Our rave bus from Hanoi got to the boarder after 8hrs at 4 am. Making great time. Over the course of the journey the locals had managed to stuff a speaker system in our footholds and the seats between us (better than waking up to a little Laotian man between us like the argentinian couple in front of us or a box of chickens like the horror stories we heard (Side note: we heard a story where the bus hit a huge cow along the route and instead of letting 1000lbs of beef go to waste, they moved up all the bags from underneath the bus at like 2am and stuffed the dead cow in the luggage area. Fucking Asia man)). Instead of just letting us sleep comfortably, the driver thought it was a great idea to shut the AC off in the bus filled with 60 stinky people until the boarder opened at 7. It was a freaking miserable sweatshop. We had to get out early just to breathe. When it finally hit 7, they made the League of Nations westerners they had jammed in the cheap seats (Roland and I, a Japanese guy, a Mexican guy, two Argentinians, an Australian chick and her BF from Bali) do a 2km long march thru the misty Laotian mountainside. We were alone on this cool morning, with roosters clucking in the distance, trekking through a muddy construction site, looking like an idiot in my socks and ridiculously small rubber sandals, to the Laos visa offices.
It made absolutely no sense that we were the only people they made do this, but doing it in a crew made all the difference. I couldn't even imagine ever doing it alone. We got through the boarder and continued on 12 hrs to the capital city of Vientiane. It was one of those trips that was just so ridiculous and indescribable that it bonds people together, and we made some great friends that day.
Vientiane was exactly what the doctor ordered. No more cacophonous beeping. The humidity dissipating. The party scene was minimal. It was just chill (a word I will use a lot to describe this country). The bus crew walked around a little to find a hostel, then agreed to meet back up for dinner and some Beerlao. We took in the night market, and a really solid street-side dinner, played some pool and posted. Good vibes all around.
The next morning Roland and I decided to split up for half the day. He wanted see the Buddha park with the mexican dude, Josh, about an hour outside the city on motorbike, and I wanted to see the offerings of the capital city on bicycle. We're traveling for 2 months together so its totally cool to split up for an afternoon and meet back up. I watched the two get a 30 second tutorial on how the manual motorbikes worked (this was far from your standard moped) and let them set off. I took a seat inside the hostel to start mapping out my plans when they headed out. No joke, about 10 seconds after, I heard a screech. Then a thump. Then gasps from our euro roommates who were standing outside. We ran out to see what the hell just happened, and Roland hadn't made it the across the intersection. The motorbike was down, a white pickup truck was stopped in the middle of the intersection. Steveo was bleeding from the leg, but seemed to have his whits about him. He made it about 40 ft and lost control of his bike (sketchy brakes and all) going 5mph, crashing into the side of a turning car. The police came and chalked the area like a dead body, but thank god no one was hurt. I imagine it was a trip to see with his 6'3, hairy, gangly frame crashing into this guy, but there was a giant scratch through the passenger side door and a Roland-size dent in the pick up hull. Yeeeeeeesh.
He had hit two teenagers and after about twenty stunned, semi-chaotic minutes, Momma bear came and was pissed. It was her car. She wanted to get an auto-shop referral before any cash switched hands. This may not end up great for the Americans.
This was not how either of is expected to spend our first day in Laos...The cops made Roland get in the car he hit and drive 5 km to the garage on the other end of the city. I wasn't gunna let my guy get chopped up or thrown into jail somewhere by the Lao police, so I hopped on the back of the cops motorbike and followed the pickup. All the while whizzing by everything I wanted to see that day. National palace. Morning market. Wat Si Saket. The Black Stupa. We were passing the hoards of monks walking the streets with umbrellas, and tuk tuk drivers sleeping in makeshift hammocks in the back of their rides. It was a comical scene: a bigassed white dude on the back of a teeny-tiny cops' motorbike cruising thru the capital.
(This city seems to be gearing up for great change as evidenced by the World Trade Center complex that is under construction and looks to be quite impressive. This place just hasn't been touched AT ALL by western conglomerates. Coke products and belgian beer where the only familiar things I have seen, and as a result there's such an indescribable, only in Laos, tranquility to the city that I was able to see on the back of a 5'5 Laotian police officers bike, I almost kind of enjoyed it.)
We got to the body shop to find the classic slime ball autoshop owner. Gold watch and rings, bald but covering it up with a combover, not an ounce of car grease on him, but he was a greasy motherfucker. Dude would have been right at home in North Jersey. We posted up with the Lao family and cops for about a half hour, waiting to hear the total for the damage.
Strange thing was, these young cops didn't really seem like assholes at all, and back in the states the damage (a 6 foot long deep scratch and Roland-size dent) on the car would have been about 1000$, but we knew the bill would be steep, especially hearing that the cops would for sure get some sort of "fine" kickback. This final price-tag of this incident: 4,000,000 kip. Thats million. About $500. Fuckkkk.
When we tried to argue it, they played the no English card. Of course. There was nothing Roland could do but bend over and take it. He wasn't in Lao jail and was healthy. We'll take that any day. We dipped out of Vientiane that night for Vang Vieng and didn't turn back.
Vang Vieng is the notorious city in Laos that is renowned for its tubing. It made Sugar River in Wisconsin look like a bitch...and i love that place. There were hundreds of bars along the way, ziplines, rope swings, they pulled people in with free opium (if wanted), and there were hundreds of people a day getting crazy drunk. About 4 years ago the Lao government shut it all down, a result of way to many westerners cracking their heads open on rocks or drowning. Justtttt missed it. What's left though, is still a shitshow of a good time.
We finally started to rough it with our accommodations, and got our own private bungalow at a funky little hostel called Pan's Place for only 2$ each a night. The owner wanted to create a place that was like the good old days in the 70s that provided a groovy setup, giving you the bare essentials, but with unreal hospitality. And by God he did it. He was a semi-creepy little kiwi hippie, but the nicest guy, telling us all the places for 'specialty baked goods' in the town. It was the perfect backpackers spot.
That night we ran into the australian and surfer dude from Bali, Allie and Wayan, on the street. (We ended up spending the next 2 weeks with them. So more on them later). Games of pool and live music at Gary's Irish Bar and a night of dancing and fighting off lady boys at Room 101 (which was a Nazi bar??), followed by the outdoor chill zone at our hostel till 4. It was a really really dope night.
The following morning we experienced the insanity of tubing. We went went with Allie and Wayan and met a couple British girls Hannah and Lauren and Canucks bros on the tuk tuk in. Friends on friends to start the day.
It's not what it used to be that's for damn sure. 100's of bars along the way, down to only 3. Who knows if I would have survived the good ole days. Here's a semi rundown of the day: they drop you in your tube in the river around 12:30, you make it 100 feet and you're at the first bar. The first bar starts mad chill, casual drinking, with some beer pong, climbing up bamboo, and this cool frisbee team drinking game called 'Beersby'. Basically the first bar allows all 60something tubers start getting a buzz, get to know each other, and sets the table for the rest of the day. Float another couple hundred feet to the other side of the river to the second bar. This bar is where the party begins. The music bumps, tons of beer pong games, bocce ball, water basketball, volleyball courts, tons of shotgunned Beerlao and they give out free shots of potent Lao vodka with every drink purchase. Another few hundred ft is bar 3. I blacked out and barely remember, but there was a covered dance floor and a bar with strong buckets of booze. Followed by 45 minutes floating in the mountain river. The marathon lasts till 7ish.
The shitshow really started at bar 2 where we played way too many games of beer pong with these British chicks, and too many free shots to count. And a small laotian bar mitzvah dancer getting everyone hype.. It's everything you wanted the tubing experience to be. By bar 3 I was wayyy overserved and was crushing on this British chick. I ended up ditching all my friends (classic) to hook up with with her for the last stretch of the tube. We ended up overshooting the part where you get off, had to carry our tubes through a brickle patch, and then got lost in a dark Lao town crossing two sketchy wooden brides straight out of Bridge Over River Kwai, but managed to make it back in kind of one piece.
Did I go home and crash?? Hell no. I ran into Roland and the crew, yelled at him for losing my wallet, then abruptly found it in my pocket a second later and went out for the night. Spilled a lot of drinks that night...But managed to keep my cool and have a fun night with a local Lao girl while Roland was with this chick Simone who we had met along the way. Epic day. Vang Vieng hasn't missed a beat.
We surprisingly got up early, like freaking champs, went to a Blue lagoon and a gigantic cave the next morning before our bus at 2. We ended up continuing our Lao travels with Wayan and Allie the next day. They have been the two nicest people we have met along the way of our travels.
Wayan is a surfer from Bali (for sure next place I will be traveling) and the most happy-go-lucky person I've ever met. He was just non stop smiles, loved condiments on his food even more than I do, unreal at bargaining down prices and I probably only understood 3/4 of the words coming out of his mouth (Allie and Roland were my translators). His girlfriend Allie was just as amazing and mellow, one of the chilliest and kindest chicks and together they put up with all of our bullshit and shenanigans for almost 2 weeks of our journey.
Luang Prabang was a whole different animal than VV, but a perfect pause in all the hard partying. This chilled out holy city lies in the middle of a mountain range and is full of wats, monks (or little Buddhas as Wayan called em) and temples. It offered a ton to do if you wanted to be active, or great places to just relax and drift by. We took a day trip to epic waterfalls where we did some serious waterfall cliff jumping and spent a ton of time at the town's great night market. They had multiple stands with all-u-can-eat vegetarian buffets for only $1.20. Allie was in heaven.
Simone joined back up with the crew that night after her time in Vang Vieng and we all posted up at this dope bar Utopia to watch the sunset. Pool and whiskey/coke buckets ensued at another bar in town, and when the bar closed at midnight we experienced Luang Prabang bowling (since bars close so early in town, most westerners head out in a tuk tuk late night to a bowling alley that serves booze about 15km outside the city). We got to the alley to find a pretty rowdy scene, and despite all the heavy drinking, it's not like weren't gunna get a few games of intense bowling in. After taking the first game handedly, Roland put up a hell of a fight against me in the last game, putting together an insane strike filled round. I came back and after Roland put up a choke job 4 in the last frame after a strike, we tied at 138. The bowling comeback of the century was a great way to close out the night, and after pushing back a local Laotian trying to con me into playing him, we grabbed a couple road beers and took the tuk tuk back through the cooling night.
Bowling tensions from the night before having subsided, we just chilled out the next morning and meandered through the warm city. Before our sleeper bus to Thailand that night, we finished the day off climbing to a mountain pagoda with unreal views of the city. When we got to the top, everyone was dead silent, taking in the spectacular views of the city. Everyone, but this little bearded Japanese man who was humming Isreal Kamakawiwo'ole's 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' and strumming a eukalele. It was like God had sent an angel to perform for us for 15 minutes. With smokey fires billowing from the distant mountains and the light reflecting off the Mekong, it was the first real spiritual moment I had experienced over the course of the trip. It was truly amazing.
We crossed the river that mild afternoon to post up at a beautiful bar, where we kicked back, closed our eyes, took off our shoes and posted for a few hours. With the sun shine peeking through the bamboo surrounding the bungalow, Amy Winehouse playing off in the distance, roosters crowing, incense and lemongrass wafting in the air, fishing boat motors humming on the muddy Mekong, spicy squid and Beerlao in my stomach, Laos was everything I wanted it to be an needed it to be at that moment. It was a respite from all of the chaos we had experienced in the major cities and was somewhere that gave us a chance to lay back on a pad, kick our feet up and let the world slowly drift by. I'll be back Laos, I'll be back. I just hope you stay the same in the meantime.
My two Cents on- Laos:
What a freaking country. So chilled out and laid back, just a complete 180 degree switch-up from every Asian country I have ever been to. There are little geckos crawling over everything, all the restaurants play episodes of Friends 24-7, Laotians are the nicest people we've come to meet over the course of our travels (I left my wallet at the hostel in Vang Vieng and before our bus left, a woman who worked there, motorbiked all around town to find me and give it back before we took off. All money accounted for. It was beautiful, and it's virtually untouched by Western major brands and chains. That being said though, the major thoroughfare roads are unpaved and brutal to travel on.
I could spend a month hanging out in Luang Prabang. The town is so chill, it's not heavy on the nightlife (but its there if you want it), food is great, it's cheaper than cheap, and there are endless trekking, waterfall and day trip opportunities in the mountains surrounding the city.
Best thing we did: Vang Vieng was such an insane 2 nights and 3 days, but the waterfalls in Luang Prabang were unreal.
Thing I wish we did:
Our crunch for time made us miss out on two pretty cool things: the 4 day treehouse and zip line excursion in the jungle called the 'Gibbon Experience', and a 2 day slow boat up the Mekong River to the Thai boarder with an overnight stop in some remote Lao river town. Could've been a real dope time either way.
Best thing we ate:
Salt grilled white fish stuffed with Kafir lime and lemongrass on the streets of Vientiane.
Cabbage and lettuce roll ups on the streets of Luang Prabang from the nicest lady ever. Filled with fried shallots, thick peanut sauce. Some had eggplant.
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