Andi’s Weblog

After we came back from our trip to the hill tribe village we spent some more time chilling in Chiang Mai (Bow Chiang Mai Guesthouse) before another van came to pick us up and take us in direction Chiang Khong (or so) where we would stay over night in order to cross the border in the morning. Since we were the last passengers to enter the van, I got a crappy seat in the back. Actually I got half a seat because the other half was used by the luggage of some girls who had taken huge suitcases instead of backpacks on their backpacking trip - I still keep their faces in “good” memory.

Arriving at the hostel we could prove what we had called the “backpacker rule of thumb for trips” before. The rule says that as a typical backpacker you want to tell people stories about you being ripped off, going through serious sh*#! and still pretend to be enjoying your time. What you have to do is to bargain on the cheapest trip you could find, so as to pay half the price of what normal tourists pay and you’ll get a real backpacker bullshit trip for sure - for only half the price of real comfort (Half the price in Thailand usually means that you save about 2-3 USD per day, which according to our experience the typical backpacker spends on beer. So in fact if you do shitty trips or you travel in comfort is not a matter of money it is rather a matter of your valuation of beer). So after this crappy bus ride we arrived in a even worse hostel at the thai border were we were served crappy food. We decided that we’d make this trip our first and very last “real backpacker” experience. For our gusto we had gone through enough trouble by that time and we prefer telling stories about the policemen at the customs offering you marijuana - which actually happens quiet often in Laos - to stories about the crap we “survived”.

After a good sleep in a dirty as hell hostel we crossed the border to Houai Sai, where we got offered marijuana for the first time by our Lao tour guide. Then we got our visa and guess what … they offered us marijuana again. Do we really look like drug addicts? I didn’t think so until this point of time. We moved about 150 m in direction of the place where we were supposed to take a boat bound for Pakbeng (half way to Luang Prabang) and we got offered marijuana again. This time a shop owner wanted to sell us something “to smoke”. There must be something about us making us look like we actually wanted to smoke one of the economically most important agricultural products of Laos. Entering the boat, the ticket officer also had some special green substance to offer and when we reached the guest house in the evening someone entered to offer us .. exactly “a smoke”. Ok, let’s face it. Rule #2: As a backpacker you have to deal with drug dealers because typical backpackers seem to smoke weed.

- STOP -

Have I mentioned that the wooden seats on the boat with about 30cms space for the legs and a 100% vertical backrest didn’t really add to my positive mood and neither did the fact that electricity in Pakbeng was turned off at 10.30pm so that we had no more fan? Pakbeng itself is a cosy village that only exists to host tourists on their way to Luang Prabang. I liked it but I didn’t like the food we were served by a “real” Indian (my bet goes for Malaysia; just to make sure I don’t forget: the waiter at this restaurant was trying to sell us ”something to smoke” too). We had been warned by our loyal travel guide LP that Lao usually don’t consume their food as it’s still hot. I prefer re-heated food to be hot rather than cold when I eat it.

Surprisingly we had a nice group of people around us and could catch a nice place on the floor in the front of the boat for the second day of our trip (9 hours boat ride). In fact the second day was ok and the incredibly nice riverside guesthouse in Luang Prabang (we paid comparably expensive 13 dollars for the room) finally turned my mood back to holiday mode.  We met up with the fairly international crew (Chile, Argentina, Spain, Ireland, England, Germany, Switzerland) that we had spent the day with, went to a restaurant had a few drinks and talked a lot (aka had fun). The next days were similar: some sighseeing, “international dinners” at nighttime and then some local market / club experience (Lao fake western music rocks!). One of the highlights was the nearby waterfall which featured crystal clear turquoise water - a dream came true as I stood in front of the “natural swimming pool”. In general Luang Prabang felt like real holiday again and I really loved the place for it’s combination of nature, markets, well preserved french colonial style buildings and laid-back people. (Although the many marijuana dealers aka waiters, tuk tuk drivers and tour guides got a little annoying after a while.)

We took a bus to Vientiane on which we got to know a German girl who had spent an internship there two years ago. She knew the place quiet well and again (like in Beijing and Hong Kong) we didn’t need a map to get around town and to discover the best restaurants/bars around. Vientiane is not a special place in any way but I still liked it. In summary, I absolutely loved Laos but I wouldn’t recommend anyone taking the boat trip we took. I’d rather recommend to fly straight to Luang Prabang and take a one day boat trip from there to the north.

Again, I have to postpone my picture uploads due to extremely slow internet connection.