First Impressions ... Laos

Leaving Cambodia Boarder ... we came in to Laos on a mini bus.

We really like Laos. It is a small country and not very populated so seems quiet to us after Cambodia and Thailand. English is not spoken very much so communicating can be difficult at times. Especially when ordering food. We point to what we want and most menus are in Laotian and English. But there can be complications ... for example, I ordered a Vegetarian Burger at a restaurant and when I cut into it there was deep fried chicken. I sent it back and showed our waiter what I wanted again, he was most apologetic,  out came my replacement vegetarian burger, this time it was deep fried fish. I gave up at this point, took the fish out and had a lettuce and tomato burger instead, still vegetarian. I felt sorry for our waiter he could not read English and had no idea what I was trying to order.

I guess you could say Laos is a developing country, it is growing very fast economically. It is very rural, lots of small villages and the main towns seem very quiet to us. I think the population is around 7 million and the average wage is about $US2000PA, which is very, very low. Being poor seems to mean different things in different parts of the world. We see a lot of very late model pickup trucks, vans and some expensive European cars like BMWs and Mercedes. Nearly everyone has a cell phone and there is excellent cell phone coverage here and internet. We have seen a lot of satellite dishes linked up to bamboo huts by wire. I guess what we think as necessary to a healthy and happy life has changed a lot over the years. Cell phones, internet and late model cars seem to be essentials. When I was growing up my Grandmother used to say ... 'warm home and food in the cupboard and life could be a lot worse'. I think that definition might be outdated now. 

Here is an example of a modest home in a rural area, with full satellite service! 

Tourism is still fairly new. It brings money into Laos which goes directly to the people, but it also brings expectations, such as hot water, wifi, food, comfortable beds, etc. We have noticed this all through Asia. I think that tourists often have better sleeping and living conditions than some of the locals, which I feel very uncomfortable about. One thing that is common in most of the countries we have visited in SE Asia is their struggle with plumbing. Nearly all their attempts to duplicate Western plumbing systems that we have seen leak badly, in some cases there are pipes under sinks that run water right onto the floor, funny.

We are noticing a cooling in the weather as we move further north, but it's still quite humid. We have met some really nice people here in Laos. A Canadian couple come to mind that Pete has interviewed. We will probably meet up with them again in Luang Probang.

Here are some photos ... our first impressions of Laos.

The Laotian side of the border. There is an 'official scam' of $US2 per visa application over and above the visa fee that all people have to pay. Everyone knows that it is a scam but pay it anyway. I don't know where the $2 goes, I am assuming that it does not go to the Government. When we arrived at the Laotian customs to get our Visa on Arrival there was a group of Chinese tourists who were refusing to pay the $US2, so the customs people were holding their passports. Feelings were getting rather heated on the Chinese side and one of the women was taking photos of the Customs Officers and trying to force the window open to get her passport. It was very entertaining. I couldn't see the sense in it, $US2 is not much to them but a lot to the customs officers. I wanted to hang around and see who won, we heard later that the Chinese gave in and paid the scam money, of course.

We stayed on the island of Don Det as our first stop in Laos, which is part of the 4,000 Islands and right on the Mekong Delta. This was the view from our room. The Mekong is beautiful ... so wide and wild. We did not enjoy Don Det village very much ... I think they were over tourists and had had enough of drunken partys and stoners. We really enjoyed cycling round the island and visiting Don Khon that is joined to Don Det by a French Bridge, as it is called.

We never got sick of sitting on the steps outside our room and watching the sun set. Each night was different. We had some great conversations with other travellers on there. This is where we met the Canadian couple, Kurt and Krystal and we met two travellers from South America both named Matheus. They are currently living in Hamilton and attending Waikato University for a year. Pete is going to meet up with them in August when he is doing some teaching up there. 

This is what having millions of dollars looks like. We are millionaires here. We are carrying so much money it is a little overwhelming. A little goes a long way though. By the time we get used to a new currency it is time to move on.

Getting ready for our kayaking trip on the Mekong. We had a great day. They pack as many people on kayaks as they do on bus seats. There were 3 of us on our kayak, one of the guides got on with us. Pete was annoyed, he thought it was agism, he said, 'the guide took one look at us and saw that we were the oldest in the group and would need looking after'. He was wrong about the looking after part! The kayaks are more like skiffs. There was no debriefing, we did have life jackets but no helmets. We had 2 guides to about 20 people and only one of the guides spoke English. One of the kayaks cracked open and started to sink, an English woman nearly drowned when their kayak overturned and one of the guides tried to lift it off them and knocked the woman down and she sunk further under the water.  She got an awful fright but it was funny really. There was probably one person too many on their kayak, they had 3 people, none of whom had ever been in a kayak before.

Water Buffalo look like any ordinary bull on land, a lot like a dirty cow. In the water this beast looked magnificent to me, elegant and completely at home.

One of the places we stopped at on our kayak trip ... I really liked the countryside on Don Det.

The purpose of our kayak trip was to see fresh water dolphins. Our guide said that sometimes there can be a very long wait. We only had to wait about 10 minutes. They came in really close to our group. I was so excited. They looked wonderful. There are only about 6 left in this area ... they are becoming very rare. They look different to ocean dolphins, their nose is very short almost like a pug dogs face.

Our kayaking trip was only about 2 hours on the water. Part of the day was on land visiting water falls. We were taken around on what looked like cattle trucks and Pete and I decided to sit on the top, along with some others. We did not take into account low lying power lines or tree tops. There were some near misses but no fatalities!

By the time we got back to our kayaks it was getting dark. The truck was late picking us up from the waterfall. Some of our fellow kayakers refused to paddle back to Don Det in the dark but a few of the more adventurous ones in the group were not put of. We got in and paddled like crazy to catch the last of the light and as it got darker we used the lights on the island as our guide. We had fun. Pete wanted to mark the occasion with this photo. Yep we may be old, but we are not done yet!

The French Bridge that joins Don Det and Don Khon ... I enjoyed our day of cycling a lot. I was quite sick on Don Det, I think I had a reaction to the Melarone tablets that we are taking. They are meant to prevent malaria. 

A change of scenery. We left Don Det and caught a mini bus to Pakse. We stayed here about 3 days and did a scooter tour. I was still feeling sick here. I had just been boasting in a previous blog about how well we have done with no real bowel problems and I get sick.

We stopped off at this swimming hole. I had to take a photo of the closed sign. I am not sure how a water hole closes or opens, but this one closes at 5pm.

I really wish we had worn our swimmers so we could have gone underneath the waterfall. But this was fun. 

We thought we would buy a few bananas on the way home ... this was the only way we could buy them. A bunch or none. Tiny but Mighty bananas.

We caught a local bus from Pakse to Thakhek. Next time we will get a VIP bus. There are 3 people to a seat, and spare stools for people to sit on when the bus gets too full. It is about 333Kms or 4 hours driving. It took us nearly 10 hours. We found it pretty amusing for the first 8-9 hours but then Pete got a little frustrated. None of the locals seemed to mind the stops and delays. The Lao people seem very  nice. They are very easy going and relaxed. They are not particularly emotionally expressive we haven't seen anyone shouting or losing their temper. Apparently its very poor form to show anger or  make a fuss.  

One of our fellow passengers was wearing this t-shirt and I had to take a photo of it. I thought of Emma when I saw this. Emma is our niece and she posts really great quotes on her FB page. I am not sure she would agree with this statement or post it, but I thought it had a bit of meaning.

When ever our bus stopped at a village or bus station, vendors would hop on selling sticks of barbecued meat, chicken I think and boiled eggs on a stick. Some of the sticks have whole bodies of meat for sale. Not for us.

Yes the inevitable happened. The brakes went on the bus. Here is the bus driver, under the bus, fixing them. He used a piece of tyre tube that he cut down the middle. I didn't like to think how secure or safe the repair was. We used this opportunity as a toilet stop ... traipsing of into the jungle to relieve ourselves.