there’s very little to do except gaze at the mystical moonlit mountains fading into the horizon. The moon was so bright we could barely see the stars. We walked an hour or so away from the river along butterfly-strewn paths and sleepy paddy fields to an even more remote village to eat garlicy noodles, play petanque and laugh at bouncy little children.

After all this time in the sticks it was time to investigate a Laos city, so we caught a bus down to Luang Prabang, a charming cluster of shuttered French villas, glittering wats, wide, flowery streets and tempting restaurants splattered on a peninsular between the Mekong and the Nam Ou. It was no less pretty and peaceful than everything we’d seen so far in Laos. We ate delicious cheap food from the night market, hired bikes to swoop between river banks and got completely drenched in a rain storm. We gorged ourselves on crepes and baguettes, a welcome change from sticky rice.

Our last day in Luang Prabang me, Joe, Jean-Phillipe and Anne-Laure decided to cycle 35 km to some waterfalls outside town. We’d been told it was mostly a flat road, so we snubbed mountain bikes for the cheaper gearless ladybikes. What a mistake! Gentle hills were agony on those heavy lumps of metal, and with the midday sun blaring down, the three hour journey almost killed me. The waterfalls were worth the journey – cold, clear turquoise water, nibbly fish and rope swings for the brave people. After basking in that for a couple of hours I stuck my bike on the roof of a tuk-tuk and chugged back to town. Joe and the Frenches made it back on the bikes though, crazy fools.