Luang Prabang

Its day 5 in Luang Prabang so I guess we must like it here. As mentioned in the last post, we arrived at the airport having researched what we thought would be a fair price to the city, determined not to get ripped off again and braced for a fight with the hundreds of seedy taxi drivers we had become used to haggling with. With bags collected what greeted us instead was a sunny afternoon in a picturesque valley, hardly anyone around, a counter with smiling staff where you paid a set price for a taxi ticket (approx $5.60AUD) and a bunch of friendly mini-van drivers casually helping luggage into the boot and inquiring as to your exact address. We look at each other in tired astonishment and said “well, this is civilised!

While this town is undoubtedly set up for the tourist trade, somehow the tourists have not spoilt it yet and I hope they never do. The people here are friendly, have enormous smiles and are rather fond of singing when they think you’re not looking. Several times now I have heard snatches of song from women cooking, massage therapists and children playing. Oh yes, the children actually play here and are not walking the streets day and night trying to sell crap and begging with the heartbreaking hard looks in their eyes that we observed all over Vietnam, or Vietscam as a friend has taken to calling it.

LP is a town of many temples, several of them adorned in beautifully ornate golden paint with easily a hundred statues of the Buddha in the central worshipping area. There is also a fabulous night market here with clothing, textiles, jewellery, hand crafts and the like of far superior quality than anything we saw in Vietnam and amazingly, no one insisting that you buy. Yes, they call out to you to have a look at their wares as you pass but it it’s in such a quiet way, you instantly feel more  compelled to look through and we have both had to be quiet self disciplined as our bohemian selves want at least one of everything from most stalls. We were lucky enough to be here on the last 2 nights of an annual international film festival so we happily drank Lao Beer and snacked on street food as we sat outdoors and watched quite an enjoyable Thai pre-pubescent rom-com. It was kind of like ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ in a rural Thai village.

I’d been feeling slightly off colour without being able to put my finger on the problem except for a general lack of energy since the evening of day 2 which resulted in a fair bit of indecisiveness regarding our next move. We eventually settled on a 2 day trek/overnight home stay in a village/ elephant riding/ kayaking combination and set off on day 4. The trek with just Felicity and our guide was a fair struggle for me as I increasingly felt worse and tried to vomit several times up the mountain but with no success. My appetite had deserted me at lunch in a small village where Felicity showed photos of her dog and family to the extraordinarily shy villagers as their puppies rolled around in the dust and chased chickens. Again, this was such a contrast to the village trekking we did in Vietnam where the locals dress in contrived ‘traditional’ clothing (beautiful as it is) and walk many, many miles with you and then demand that you buy their “hand made” goods and get quite aggro when you don’t. The villagers here in Laos had some cushion covers and bracelets set up at the lunch stop but the oldest lady only asked once gently if we wanted to buy anything and Felicity immediately felt much more inclined to make a purchase.

By the time we got to the village we would be sleeping at in the late afternoon, I was not coping and my body went into shock. I sat on the steps of our timber hut but promptly moved over to the dirt as every muscle stared to spasm, my lips tingled and my words started to sound odd as my tongue started to swell. Lying in the dirt, not being able to talk properly with my hands and calf muscles cramping uncontrollably is not a pleasant experience. This eventually settled down and I was able to sleep, something I’d been desperately craving all day, as Flic and the guide discussed my possible evacuation via a tractor, boat and then car back to Luang Prabang. I was woken 45 mins later as if we had to leave, then we need to do it now while there was enough daylight. I stood up walked to the doorway, steadied myself and then out of nowhere I was sent to my knees as the most forceful vomit I have ever had erupted from my mouth and all over the timber floor of our shack. It was the most embarrassed and wretched I had ever felt as I made such a mess of the floor and myself, unable to move or offer the sincerest apology I desperately wanted mumble. I wanted them to know it was not from excess of alcohol!

After Felicity dutifully and without fuss cleaned me and the shack up, I was bunddled into a wooden cart being towed by a tractor. I say a tractor but it was more like a lawn mower with big arms, an axle and two medium sized wheels. I tried to get Flic to stay but was in no state to argue and as I would never leave her, I knew it was an argument I wasn’t going to win. The villagers were so gracious at cleaning me up and transporting us one hour over bumpy dirt tracks to the river where we then boarded a motor propelled canoe to the elephant camp we had been to earlier and then a mini bus back to town.

Suffice to say I am better now and day 5 has been spent sleeping and recovering my strength. We’ll see if we go back to do the second half of our adventure tomorrow. Well I hope you didn’t read that over lunch and that you’re now not put off reading this blog again. I promise that will be the last vomit story! Then again, the next blog will most likely be from town of Gomora that is Van Vien. Everything we have heard about it paints it as a Buddhist sin city with beautiful mountains hemming it in, graceful monks passing on the street and hundreds of drunk British twats vomiting everywhere. I should fit right in.