..then it would look something like Laos. Friendly people, stunning landscape, clement weather, relaxed attitudes, Asia's best beer (Beerlao) everywhere (98% market share!), good bread, good coffee, great local food, plenty of decent western food if you feel like it, quiet roads, beautiful temples, amazing waterfalls tumbling through the trees, attractive local handicrafts, mostly cheap as chips (although some tourist businesses in Luangprabang are starting to hike their prices - and why shouldn't they?)...
Our first taste of it was the bus from Vietnam. We got crammed in the back with lots of the luggage and a young teacher from Ipswich, Dan. He got the short straw as the box behind his head kept falling on him when we went over the bumps. However, when we arrived in sleepy Savannakhet (now proud owner of lots of bits of tourist infrastructure I didn't see 7 years ago, like ATMs, supermarkets stocking everything from Pringles to Tim Tams to fisherman's friends, and Internet cafes) and settled down with our first Beerlao, the journey didn't seem too bad.
Another long bus ride the next day took us to Vientiane where we met Meredith, who'd flown out from Melbourne to travel with us for the next few weeks. On the way in we passed the brand new national stadium built top host the South-east Asian games, which by all accounts went off very well. Probably in preparation for this, the capital has had a facelift since I was last here, and now has a certain quiet charm about it - certainly one of the least capital-city like capitals I've been to. We visited the main tourist landmarks, including Patuxia, the Lao Arc de Triomphe made from concrete donated by the US to build a new runway for the airport. Even the inscription on it says " it doesn't look so good when you get close up"!
Next up was the backpackers' paradise (or backpackers' cliche?) of Vang Vieng. Cheap bungalows, cheap food and drinks 80p for a bucket of unidentified spirits and Coke (or Seven-up), bars showing comedy shows like Friends or Family guy on a loop, "happy" milkshakes and pizzas (although drugs are very illegal in Laos), but and the famous Vang Vieng tubing experience. You get run up in a pick-up with a big inner tube to a point 8k or so up the river. The river up here is lined with bars on either side, tempting you in with drinks deals, deafening pop music and activities like waterslides, rope swings or mud volleyball. You float downstream sitting in your tube, and pull in at whichever takes your fancy. If you're in danger of floating past, a couple of young lads throwout a plastic bottle on a rope to you and haul you in. When Meredith got caught in the wrong current and headed off to the far side of the river, one even swam across to make sure she made it to his bar. Since most of the bars are concentrated near the start, typically you end up paddling furiously at the end to get back before dark.
IF Vang Vieng is a backpacker's dream, then Luangprabang is a flashpacker's dream. And that's what Adrienne and I are, these days. still happy with a bit of an adventure and an experience that's a bit rough at the edges, but enjoying some creature comforts, too. We stayed in a lovely guesthouse overlooking the river, and with the most hi-tech shower in the whole of Laos. We had massages, lovely icecream, fantastic iced coffees and fresh juices, took a boat trip up the Mekong to a couple of caves, where local people put little Buddha statues as an offering; went to see a bear sanctuary next to a waterfall running through the trees into turquoise natural swimming pools; visited the old royal palace and temples with their gold leaf and stained glass mosaics glittering beautifully in the sun, and then relaxed drinking cocktails by the river as the sun went down.
We also went further afield and spent a few nights in the quiet villages of Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoi - the latter only accessible by boat from the former, and only having a few hours of electricity a day. WE did very little up here - much to the chagrin of the local lad who was trying to interest us in a fishing-and-BBQ trip. We found out later that when we didn't bite, he had to spend the day working in the rice fields - no wonder he was so keen! These rustic places were a reminder that the development we saw in the towns, driven by industry and tourism, had yet to percolate very far into the countryside.
Initially we planned to carry on taking buses and boats north and west to the Thai border and then head into the golden triangle of opium-growing infamy. But then we realised we would be spending most of the time on bumpy roads just for the sake of continuing overland. So we booked a flight from Luangprabang, and an hour later we were in Chiang Mai.
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