Vang Vieng is a cozy little town in the valley of the river Nam Song, surrounded by limestone mountains and rocks. The locals are without an exception either hoteliers, restaurant owners, tour guides or motorbike renters. If it ever was a normal Lao town, it changed its orientation into taking care of tourists only. And it is surprisingly enjoyable. In the very first evening, we chose an Irish pub for a dinner, Gary’s Irish Bar, to be precise, and kept on going there faithfully every day of our stay. A bunch of mostly English guys invited us to join them in a Killer Pool game, which is a great thing, especially for meeting new people and getting them know, you will find the rules among photos. Soon, some of us (ehm) took over the coordinatin of the game (and people) and Gary liked us for it, even got some free drinks for this voluntary job… and dancing. We stayed till closing that evening and not for the last time. We have also met Jordi, a fun Catalan guy, who joined us for a moto ride to the Blue Lagoon the following day. People were saying it was nice there.

It was. Already the travel there was a great fun, finding out that the big dirt space on the way to petrol station is local airport (really), crosing the river on a bamboo bridge that looked not reliable even for a pedestrian, less so for two scooters, or a ride on a dirt road full of stones and puddles, which is standard for all roads in Laos apart from the main one between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. There are just holes. It was again about 40° C (moving from north-Vietnamese pleasant 25° to tropical Lao temperature was a proper shock, maybe even bigger than coming from Europe to Saigon when we were ready for it) and water in the lagoon was crystal-clear and refreshingly cold. We arrived there quite early that day, so we were enjoying the place without much people,  swimming, swinging on several swings and jumping from branches of a very conveniently grown tree that created perfect ski jumps 3 and 7 metres above the deepest part of the lagoon. I had courage just for the lower one but Mr. Black jumped several times from the upper one, mostly because I fucked up taking a picture of him, twice. But what a nice series it is in the end!

We stayed there for 6 days, going to the lagoon, taking walks, going down the river on canoes (they were a bit holey so manipulating them became impossible after about half an hour, when the whole inside got filled with water), eating well, meeting lots of nice and interesting people, some of who we still keep meeting. In the end we finally managed to pack our bags and leave to Luang Prabang. The rainy season finally came also to Laos, which means huge storms in the evenings, but they last only for about an hour and then it is hot again.

The travel to Prabang took place in beautiful, high mountains, only we would have enjoyed them perhaps a bit more if we hadn’t been experiencing terrible hangover and digestion troubles. We had plenty of those in Laos and we haven’t figured out what was causing them. Perhaps BeerLao? We didn’t try not drinking it so we don’t know for sure.

Luang Prabang is a very pretty and easy-going town. Lots of temples and monks and nice houses and Mekong and the other river and hills and jungle everywhere around and beautiful flowers and good food and more. Aaaah, good food. Lao style grill! The best thing ever. We stayed at a hotel of a man that studied stockbreeding in Czechoslovakia in the 70’s and spoke quite fluent Czech still and liked to practice. So we had some nice chats and learned lots of useful information from him. The storms started getting longer, moving to earlier hours and getting accompanied by other storms during the same day. For that reason we couldn’t accomplish two planned trips, were improving in our pool skills instead (at Gary’s it was visible that we are both quite crap at playing pool so we decided it to be our Asian mission, to get better) and I pampered myself with a herbal massage.

The greatest experience were, naturally, the elephants, of course. Despite some frustration caused by our options, financial situation and a talk with an “agent” (see below more about that), it turned quite all right in the end. We tried to check if it wouldn’t be cheaper in Thailand or somewhere else in northern Laos and we found some good looking organizations that take a really good care of the elephants, don’t even let tourists ride them, which would be completely all right with us, even better, of course. All I longed for was to spend some time close to these magnifitient creatures, maybe pet them, feed them. Watch them interacting, lazing about, behaving on their own. But the prices… Unrealistic. We would have to leave out Indonesia. I think it is riddiculous. You make such a great effort to do better, offer a different approach to tourists… but only to those ones that have enough money. You don’t try to change anything, not the way how the elephant tourism works in Asia. In the end, it is only about the bucks, again. So, as we couldn’t go for the best option, at least we tried not to choose a bad one. We booked a one-day tour (which means a half day in fact) called a “Mahout Training” in a street tour agency and hoped for not supporting someone who beats the elephants or uses them for hard labour. Fortunately it worked out well. The elephants are not really living freely and they have to work about 6 hours every day, on the other hand the work means taking tourists on their back for one hour walks. Not unlikely what we do to horses at home. And they seemed to be taken good care of, their mahouts (carers and drivers) seemed to love them, the scars seemed to be healed and old, from the timber harvesting times, and the animals went to sleep in a jungle every evening, where they could do anything, on their own pace, strolling wherever they wanted and eat as much of leaves as they could wish for. They get a fair supply of bananas  from the turists every day, naturally. Most of their elephants (apart from the ones that were already born to the new role) have very cruel past of hard work and terrible treatment in the jungle. You can read about some of the stroies here:  http://www.elephantvillage-laos.com/our-elephants/. So we went for this one-hour ride (a classing round tour, like if you hire a horse in Utechov, Brno), then lunch, then the same ride again (annoying as that was the so-called “mahout training”, the only difference was to be riding behind a neck of the elephant, not sitting on a bench on his back, but that I did already for the first round) and then went to bathe the creatures (and ourselves). My elephant was a real diver, seemed to be enjoying it a lot, the one of Mr. Black was not that into going in the river with his head, but I think it must have been refreshing for them a lot in that heat. And that was it. A bit more of feeding and cuddling with them and we went back to Prabang. Not that exciting program as the ones from my dreams – a three-day long hike through the jungle, riding the animals on our own, befriending them etc. But it was exciting anyway because… we were simply with elephants. And elephants are great. And we petted them, fed them with bananas and sweet corn and rode behind their necks. Thats all about our eco-tourism.

Here comes the whining part. About frustration, you see. Because Laos is a really beautiful country. Quite desolate, mountains, jungle, in it elephants, tigers, monkeys, lizards, butterflies, orchids, lianas… but you end up mostly looking at it from far away, at least if you have our budget, keeping in mind that you still want to see also another 4 countries and travel for another 3 months. Perhaps we want too much. The problem is that you can not just grab your backpack and start off for a hike. Even a climb to a 100 m high hill nearby Vang Vieng cost us an entry fee. And at 5 p.m., the guy who was charging tourists, locked the gate at the beginning of the path (yes, a path to the top of a small hill. A gate. Locked after 5 p.m.) and nobody could go there that day any more. The same with the caves. The same with the Blue Lagoon. The same with bridges. And moreover, on the top of that hill was a ripped plastic bag full of empty pet bottles, prolapsed on the ground and everywhere around, simply unbelievable mess (mess like in a tank,  the Czechs say for some reason). Because lots of tourists are stupid idiots who have never heard of how to behave in nature and in the world in general. After we descended the hill, I suggested to the guy sitting there that maybe he could go and clean it up there when he is already charging people to go there. He answered that maybe tomorrow. The same situation was in the cave over the lagoon, of course there were three women in front of it, renting flash-lights foe a fee. But keeping it tidy there, why.

It is little bit different with the tours. I understand that I need a guide as there are unexploded  bombs everywhere in Laos (supposedly, Laos got more bombs from the American bombing during the Vietnamese war (sic!) than the whole Europe during WWII), and tigers. But if it was so that you just hire an experienced guide with a gun and off you go, taking care of the rest (food, sleeping) yourself. No, you have to pay for the complex service; food, borrowing a sleeping bag, despite you have your own, visit in a tribal village, trip to a waterfall… and in the end you spend hiking 6 hours out of two days, which will be in fact one day and half, and walk about 15 km, a third of it in rural areas instead of the jungle. And for all those things that you don’t need or want, you pay three times more than for the actual guide. So being in exotic countries is terrific but if you want to hike, you better go for two weeks to Romanian Carpathians (still on my list, anyway). Mr. Black comforts me that it will be different in Malaysia. I hope that not much has changed since his visit to Borneo 5 years ago.

For the reasons mentioned above, we didn’t do any hike in a Lao jungle this time. But if I ever come again, I will make sure to have 300 dollars extra for the Gibbon trek in Bokeo Park. Instead we got on a slow boat and for the next two days went up the Mekong river to Huay Xai at the Thai border. The voyage was beautiful, banks of Mekong lush, the only living creatures were the fishermen, goats and water buffalos (and one kingfisher!),  and sometimes there was a village or a port. While watching whirlpools on the river and playing cards, we made friends with some other tourists and one local boy and time was passing sweetly.

This morning (8. 5.) We crossed the bridge over the Mekong river and arrived to Thailand. I felt sorry for it at first – the banks on the Lao side were just nature while on the Thai side there was lots of civilization – but I started liking Thailand very soon. It sounds funny but it is like if it was possible to feel that Thailand is not a communist country. People are smiling way more and they are friendly, seems like if you wouldn’t mean just pack of money to them, no double prices on the public transport, at least so far (they had no problem advertising it in Laos). And even though it is a more populated country than Laos, it still doesn’t look like Vietnam. Houses are pretty, temples impressive, gardens neat and you see nature from the bus, not a neverending line of houses. The bus ride to Chiang Rai, that lays about 100 km far away from the border, costs about 2 dollars. Now, that’s what I call cheap, finally! I straight away feell more free and optimistic. Hope it will stay with me.