8 Days of Nautral Beauty and Cultural Experiences in Laos
It's been an interesting mix of outdoor activities, sights, and cultural experiences in our short time here in Laos. With 3 days in Vang Vieng and 4 days in Luang Prabang -- I wish we had more time in Vang Vieng to explore more of the outdoors, views, and natural beauty there. Maybe in the future, we will come back and spend more time there, plus other hiking/trekking destinations in this country!
Vang Vieng: Beauty and Activities Outdoors
After landing in the capital of Vientianne, we quickly moved by new high-speed train to Vang Vieng to take in the limestone mountains/cliffs, caves, lagoons and river.
1. Hiking to Nam Xay Viewpoint
This was alot more strenous and crowded than I had thought it would be! Backpackers galore, and some ill-fitted in slides/flip-flops for the climb up. In dry season, the dirt underfoot is certainly slippery, and the climb is quite steep, with minimal maintenance (as you'd expect in Laos).
The view was worth it, to see the valley of rice fields and the steep limestone mountains surrounding it on all sides. We even got the cheesy "mandatory" pics on one of the motorcycle props. The second motorcycle was perched in an even sketchier way, so we get the pic of that one!
Unfortunately, the square footage of the top of the rock/mountain viewpoint itself is very small. Going late in the day to avoid the heat was great, but it also coincided with backpackers going there for the sunset and with a large number of somewhat rude, smoking young backpackers there, we didn't stay for very long.
All that said, I was very happy to do some hiking after several weeks of travel!
2. Kayaking Nam Xong River
I was also very happy to do some kayaking -- more outdoor movement -- after all our travels. Being Laos, the safety standards aren't quite the same. They gave zero instruction (other than just saying to follow them and to go single file through the narrows) after everyone in our group all said that we knew how to kayak. Then, we were off, and I was surprised to find that we hit Class 2 rapids! Was a little nerve-wracking each time, for sure! On a few of them, the guides jumped out and manually guided us through the right way. Thank goodness the dry season meant it was pretty shallow and we were usually more at risk of running aground, or scraping our boat and ourselves, and not really of drowning (was happy about that after they gave Simone a lifejacket that was WAY too big for her).
I had to really concentrate hard on steering each time, and had to get Simone to just stop paddling when we were in the rapids. The young British couple at the front of our group almost flipped once (their kayak filling with water, their wet bag and shoes starting to float, they said) -- and luckily, that didn't happen to us. But I did accidentally bump us into the banks of the river by some trees once, and another time, almost got us turned around to head backwards as I kind of froze when the rapids started turning us. Luckily that time, the guide was closeby and I snapped-to and turned our kayak around.
The kayaking was longer than I had thought it would be, and quite a bit of work to keep up with the fast pace of the guide, but I loved it!
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Getting ready for kayaking (Simone in her lifejacket that was way too big).
Unfortunately, no pic of the rapids as we were focused too hard on navigating and paddling! |
3. Angel Cave, Tham None (Cave)
On the kayaking trip, the guide also took us to a center where there was ziplining and tons of tour groups. Vang Vieng has clearly been discovered as an adventure tour area!
This is where two caves were located: Angel Cave, a dry cave we walked through, and Tham None Cave, where we floated in tubes part way through, then got out to climb the rest. Unfortunately, the guide hurried us through the caves with no explanation on the history of the area, or the geology or formations. I love exploring caves slowly, so we tried to take our time, but really wished we had more time and explanataion there.
4. Sunset on the River
I'm glad we didn't pay for the touristy "sunset cruise" activities. One evening, we just got drinks and snacks at a nice restaurant bar along the Nam Xong river, and watched the sunset from there. Generally, sunsets are a little over-rated, but this was a pleasant happy hour/evening.
And Davie took an awesome photo of me and Simone in our matching mother-daughter Laos dresses!
5. Blue Lagoons
To explore the blue lagoons, we ended up renting a 4-person buggy. Unfortunately, we couldn't go to Blue Lagoon 4 (which was highly recommended to us from a French guy), as the buggy can't be driven on regular roads (only backroads). We went to Blue Lagoon 1, 3, and 2 (in that order) instead.
Not really "lagoons", these bodies of water are more like fresh springwater pools fed from the limestone mountains. It was very refreshing and alot of fun for the kids! I'm never a fan of jumping from high diving boards or tree swings, but there was plenty of that at each one and the kids loved it.
Blue Lagoon 1 was way too crowded (seems that all the tour groups stop there either first thing in the morning or last stop of their day). Though the diving board was good fun, we probably should've left earlier (the kids didn't realize that the next stop would also have really fun water activities).
Blue Lagoon 2 had a cave that seemed really cool (with ladders, pools inside) -- but we hadn't brought proper shoes, and it was pretty chilly by that time, so we didn't do it. Next time if I'm there, I will bring proper shoes, and leave another day for exploring the other Blue Lagoons (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)!
6. Vang Vieng Night Market
Walking up and down the night market walking street was our evening activity. Davie loved this at first (having experienced them in Vietnam), but by the end of this, the shininess of it wore off.
The highlight for me was the outdoor hot pot restaurant where they charge by the piece or bundle of food ($0.25 per "bundle"), then you cook it yourself at the small tables (complete with the little kiddie chairs that Dave has a hard time fitting into!).
Luang Prabang: Culture, Religion and History in a UNESCO World Heritage Town
After our short time in Vang Vieng, we took the new Chinese-built/financed high-speed train to Luang Prabang (about 1 hour compared, to the previous 5 hour drive it used to be). With our timing here coinciding with Lunar New Year, and the new train (which comes into this town from China as well), it was very crowded, with many sold out guest houses and some tourists having to walk around looking for places to stay.
We had more time here to take our itinerary slower, so the kids spent some time on their math, reading, and Duolingo (Japanese) while Dave and I had more time to think about some of the logistics of our next travel steps.
1. Kuang Si Waterfalls
One afternoon, we grabbed a tuk tuk with a Laotian family (who it seemed were tourists from another town) out to the waterfalls (a bit of a "longer" one-hour drive to be in the back of a pickup truck)!
We walked up to the start (the biggest falls), and Dave went alone on a 45-minute walk higher up, which the kids and I opted not to do. If we had had more time, and better shoes, I would've done this!
But with only 3 hours (the tuk tuk driver waiting), we opted to spend more of our time inside the waters. Wow, it was pretty chilly, but even Simone eventually got in the water, and we swam up to some of the falls. I'd say we were the minority in getting into the waters, and most of the tourists/travellers looked at the falls from the dry warmth of the land! I guess having swum in cold waters in Canada, we were more used to this.
In the last pool (probably 2nd from the bottom?), when we climbed up the falls, the water coming directly off the rocks onto our head was FREEZING cold. We were in the shade, and by that time, had been in the water for over an hour -- so some of my fingers actually lost feeling. But it was definitely refreshing and rewarding to have swam and stood in the falls!
2. Walking Around Town
With our slowed down pace here, we definitely spent alot of time walking around the main streets (the one that shuts down for the night market, the one along the river, and the alley-streets in between). By the end of our 4 days here, the kids were calling our hotel "home", knew their way around, and were super comfortable walking practically on their own.
3. Rice Farming at Living Land Organic Farm
As a unique experience, we spent a half day at the Living Land Organic Farm. Yes, we probably overpaid and yes it's probably also a tourist trap. But it was still learning, cultural, historical and fun for the kids.
This was the best and most "hosted" of our experiences in Laos where our guide spoke English well, and was great at hosting us. Of course alot of the manual and traditional ways of rice farming have given way to more modern equipment (at least I'd hope so, as it all seemed like a lot of hard manual labor): germinating the seeds, tilling the soil (which is more like clay) with the buffalo, planting it, making sure the steps are set up for irrigation. One thing I learned is that the steps aren't filled with water for the sake of watering it, but rather as a way to manage the weeds (so they're drowned out).
At each step, when our guide asked if people wanted to try, the kids (in particular, Simone) were first to raise their hands and wanted to give each step a go. It was great to see them really getting into this experience!
4. Buddhism in Luan Prabang
It's hard not to notice the large number of temples and monasteries in this town. As an outsider, it's so strange to me the amount of land and opulence that is reserved for religion, instead of in living conditions or food for the locals. But as Dave said, maybe they think it's strange that we spend so much on our houses!
One great experience to not just see the temples, but to observe the practices, was to take part in the daily Alms Giving Ceremony or ritual! One morning, we set out around 6:15am to the morning market, purchased bags of sticky rice, and headed to the street where we thought it took place. I had read in a blog post that it took place around sunrise, which in the winter meant close to 6:30am. But I was wrong! Luckily, as we passed through a side door to the big temple on the main street (Wat May Souvannapoumaram), a woman stopped us... I had thought she was trying to sell us something, but then we realized that she was telling us it was over! An English-speaking monk saw the interaction and came to invite us into the dining hall of the temple! He said that if we had food to give, we could put it in their baskets that were now in the monks' dining hall. We felt awkward, but did just that, and then were given a blessing by the him and the senior monk (well, I didn't know what they were chanting, but it seemed like a blessing as we kneeled down in fronf ot them).
The next morning, we wanted to see the actual procession, so Davie and I got up at 5:00am. We again went to the market, this time to buy some sweets, and headed to the main street. Vendors had setup little chairs and mats, and were selling more sticky rice (in steamer baskets) for the right to use the chairs. This time, Davie wanted to take part, so I stood across the street to wait and take pictures. We had read about the practice to stay quiet, sit still, and not make eye contact and only give food in their basket/bucket (not to them directly), so Davie was prepared to follow these rules. I had also thought Alms giving was for the monks to give the food to the poor, but we learned that the food is actually for the monks themselves (which is strange to me that it's mostly clumps of rice that people give, with some sweets sprinkled in, and nothing else!?).
As soon as the procession of monks approached, all the tourists went in closer, and I had to do the same to snap a few pics and videos, while still trying to maintain a respectful distance as we watched them walk down the sidewalk and Buddhist followers gave them rice and sweets into their buckets. We stayed for two groups of monks (from two different monasteries), and then left. The whole procession was alot shorter than I had thought it would be (we had read about there being up to 150 monks, but we only saw about 20-25). But it was great to take part and watch some of these -- even if we're not practicing Buddhists.
5. Pak Ou Caves and Whiskey Village
I went into this with low expectations after reading some bad reviews about this. We also wanted to go at our own pace so got a boat on our own (which we left a bit too late in the day, thinking it was only 1 hour boat ride when it's actually more like 2 hours in a slow boat).
The Whiskey Village was a stop I had thought we'd want to spend more time at to check out a small rural village or see their whiskey making process. But unfortunately the recommended 10-minute stop made sense because there was pretty much just a couple of stalls. With little explanation, they just invited us to a tasting and we gawked at the weird creepy crawlies they put in the bottles. I'm not sure if it is all just for tourist shock value or if the locals actually drink the whiskey from these bottles. We walked away with one small bottle purchase (for $2, with no reptiles or bugs inside)!
With this low bar set for Pak Ou, it was actually quite interesting. The crowds had thinned out by the time we got there (around 4pm), so we had more space and time to check things out. The Buddha statues were underwhelming, considering the cool resting Buddha we saw in a cave in Vang Vieng. Sure there were tons of them (4,000 mostly small ones placed by Buddhist followers), but I'm sure there used to be a huge impressive one in the Upper Cave that was likely stolen by colonizers or thieves of some sort and is sitting in a private collection or on the black market now!
What is amazing is when you look closely, some of these are super old... It's fun imagining who left them there thousands of years ago!
So even though it wasn't super great, at least we did enjoy a relaxing 3.5-hour cruise up and down the Mekong for the afternoon.
6. Volunteer English Teaching with Big Brother and Big Sister Mouse schools
We heard about
Big Brother Mouse, an English conversation lounge and not-for-profit helping Laotians with literacy and English (not sure how it got its name), so we stopped by one evening before dinner to converse with local students. The guys we chatted with had very good English: two very keen and smart high school kids, and two guys in their 20s. One of them was training with an NFP called
Adopt a Village in Laos that raises money in Canada! The kids were excited about the idea of doing this, yet they were quite shy with the people.
So when we learned that they also funded, supported, and were looking for English speaking volunteers at their elementary schools outside of Luang Prabang, we signed up to do this. We were four out of 16 volunteers that day... All the others were European backpackers. It's amazing that they can do this with short-term volunteers, rather than needing to hire or get long-term volunteers (though I guess they could do this through something like
IVHQ). They on-boarded us quickly, showing us the simple flash cards and games they used to teach the young kids. We spent the morning with Kindergarten to about Grade 3 kids, each of us working with small groups of 2-4 kids in about 20-minute sessions. The older the group was, the more keen they were and clearly had more vocabulary.
 
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| We didn't get any pictures with the kids, but here we are having lunch with some other volunteers, and in front of the school. |
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