What are days for?

Thursday 21st January 2016

Days are where we live.
So we’ve been settled in here at Lao Valhalla bungalows, just outside Vang Vieng, for nearly two weeks. It took us a couple of days to get accustomed to the noisy ATVs passing by and the sad remnants of the party-backpacker scene, but once we had forgiven this we found we like it very much.

These are ATVs (all terrain vehicles) - or go-karts!

 There’s plenty of quiet time and space and genuine Lao life going on, with a Hmong village up the road, cows grazing the rice paddies, chickens scratching in the undergrowth, children going to and from school on bicycles or on foot, stupendous sunsets, street food and friendly greetings.

This is the back garden

Beautiful light-filled bungalows. Nouth's ex, who planned them with her, came from Denmark. Hence the nordic name!

Vang Vieng riverside bars

The scenery is stunningly beautiful but difficult to capture in photos. Impossibly steep karst cliffs rise hundreds of feet above flat rice paddy river valleys. We love to wander along the dusty dirt roads in the sunshine.

One evening Nouth arranged for a traditonal dancer to entertain us.

 Keis and Ahn peeping round the corner.

 A visit to the wat in town.

There be giants...

Here they are

These monks filming their trip along the river with their smart phones amused me.

Nouth and Ahn work incredibly hard. Here they are mending the Valhalla sign.

We visited a local Permaculture project called SAE LAO for the best mixed fruit shakes after a long hot walk. A PDC course was going on so there were about 30 Permaculture students from all over the world having their lunch when we arrived.

SAE LAO Project.

Every evening as we sit in the riverside bar, three hot-air balloons take tourists over the town. I can’t resist the colours. Sometimes they dip down low, almost dunking the basket in the river, before, with a roar of gas, soaring up vertically away.

There's not as much wildlife as in Cambodia, but some spectacular spiders!

I've never seen this yellow horned spider before.

And this one seems to have mastered zigzag stitch

Every evening at 5.30 the thousands of bats that live in the mountain caves at the back of Nouth's garden stream out in a "river of bats". For a few minutes it's a spectacular sight.

Trevann waiting for the bat river.

I couldn't catch the bats on film so here's a dragonfly instead.

Onwards to Laos

Monday 11^th January 2016
First some random pix from Cambodia I didn't post earlier.

Massive bush cricket at Bacoma. About 5 inches long!

Another Bacoma garden resident

Mimi living dangerously

This is similar to the snake we found in our bathroom. Green tree snake perhaps?

Artist at work

Busy beach at New Year

Feeling sad to leave our little bungalow

New year on the beach at Kep was fab. It was even more chaotic than last time. Health and safety – I don’t think so!

I told Trevann not to hold fireworks 

NYE Midnight at Kep

A week or so later, rather reluctantly, we left our haven at Bacoma, said farewell to Michael, ShriNa, Somnang and Dara, and set out for pastures new. First by car to Phnom Penh then a short flight to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. There we had arranged to meet up with our friend Khone (from the bungalows in Luang Prabang) and her new partner, Lay.

Khone and Lay

Not having been to Vientiane before it was great to be shown around some of the sights, albeit briefly, and to have a chance to catch up with Khone’s family news sitting in a vast Lao restaurant overlooking the Mekong enjoying a typically spicy meal of pork and frogs and asparagus, washed down with copious BeerLao.

Khone looking demure at That Luang (Great Stupa) - the most important Buddhist monument in Laos

Buddha Park, Vientiane

The Source! Fount of all that is good. The Beer Lao factory. Huzzah!

Khone stopped to buy some buffalo skin. Delicious with Beer Lao apparently

The next day, after a quick tour - the Buddha Park, That Luang and the Victory Arch - we loaded ourselves into the minibus for the 4 hour journey north to Vang Vieng. Route 13 – the only main road in Laos – runs north from Vientiane to Luang Prabang and is mostly tarmaced with some badly potholed patches. We passed one gang of roadworkers on the journey and wondered whether that’s the entire road team for Laos. They’ve got a job on their hands!

Typical scenery round here. Dramatic karst

Poor old Vang Vieng. You can just about see the vestiges of the little riverside town (pop. 25,000), with its stunning mountain backdrop, and imagine how it must have been before it was overrun with western backpackers and became the tubing destination of Laos. For over 10 years it was ravaged by hoards of youngsters indulging in loud drug- and drink-fuelled parties. Cultural pollution at its worst. As someone said "If teenagers ruled the world, it might resemble Vang Vieng".

In 2012, following a number of deaths, the government stepped in and closed down the riverside bars, but the surviving businesses struggled to cope with lower visitor numbers. A couple of years ago, however, a famous Korean actor made a romantic movie set in Vang Vieng so there’s now a new flood of Chinese and Korean tourists. They arrive mob-handed in buses, prefer to stay in newly built high-rise hotels and enjoy racing up the river in speed boats and roaring along the dirt roads in go-karts. It’s the latest noisy invasion.

Vang Vieng centre - with multi-storey hotel developments aplenty

Luckily we managed to find a little oasis of calm at Lao Valhalla – six charming bungalows set in a jungly garden about a kilometre outside town run by a lovely young Lao woman called Nouth with her sister/cousin Ahn.

Cute bungalow

The view from our Lao Valhalla home

There’s plenty to celebrate here. It’s not all bad!

This is the Lao I love

Evening time on the road outside Valhalla

Nearby real estate. Should I put in an offer!?