Laos: A New Year in April

After leaving Cambodia, we ventured up into the beautiful, mountainous country of Laos. Before I go on to tell about our many activities in all of Laos, I must first talk about the Laos New Year (April 14-16, but they start celebrating 2 weeks before and end 1 week after!). In order to bring in the New Year, the people celebrate by having a city-wide water fight. You cannot go anywhere without getting drenched (and I do mean drenched) by a bucket of water or huge waterguns. We bought waterguns while we were there in order to have some way to defend ourselves, but we could rarely keep up. People line the streets pelting motorbikers or tuktuks driving by, and they are also not afraid to get the innocent pedestrians. One time, I made friends with some of the locals (see picture) and helped them drench others in water. When I went to leave, they got me...so much for allies! This water fight goes on for days, and so we were literally soaked for 75% of our time in Laos. So when I tell you the following stories, you can probably bet we were getting hit with water every other 10 seconds during them.



Our first stop was the UNESCO World Heritage city of Luang Prabang. This city, or I should probably say town, has only one main road that you can walk in the length of in 10 minutes. So, needless to say, this place had a very quaint feel. Luang Prabang had some amazing shopping at their night market along the main road. At 5pm, hundreds of women begin setting up little tents across the main road, making it off limits to bikes and cars. The tents sell everything from tea to bedding to lanterns. Also, there are delicious street vendors that sold...brace yourself...chicken breasts on a stick! Now, you might not be as surprised as I was when I saw this, but if you have ever been to Asia you would understand. They rarely just sell a grilled lean, boneless chicken breast. So when I found this, I decided I would try to make up for all the lost protein over the last few months in my few days in Luang Prabang. On top of the fact that they were delectable, they were also only about US$1. To go along with the chicken breast, I always ordered a fresh mango and pineapple smoothie...to die for. Anyways, at the market, I ended up buying many things including scarves, tea, jewelry, and a new duvet cover for my bed. The ladies even custom made my duvet cover the size and style I wanted for only US$20! Amazingly cheap.

My favorite activity in Luang Prabang was our day excursion to Kouangxi Waterfall. It was stunningly beautiful, as we got to hike up a mountain and see each level of the water fall. Each waterfall got larger and larger as you got up to the top of the mountain. The waterfall at the very top was gigantic (see picture). Also, at each individual waterfall you could stay and swim in the water underneath it. One of the stops even had a rope swing. I tried to do some gnarly tricks of the swing (see picture below), but I wasn't so good. ;)



We also took a day to go biking around the town. We ended up biking down an unpaved road for about 7km. By the end of that road, my rear end and hands were killing me (bikes in Laos don't have shocks or much padding on the seats). The bike ride let us see some beautiful nature and we also spotted an elephant at the end of the road.

I spent my last day in Luang Prabang, Easter day, by myself. My friends decided to go on to our next stop early, and I wanted to stay one more day. I spent Easter going to a local tea house, reading, and walking around town. After close to 2 weeks in 3rd world countries carrying around gigantic backpacks, eating street food, staying in cheap hostels, and running around like mad tourists, I was ready for a 1-day break!

Our second destination in Laos was Vang Vieng. The whole premise of Vang Vieng is to go get really drunk while tubing down a river lined with bars. Now, all of you who know me, know that that is not my thing, so I occupied myself doing other things. However, I did make it out to the river scene once and found myself being thrown into a mud pit by some extremely inebriated European boys (see picture). I would never have jumped in myself, but hey, when in Laos, right?! (Oh, and we got back to our hostel very muddy only to find out that "The city is out of water." Apparently the city-wide water fight used up all the water. So we had to sit muddy until the water turned back on. Oh, Laos...)

I didn't like Vang Vieng that much. First, because it is a place to get wasted, I obviously wasn't the best candidate for tourist there. Second, while we were there a girl died (we didn't witness it firsthand, but we heard from others there). She went down one of the slides on the river, hit her head, and died in the water. I was horrified, but the people on the river did nothing. Her boyfriend had to fish her body out of the water, and within 10 minutes the music was back on and people were going back down the slide! I guess in a country with no laws, there is not much you can do. But it just astonished me that her death phased no one!

Anyways, I hate to end on a sad note with the death of a girl, so I will redeem Laos in this blog and say truthfully that I really did enjoy my time there. The New Year celebrations were phenomenal, and Laos is a beautiful country.