Luang Prabang expansion and Vientiene thefts

If any of you read my posts and like the sound of Luang Prabang, get there quick. There is a plan afoot to expand the airport so it can take more and larger planes. Currently there are only around 70,000 passengers per year arrive by plane. There are also some problems about the ruling not allowign large coaches into the World Heritage centre of Luang Prabang.

The Vientiene Times also reported arrests after a spate of bag thefts by people on motorbikes, so watch out if you are walking around.

Leaving Luang Prabang....erm, I think

Jane chilling in l'etranger bookshop while I work out my tie is disappearing :

Jane and I on Phu Si hill, just before sunset :

Well I've finally decided to leave Luang Prabang! It's not easy though. It's been great hooking up with Jane (ex-Raleigh) here but as usual, it's always too short. It's been like having a mate come over and visit. Regular readers (ha, who am I kidding) will know I was keen to try and find out about volunteering with the Red Cross here and Jane is going to do that tomorrow...arrrggg! So I think I'm going to have to hand over the keys to what feels like my new (temporary ) home town to her, and seeth with jealousy over her updates.
Yes I could stay around for another week but I also looked at a calendar today, and as

I thought every time when thinking about a year out - deadlines suck! Need to finish my mini tour to get back to Thailand in mid Dec, and Vietnam in 3 weeks so hardly any time at all! So, sadly it's time to start moving south to Vang Vieng, Vientiene, and hopefully down through souther Laos and '4000 Islands' to cross into Cambodia.....

Sob, sob.... mind you though - could change plans tonight!!

l'etranger bookshop restaurant - the ultimate chill :

Back in Luang Prabang

It's been a long time since I had close contact with a female, but today I got all hot and sweaty with a local. I gently caressed her bottom with my foot while her face were in my private parts, and every so often we would glance at each other to check we were both still ok, her hands moving around my legs at various intervals.

Unfortunately it was because I was one of the last ones on the pick up back to Luang Prabang, so here was around 20 folk piled on a share taxi (converted pick up) back to Luang Prabang. I was hanging off the back standing up with some other guys, there were plenty of locals crammed in the back, and this lass was dangling from the rear of the pick up. I was standing up there for almost 4 hours, but it was the best place to see what we were passing through. Once my nervousness got over the fact that the van started leaning as we went around corners, the odd skid from the driver etc, it was a pretty good journey considering.

I'm back in Luang Prabang after a quick circuit around Phonsavan (Plane of Jars), Sam Neu, Vieng Xia, Nong Khiaw and Mon Neu. It almost feels like coming home, but I think I'll be leaving on Wednesday morning after my passport comes back (hopefully) with Cambodian and Vietnam visas in it. Half the last few days (I think I left last Wednesday) have been spent on some form or transport or other. These included a pickup, full and empty buses, bikes, boats, and a fruit truck (we kinda missed the last share taxi back from the caves at Vieng Xai so had some negotiating to do. It was either pay the fruit truck guy and help ourselves to his oranges, whilst dangling off the back, or pay the guy who tried to rip us off - we had no choice and a great story).

Anyway, I'll write more soon, but that's all just now folks!

Muang Ngoi Neua to Luang Prabang

As you can imagine we were up for the first boat leaving at 9.30am, happy in the knowledge we'd catch a bus that connected with the boat in the morning - information gratefully received from the aussie couple involved in discussions the night before.

As we arrived around 10.30am we had a pretty mad dash to cross the bridge, rescue our luggage, settle our bill and dart back to grab a bus. As always seems to happen, when we were heading up the street from the boat a sawngthaew driver looked out at us and shouted 'Udomxai'?. This was Angelica's destination.

'Can you wait until I get my luggage?'
'15 minutes'.

Deal was done, other travellers promising to wait for Angelica, and the Aussies doing the same for me on the way back to Nong Khiaw.

When I got back I was shouted over to my pickup which was jam packed and fully loaded, and Angelica's was ready to go. I've never found out if she made it to Udomxai as her driver seemed to criss cross our path several times getting out of the two street town! I settled into my four hours of hanging off the back, as always the best way to see the place, and get a tan at the same time. This journey was a bit sketchy at first as you could see the tilt of the pickup as it rounded corners - you're sheilded from that inside. The Aussies sounded concerned for me every time we stopped but I was happy as Larry (who is Larry in that saying anyway) having a whale of a time. Gladly the driver seemed to calm down after a few small screeches going through a town, and I had an interesting chat about teaching in Korea with a Canadian.

After trying a few places I ended up back at my Pathoumphone, the same accommodation as my previous visit to Luang Prabang, and felt like I was coming home!

I knew Jane, one of the Project Managers from Raleigh may have been in town around now so I dashed to an internet cafe to send a quick email incase she picked it up that day. An hour later I had a reply, and we were sorted to meet at my 'just in case you are in town' destination at 7pm. I bumped into her on the way into town, sorted her out at the same accommodation as me, and we headed out so I could show her this place I raved about, the night markets, the Lao Lao bar, and of course, another trip to the Vietnam Bar after hours.

This time the Vietnam Bar wasn't as welcoming as they had just had a police visit. After a little pleasant negotiation I was allowed to carry on my celebrations with the 6 people effectively having an illegal lock-in. All of a sudden I seemed to get a bottle of Thai Whisky which was finished rather rapidly as my new found Dutch friends appeared to help themselves safe in the promise they'd buy the next one, and we had good chats with a few Irish lads. My first disagreement happened with the Dutch prick when he backtracked on his witnessed statment...so I bought another bottle!

A late night was had by all, but luckily this time a tuk tuk took us straigh back to the accommodation, bypassing the need to find a friendly local to give me a lift around town on his motorbike like the last Vietnam Bar outing......

Luang Prabang to the Plain of Jars, Phonsavan

I left Luang Prabang for Phonsavan a day after after my sister left Luang Prabang. After multiple options of where to head to I decided to stick to my original plans and got the 8hr daytime road trip to Phonsavan, arriving just in time for dinner. At lunch we stopped briefly in a transit town where I ended up chatting to Cecile from France, well, the French Reunion Island off Madagascar. She was to become my travelling partner and fellow conned merchant for the next day's trip to the Plain of Jars.

Phonsavan is a pretty, well it's fair to say, dead town. There's on strip with guesthouses and a few less than outstanding restaurants. And it's cold (at least it is in October, but not as cold as other places in Laos). We stayed in Phoukham Guesthouse which turned out to live up to it's phonetic English sound (alberit slightly manipulated) - "F*ck'em". We paid three times as much as the other two girls on our tour the next day, and he refused to take me to the town I really wanted to see (he wanted an extra $15 each for that, despite already paying $12 more than others). After some negogiating (pleading) I decided to bin visiting the town over giving him extra cash so left Phonsavan a tad disappointed as I never managed to see the town that has houses constructed of UXO (UnXploded Ordnance) stilts. About the most interesting thing about Phonsavan, but in a very sad way, is that it's the home of the UK based MAG group that tries to find UXO in the area, which was the most bombed in recent wars. Their office only pointed me to the website when I asked about volunteering and how you went about it. They must be well funded though as they had a load of flash 4x4's outside.

Oh yeh - the Plain of Jars...is it worth the trip? If I had known I probably wouldn't have done it, but I did as it was on my way to Sam Neua / Vieng Xai and it broke up my journey. Our tour guide didn't give us too much background, but that's partially as their origin isn't totally understood yet. I'm sure it's of interest to many, but it is just a field with ancient rock jars on it, which are pretty weird in their own right.