Laos - The Jewel of the Mekong

Sabaidee is 'hello' in Lao.

By now, long adventurous trips in December have become the norm for us. It was Madagascar with a touch of Seychelles and a long layover in the UAE in December 2016. It happened to be Laos with a touch of Bangkok and Colombo in December 2017. Laos is, in many ways, not unlike Madagascar. Both had the concepts of bush taxis. Both had unstructured road transport and prohibitively expensive airlines. Both were former French colonies with a profound French influence. Laos is an extremely beautiful landlocked country neighbouring China, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. It's by far the poorest country in Asia and has seen the least tourism in SE Asia. It's neither got any grand cities to boast of nor does it have grand ruins like Angkor. What it's got in plenty is the river Mekong, Buddhist temples and breathtaking natural beauty.

One of the temples in Luang Prabang.

There are several ways to get into Laos. It's got a land crossing from Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, apart from the international airports at Luang Prabang and Vientiane. Our initial plan was to fly into Udon Thani in Thailand and then cross into Laos by foot at Nong Khai, the Thai border town. However, owing to border runs, Thailand stopped treating the land exit as leaving the country. So, this meant we have to enter and exit Laos by land, which would be very time consuming. The plan was to exit Laos by flying out of Luang Prabang. So we finally decided to enter Laos by flying from Bangkok to Vientiane. By the last Kuala Lumpur trip we grew tired of flying AirAsia and wanted to avoid it. However, by this time we had already booked our onwards tickets to Bangkok by AirAsia. So we booked the tickets into Laos and out with Thai Smile and Srilankan from Bangkok to Colombo and then to Vizag.

Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport.

The trip began by starting off to Chennai from KR Puram railway station on 21 December. We spent the 22nd in Chennai, roaming about with Chandu and Pooja in a Zoomcar. We visited Marina beach, Kovalam beach and Dr. Arun's Photography museum. Chandu dropped us off at Chennai Intl. Airport. This time I had just one compact camera on me and Srivani had a small camcorder. So we did not go through the hassle of declaring our equipment to the customs officer. I was carrying a 1 inch compact camera, the Sony DSC-RX100 and Srivani had a Sony PJ-660 Handycam. We flew out on Thai AirAsia to DMK airport, Bangkok. This airport was the worst I've yet seen. The visa-on-arrival queue was a complete mess and it took us more than 3 hours to get it done (at such exorbitant prices!). We caught a bus from there to Mo Chit MRT station. At Mo Chit we took the MRT and reached our hostel. After a quick fresh-up, we set out to explore Bangkok! I was feeling hung-over from the lack of sleep and the DMK debacle and it took a bunch of coffees and energy drinks to set me straight. Our first stop on the MRT ride was Victory Monument. We later proceeded to a Miniso store near National Stadium. We finally ended up at Lumphini Park after having the only vegetarian food available in Burger King. It was a nice and quiet place with a nice lake in the middle. We sat there for a while and moved to Saphan Taksin MRT to catch the Chao Phraya express boat service. A quick 15 THB took us all the way to Wat Pho, opposite to Wat Arun. Wat Arun is a stunning landmark in Bangkok and is more Khmer in origin than Thai. It resembles a mini Angkor Wat, with its five peaks and similar carvings. Though it's called the Temple of the Dawn, it's actually way more beautiful during dusk. We reached a fishing rig near Wat Pho to film the sun setting over Wat Arun. It was glorious! After walking around the grand palace for a while, we caught a bus to National Stadium and then an MRT to Saphan Khwai, where our hostel was. The hostel itself was one of the best we've ever been to. It's a huge 18 bed dorm with a common area and a cafe downstairs. Each bed gets its own attached locker. Very quiet and well maintained.

Wat Arun. The temple of dawn, at dusk.

On the banks of the Mekong. Vientiane.

On the morning of 24th, we took MRTs to the Suvarnabhumi airport and flew out of Thailand by Thai Smile. We landed in Vientiane, Laos, by 1PM. The immigration was painless and swift. The uniforms of the immigration officers looked very Communist. After all, this was the Lao People's Democratic People's Republic! We had lunch at the airport as Thai Smile served no vegetarian food. We decided that about 40,000 kip was too much to get to the city by cab. So we walked out onto the highway. We soon found out that there was no concept of bus stops in the city and we can flag any bus down, wherever. We drank a breezer at a nearby bar, took a new SIM card, flagged down a local transport ferrying farmers and hopped on. Also on the vehicle were hens, geese, farm produce and the farmers themselves. After a half an hour ride along the banks of the Mekong, we reached Wat Ho Phraw Kaew. A short walk from there took us to our hostel, PVO Hostel. PVO was a much smaller setup, but clean nevertheless. It was a Vietnamese hostel, offering Vietnamese food and unlimited coffee/tea. The rest of the day was spent in basking in the glorious sunset over the Mekong, looking across the Lao-Thai border and wandering around in the night market nearby.

The stupa of Pha That Luang, Vientiane.

Monks in Wat Haw Phra Keo

The whole of 25th was spent in roaming around Vientiane. We rented a scooter from our hostel and started riding. Our first stop was the spectacular monument, Patuxay, which was modelled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It directly faces the presidential palace in a layout not unlike the Rashtrapathi Bhavan and India Gate connected by Rajpath. We climbed all the way to the top of the monument which gave a spectacular view of the surroundings. We continued onwards to the Pha That Luang temple. It's one of the most prominent landmarks in Vientiane. A large Buddhist stupa, covered with golden paint and people perambulating around it. Next to it is another temple with a reclined Buddha and monks quarters. After walking around them for a while we set out for our next destination, Wat Si Saket. The temples of Vientiane were once way more glorious and adorned as compared to today. Their treasures were looted in the last Siam invasion and taken to Bangkok. Lao temples give a true authentic feel and are not mere tourist attractions as the temples are in the neighbouring countries. After visiting the Wat Si Saket, we went around Wat Ho Phra Khew. This once held the emerald Buddha, which was taken from Chiang Mai. This in turn was taken to Bangkok's Wat Ho Phra Keo during the Siamese invasion. We went wandering around the morning market after this and the Talat Sao mall. It's got Laos' only Miniso store. We then returned our ride at the hostel, took some rest, and headed out for some bubble tea at a cafe called The Sweet Moo. Later, we headed out to another sunset over the Mekong followed by the night market and called it a day.

Night market by the Mekong. Vientiane.

At the Thai-German restaurant. Vang Vieng.

We got up early on 26th to do a quick walk in the foggy morning weather. We walked up to Patuxay for some photography before the sun and the crowd comes out. We also visited the That Dam, which is also known as the black stupa. This is what remains of the stupa built for the mythical Naga which was supposed to guard Vientiane. We had a bus to Vang Vieng at 10am. A pick up van came over to the hotel to pick us up and we boarded the bus at a few streets away from ours. The route to Vang Vieng was mostly boring with not much to see on either side. Things became picturesque only as we got closer to Vang Vieng. The bus dropped us at the Malany Bus Stand and we had a free tuk-tuk to transfer us to the town. Vang Vieng was an insanely beautiful little town up in the misty mountains of central Laos. It's filled with nature-related activities. Hot air ballooning, paramotoring, kayaking, etc. We had lunch at a Thai-German restaurant. The person who runs it was a Thai who grew up in Germany, before shifting back home and then to Laos. We had a solid meal of potato soup and vegetarian Thai green curry with sticky rice. It began drizzling as we checked into out hotel and it was very pleasant. There were three hot air balloons up above our roof, gently drifting. We had a booking for a hot air balloon ride early the next morning and the plan was to leave Vang Vieng for Luang Prabang by the 9AM bus. We walked around the town to get a feel for it. We had street food for dinner in one of the scores of street food stalls on the road.

Hot air balloons over Vang Vieng.

Vang Vieng.

27th December was a crazy day. We woke up early for the balloon ride, only to find torrential rain. The balloon pickup came anyway and we reached the airfield. The balloon was sitting right across from us but the pilot was not confident enough to fly it. He decided to err on the safer side and cancelled the flight. He offered either a refund or a reschedule. As this was a central part of the plan, we decided to postpone the bus to Luang Prabang to the next day and take the evening flight. We did this by talking to one of Malany's hotels' receptionist. We later found out that there was a separate Malany travels office who should have handled this. We had the whole day to kill in Vang Vieng. After some deliberation, we decided to kayak in the torrential rain. We had neither a poncho nor an umbrella. We were dripping wet the whole day. The kayak ride was out of this world. The turquiose blue waters of the Nam Song river snake through misty mountains with rapids in spots. The kayaking took a whole 3 hours and was super fun. I couldn't take my RX100 out due to the rain and we depended on a fellow traveller's phone to click photos. The evening flight did not happen as well due to the rain. We then decided to forego the Malany ticket and booked an overnight bus from VLT Travels in order to have a bit more time in Luang Prabang. We were scheduled to be picked up at 10 PM but the bus never came. We later learnt at 11 PM that the rain caused the bus to break down and we were stuck. We got a refund and the person at VLT offered to drop us on the highway to try hitchhiking. We could not find a single bus coming that way because of the several landslides that the rain caused. At 12 AM we decided to call it a day and checked ourselves into a nearby hotel for the night. The walk to that hotel itself took us through ankle-deep slush. We put all the wet and stinking clothes we had to dry and hit the bed.

Kayaking in the rain. Nam Song river, Vang Vieng.

Vang Vieng.

Malany bus stand. Vang Vieng.

The road to Luang Prabang.

Typical central Lao village.

The balloon did not fly the next morning as well, thanks to the rain. We had a ticket for 27th morning which we had shifted to 28th. This was done by someone other than the travels office themselves. So we had to run around a bit. We learned that the main highway leading to Luang Prabang was closed due to a landslide and that the bus will take a longer route which will take most of the day. We did not regret this as this route had some of most beautiful landscapes in the country. Most blogs I read online suggested doing this route in day time to enjoy the scenery. I second that. Most of this route is winding hilly roads with hairpin bends. The bus stops for a break once in a couple of hours. Everything is sold in these break spots, from fruits to roasted horseshoe crabs. We finally reached Luang Prabang by 4 PM on 28th. We checked into the Aham Backpacker's Hostel on Kingkitsarath road, which was not far from the old religious centre of the city. Luang Prabang was once the capital of the country (when it was the Kingdom of Luang Prabang) and is still the most charming city over there. It's got a very laid back feel as compared to Vientiane. After dumping our bags in the hostel and laying out all the wet clothes to dry, we walked over to the famed temples of Luang Prabang. We wandered around, temple after temple, till we reached the biggest one of them all, Wat Xieng Thong. The city ends there, on the banks of the Mekong. We then walked over to the night market, where we got street food for dinner. We walked back to our hostel to call it a day.

The road to Luang Prabang.

Farm land enroute to Luang Prabang.

Wandering around Luang Prabang's temples at night.

Srivani at the night market.

Temples in Luang Prabang.

The 29th of December was our last day in Laos. We got up pretty early to witness the ancient Lao Buddhist tradition of alms giving. Each morning, the monks exit their monasteries and come out into the city to collect alms. By this time, the townspeople keep rice and other food ready to be donated. Yongkian Tan, a Singaporean traveller staying in our hostel, joined us for the 2 Km walk to the temples. The ceremony began at 6AM and lasted for about an hour. We witnessed the whole length of it till the last monk returned to Wat Xieng Thong. We skipped breakfast, rented a slick new scooter and set off to the Kuang Si falls. We had a flight out of Laos at 2:30 PM and had no time to waste! Kuang Si is famous for its clear turquoise blue waters and is the subject of countless wallpapers. It's about 30 Km from the city, up the river. It opened at 8:00 AM and we were one of the first visitors for the day. We were fortunate to visit the falls before the crowds started storming it. We were able to film many videos and long exposure shots of this beautiful water fall. We started back at 11:00 AM to reach the hostel in about an hour and checked out by 12 noon. We decided to walk the 6 kilometers to the LPQ airport rather than take a taxi. The plan was to see the other side of Luang Prabang on the way. So, loaded with a backpack and camera, we walked for the next one hour across highways, city streets and one awesome wooden bridge over the Mekong. We were able to reach the airport in time by about 1 PM. This was actually the new airport, built beside the old terminal. It was very minimalistic. We had no food at all till this point. Even the Thai Smile airline had no vegetarian food. So, we waited till we landed in Bangkok to eat the first meal of the day. We spent the rest of the night touring the Suvarnabhumi airport, doing window shopping, querying around for Srilankan transfer counters and sleeping on the airport sofas. We couldn't buy anything that night because we did not have the boarding passes (apparently, the boarding pass is issued only an hour or so before the flight at the transfer desk).

Alms ceremony. Luang Prabang.

Kuang Si falls.

Crossing the bridge on the Mekong during the 6Km airport transfer by foot.

LPQ airport's new terminal.

We woke up on 30th December on a sofa at the BKK airport. We finally got our boarding passes at the transfer desk, bought some stuff and hopped onto the Srilankan A321 bound for Colombo. We reached Colombo and checked into Erandi Holiday Home in the outskirts of Negombo. We met some more new friends (this time Pakistani and Sri Lankan) in this place. After some chatter, we hit the bed for some badly needed sleep. We had a flight out of Colombo the next morning, taking us to Vizag and finishing yet another awesome trip.

After spending the night in BKK airport.

Somewhere in central Sri Lanka. Shot from the sky.

To the left is the Indian ocean. To the right is the Negombo lagoon.