The long one trying to cover a week

Urged upon by mom I get myself to writing. What did I do? So many things can happen in one week that I don’t know where to start…

I’m in Huay Xai right now… It’s a sleepy little border town. I can actually see Thailand on the other side of the Mekong river. That reminds me that the Laotian part of my trip is coming to the end. Just one more thing to do here left… But I was supposed to write about what I did not what I will do…

I will start with the cave. On my last day in Vang Vieng I discovered why this town became a legend in the first place. Tired of tubing and the town itself I decided to explore a bit the surrounding area. I wanted to drive a motorbike myself but after trying it out I didn’t feel all that comfortable about the idea anymore. My skills (lack of them most probably) or state of the motorbike (less ego thretening version) made it much more easy to decide to rent one motorbike and let Andy drive (a friend I met in the hostel). We got lost a few times on the way but in the end we made it to the Blue Lagoon and Phu Kham Cave. We decided not to hire a guided (which was recomennded) and explore the place on our own. To reach the cave you need to climb up the mountain first. What we saw when we got there was simply amazing! Beautiful cave with a little temple in it. The light was falling directly on the reclining Buddha statue and there was nobady but us inside. We walked around a bit and sat down to watch the temple. Then we saw a sign “to the cave” on one of the stones. Puzzeled we followed the arrow. What we discovered? The real cave! All that time we were in the corridor while the salon was waiting! We came in. The cave was huge and pitch black! It was like being in an underground 2 store building! It was amazing and scary in the same time. We were going deeper and deeper not knowing what we would find… At some point we got to the place that when I turn off my flash light there was a complete darkness. I felt like in an acient Indian buryng site… Don’t laugh your imagination plays tricks on you in place like that plus some stones really looked like bones!  Absolutely amazing  experience! I left Vang Vieng happy.

After the city of madness I went to “her majesty Luang Probang” Unesco-protected World Heritage city. Hmmm…. I wrote so much about the cave that now I need to make it short. What did I do? Highlights:

– I met some friends I thought I would never see again and sang/whisper happy birthday in front of the temple at midnight when all the city was asleep

– Saw some temples and visited 3 of the surroding waterfalls. So beautifull…

– Went to the Lao school and helped with English classes. Interesting experience…

– Did the 2 days mahout (elephant keeper/ driver) training course.

I guess I should write more on that one… Some facts. Laos used to be known as Lane Xang which means Land of Million Elephants because… there was literally a million elephants walking freely in the jungles of the North and the South. Now there are maybe 1600 animals. Just as little as 10 years ago Lao Government put elephants under protection.

About it 1/3 of the remaining population is working really hard in the forest industry. It is very abusive environment. Near Luang Probang there are elephants camps which try to rescue elaphants from that kind of work. I went to one of them.

That’s what I learnt. Riding an elephant is not that easy. Sitting on it’s head is not that comfortable (bum and legs hurt..). Elephants eat and shit a lot. A lot! Unfortunately my mahout didn’t speak any English (the only words he knew were “Beer Lao” which he shouted every time the elephant was pissing).  So you can imagine that passing knowledge was rather difficult. But I got to ride a lot on the elephant and bath them. Although I leart basic commands I suspect that my elephant was doing what she wanted to do anyway. I could shout “Pai!!! Pai!!!” (Go!!! Go!!!) but she would move when she felt like 🙂

– I saw a Khmu village (Hoify Village).

– I spend 2 days on a slow boat on a Mekong river. Very relaxing journey although I was constantly torn between observing the amazing views and reading “Midnight’s children”.

– Probably I saw a former king of Laos… That one I have to investigate more before writing about it.

That would be it for the last week. Of course a lot of other things happend as well but that’s another story. Tomoroww I will be deep in the jungle of the Bokeo Nature Reserve hanging sometimes as high as 150 meters above the ground. Yes… I booked myself the famous Gibbon Experience 🙂 Will write about it soon!