Wednesday 19th April 2006. Stung Treng to Don Khong

It was a good thing that we left early this morning as we spent ages sat on the ferry waiting for other vehicles to come aboard. Unfortunately we had just missed a busy sailing and by the time he had come back we were the only vehicle (not including mopeds) on the pontoon. The captain wanted $15 to take just us across - we offered him $5 and said that we'd wait for other trucks if he wouldn't take it. He didn't take it, so we waited...and waited...and waited...during which time all of his other customers on Mopeds got off his ferry and onto one of the other, smaller ones. At last two trucks came down the ramp and we were able to depart for $5.  Once on the other side it's an easy 60km drive along a graded road to the border, where Cambodian immigration stamped us out with no bother and Customs stamped the Carnet without even looking at the car. Once through the Cambodian side of things (10 mins) we pulled up at Laos immigration, filled in the "Arrivals Card", paid $1 "Stamping Fee" and we were in. It's then a 6 km drive along a very bumpy dirt track until you see a wonderful sight - a flat, tarmac road (the first we had seen since Kratie). About 1 km after getting on this you approach Laos Customs, which appeared to be staffed by a 9 year old. He pointed us to go inside the house at the back of the check-point, where we woke up the Customs officer and got him to stamp the Carnet. Bless him, he didn't have a clue what to do and we used up one of our pages before we showed him what to do and where to stamp. When we gave him his section he had no idea what to do with it...We also asked how many other UK registered cars had crossed at this border, as the owner of the Silver Dolphin in Kratie thought that we may be the first (although we know that cars and motorbikes of other nationalities have crossed this border). He said none - so that's a first for us then!

Feeling really good about being in Laos at last and even better about being on a fantastically smooth road we motored up to the area known as 4000 islands - which is a collection of islands in the middle of the Mekong. After a bit of trial and error we found out where the one and only car ferry across to the island of Don Khong went from and soon we were on the island, checking into the wonderful Pon's Guesthouse and enjoying the peace and quite and the views out over the River. We'd also say that Mrs. Pon cooks some of the finest food that we've had for a long time - her Vegetable Coconut curry is a masterpiece!

View of the Mekong through the blossom

Thursday, 20th April 2006. Don Khong island.

A really enjoyable day today -we hired a moped and went whizzing around the island. Now I haven't ridden a bike since I was 16 and Amy has never ridden one at all, but these things are so easy to drive that soon we were bombing around having great fun...until we got a flat! Typical, in the middle of nowhere and with no repair kit our rear tyre is as flat as a pancake. Luckily a passer by pointed us in the direction of the nearest tyre-repair shop so we pushed the bike 4km to get the puncture fixed - which was very interesting to watch and, with tubed tyres, very simple. Back on the road again we finished our tour of the island, had another fantastic lunch then sat back and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon in the blissful peace.

New born bikers!

Friday, 21st April 2006. Don Khong Island to Tat Lo, Bolaven Plateau

Today we headed for the area of Southern Laos called the Bolaven Plateau, which is famous for having lots of waterfalls and being the centre of the Lao coffee industry. As the roads around here are so good it took us no time to get to the little village of Tat Lo, which is in a lovely spot in the forest beneath a waterfall. We found a lovely place to stay overlooking the water and an island where the buffalo graze and then went for a walk up to the top of the waterfall. Like Don Khong there is very little motorised traffic around here so it is lovely and peaceful.

The place where we are staying, and the waterfalls.

Saturday, 22nd April 2006. Tat Lo

We hired a guide today to take us for a walk around the local area - especially around some of the tribal villages. We walked past a second waterfall further up-stream before entering the first village where we saw the Spirit House and the place where buffalo are ritually sacrificed. Our walk thought the forest took us through areas which had been cleared for planting by the locals.  We were able to see first hand how these tribesmen live, from their houses to the work.  Mark helped in the pounding of corn to make flour and we saw a little girl cracking open some sort of nut which they use to make the ordinary white rice into sticky rice, and the men in another tribe were generous to show us how they made blades and the like in their blacksmith's under the house type work place - it was especially interesting to see that the bellows were made of two old bomb-cases, dropped during the early 1970s when Laos earned the unfortunate record of being the most bombed nation on earth.  Everything was really interesting and every child screamed out "Sabaai dii" which is hello in Lao.  After seeing the 80m high waterfall with no water and the 4 tribal villages we began our hour long walk back.  It was a lovely walk until we turned a corner to discover that a terrible motorbike accident had just happen.  We went over and found that the 2 lads motorbike had collided at speed with the 2 girls motorbike and that the 2 motorbikes had collided with such force that they were now managed into 1 single piece of wreckage with the girls lying underneath their bike at the bottom of the pile.  Mark lifted up the bike carefully so that our guide could pull her from underneath and the same with the other girl and place them under a tree at the side of the road until help could arrive.  After Mark and I handed out tissues to the injured to try to stop the bleeding I sat with the girls holding wads of tissue over the huge hole just above one of the girls eyes, this wound was quite bad as she was crying blood!  Our guide disappeared into the bushes and appeared with a cup full of yes you've guessed it urine, Mark quickly quizzed him on this and was told that it was lao tradition that if you are injured you must drink either urine or ducks blood to give you energy to recover, we thought this a little odd but then we also t really agree with the removal of the girls from under a heavy bike as they may have broken something.  It's just another way of doing things and although we may not have liked it, we were there to help in whatever manner we could.  The ambulance didn't arrive but others had gone to fetch the mother and brothers etc etc, who then took the girls and the injured lads (who seemed ok as they were both walking around talking) one at a time on the back of another motorbike to the hospital which thankfully was just around the corner - we returned to the guesthouse. 

The afternoon was spent updating the website and swimming in the pools made by the river and waterfall.

    The Spirit House                                           Girl chopping up nuts.

Mark smoking the bamboo pipe (tobacco + sugarcane) and the local blacksmiths forge. 

Sunday 23rd April 2006. Tat Lo to Savannakhet.

We'd decided to follow the dirt tracks leading from Tat Lo so that we could circumnavigate the entire plateau, and this meant that once again we were bouncing down some fairly uneven tracks through the forest and driving through little villages in the middle of nowhere. We reached the town of Paksong which is supposed to be the centre of the local coffee trade, but believe it or not we couldn't d anywhere to get a cup of coffee from, so carried on and drove to the town of Savannakhet which is a fairly sleepy little town on the banks of the Mekong.

Monday, 24th April 2006, Savannakhet to Vientiane

As the road North is so good we were easily able to get to Vientiane by 14:00. As soon as we got here we drove straight to "Lao Can-Am International Auto Services Ltd", a mechanics run by Canadian Mike Murphy. This place had been recommended to us by Lucas and Jeanne in Penang, so we went there in the hope that he could find and fit a replacement rear Shock-absorber bushing. Luckily there is an ARB stockist in Vientiane and they had the exact part that we needed, so after a little while we were back to normal again - excellent stuff. Repairs duly carried out we found a guesthouse in a quiet area of town, booked in and went out for a great meal - it seems like Vientiane is stuffed full of excellent places to eat!

The "Patuxai" on the way into Vientiane.

Tuesday, 25th April 2006. Vientiane.

It chucked in down last night, and when we walked outside we noticed a pool of liquid underneath Hector, which was a bit odd as we had parked him in a kind of car-port. We tested in and it was hydraulic fluid from the clutch. We thought that there may be a problem with the clutch as it seemed to be using lots of fluid and thus, by implication, there was a leak in the system somewhere. We hadn't worried too much about this as the clutch has always worked. However, when we filled up the reservoir today nothing happened - there was no resistance on the clutch pedal at all. The Master Cylinder was ok, as were the pipes leading from it to the Slave Cylinder - but it was here that the problem was. The seal inside the Slave Cylinder had given up the ghost. Bugger. Luckily we were in the capital city and we knew a good mechanic, so I (Mark) was able to drive Hector through Vientiane with no clutch. If anyone ever needs to do this, start the car in first gear to get moving as the starter motor should be powerful enough to pull the car along before it starts. To stop turn the ignition off. We made it to Mikes, where he took the Slave Cylinder apart and found a new seal. It was only when he came to re-fit it that we found the cause of the problem. The slave cylinder is held onto the bell housing by two bolts. One of these bolts had worn away the thread and thus wasn't holding its side of the cylinder onto anything, meaning that the whole thing was off horizontal. The wear on the seal as the piston was constantly sliding at an angle was enough to make it fail. To fix this requires a new thread to be tapped into the bell housing, and as it was getting late we left Hector at Mikes to pick him up tomorrow.

Wednesday, 26th April 2006. Vientiane

Pottered around town today, soaking up the laid back atmosphere of one of the most relaxing capital cities in the world. We picked Hector up from Mikes in the afternoon and all seems well - excellent stuff!

Thursday, 27th April 2006. Vientiane

Yet another really relaxing day in Vientiane - we really like it here....

Friday, 28th April 2006. Vientiane to Vang Vieng

Time to leave today, so after a lovely breakfast at the Scandinavian Bakery we headed North on Route 13 to Vang Vieng, a little town about halfway between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. On our way out of Vientiane we drove past the most expensive hotel in town, outside of which were parked some bright orange Land Rovers from this years "G4 Challenge". They had just finished a stage in Laos and were getting ready to drive down into Thailand. The G4 Defenders looked very nice (and very clean!). Once out of town the drive was very scenic as we began to climb up into the hilly north. The location of Vang Vieng is very pretty - it's surrounded by jagged green hills and lies next to a river. Unlike most towns in Southern Laos this one is really geared up towards the tourist scene so there are lots of places to stay (our room was $4) and eat. One of the more bizarre by-products of such a desire to cater for the tourists is the development of the TV restaurant. Here the crafty owners have arranged rows of bed-like platforms in front of a TV which blasts out endless repeats of "Friends". It's a very strange sight to walk past these places at about 17:00 and see them packed with travelers all staring at the goggle box as if hypnotised! Today we also noticed that the rainy season has kicked off in earnest as it chucked it down for most of the afternoon. This isn't the best of news for us as we were hoping to drive further north from Luang Prabang to Luang Nam Tha, then work our way East into the "Golden Triangle" area on the dirt roads/tracks and cross back into Thailand at Huay Xai...which is fine in the dry season but a little more tricky in the wet, when the unsurfaced road between Luang Nam Tha and Huay Xai turns into a swampy, muddy mess. We still really want to do this route, but we'll have to see what the weather does over the next week or so, and ask around to find out what the locals think of the idea...pretty much everyone we've spoken to so far who has entered Laos at Huay Xai has come down South by boat!

"G4 Challenge" Land Rovers in Vientiane             Vang Vieng.

Saturday 29th April 2006. Vang Vieng.

We went tubing today! For the uninitiated this involves floating down-stream on an old Tractor inner tube - very relaxing! We started off about 3kms upstream from Vang Vieng and took about 4 1/2  hours to float back to town through the lovely scenery. There are also numerous places to stop off on the way to have a drink - these places have also set up giant swings so you can launch yourself into the river from a great height, really cool!  As the clouds began to turn black and the river began to slow we decided that it was time to get back to town, so we had to paddle back with our tevas, which is harder than you think on a river that isn't really moving, and with a force 9 gale hitting you head on, nevertheless we eventually made it back to Vang Vieng, where we made sandwiches and had nice showers before dinner.

Sunday, 30th April 2006. Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang.

Left quite late as we over slept and then drove past another overlanding vehicle, so had to stop for a chat.  Peter and Linda Stopforth from New Zealand are driving from NZ to London via China and the Stans in their Landcruiser.  We had a great talk and hope to meet up in Luang Prabang as they make their way to the Chinese border in northern Laos.  Once on the road north the weather began to look doubtful and as we rounded a corner on the mountain road we drove straight into a thick blanket of dark cloud, and couldn't see a thing - lights went on and I (Amy) had to sit forward so that I could actually see the edge of the road.  As we neared the top we had to stop and pull over as a lorry in front had driven into the gutter and was in the process of being hauled out by 3 JCB's.  We were there for about half and hour watching as all the westerners from the buses got out to take pictures!!!  We were on our way again but because of the bad weather and the delay we decided not to go to Phonsavan (the plain of jars) as planned but crack on to Luang Prabang as it was nearer - Sods law that about 15 minutes after the turning for Phonsavan the weather cleared and the sun came out, it was too late to turn around.  We arrived into the Phonethavy guesthouse, and immediately went out for lunch as we were starving.  The evening was spent wandering around the handicraft market before dinner.

The terrible fog on the mountain                 A village in northern Laos

Monday, 1st May 2006. Luang Prabang.

We did the walking tour of Luang Prabang today, which takes you around most of the temples and also around all of the tourist areas.  We called into a lovely art gallery where were taken with some of the paintings, (but later decided not to buy one) before clambering up a million steps to Wat Thammothayalan.  We soon got fed up with looking at Wats so decided just to wander the streets.  Luang Prabang is a quiet old town where most residents are sound asleep by 10pm.  The French buildings are gorgeous, it really does look like an old French town straight from the 1900's.  You can't move for tourists round here, and you can certainly tell that the tourists have brought money to the town and some of the restaurants that have popped up charge a great deal for what is essentially a basic dinner!  Nevertheless we have fallen in love with the town and will spend a few days here just taking in the quiet atmosphere.

A Lovely old French building                 Anyone for Snake Schnapps!!!           One of the many Wats in Luang Prabang.

Tuesday, 2nd May 2006. Luang Prabang.

Today we wandered the streets admiring the gorgeous buildings.  We called into a French run shop where Mark wanted to have another look at a print he had seen yesterday of Luang Prabang celebrating the Lao new year back in the 70's, it was just as good if not better today than yesterday so we bought it along with a bamboo carrier.  The afternoon was spent sheltering from the rain and deciding on a plan to take us right up to when we want to leave South East Asia.  Another look at the market before dinner.         

Sticky rice cakes being dried in the sun     Amy and Wat               A lovely quiet street in Luang Prabang.

Wednesday, 3rd May 2006. Luang Prabang to Phonsavan.

A long grueling mountainous road journey today.  However, things were made more interesting by the G4 Land Rovers which we passed going the other way. There were at least 50 of them, made up of Defenders, Discoveries and Range Rovers - we did notice that the defender drivers tended to wave and flash their lights, whereas the Range Rover drivers were too busy trying to get back on their side of the road! After the turn off for Phonsavan we bumped into Peter and Linda Stopforth on the road and chatted to them for about half an hour before wishing them luck for the rest of their journey. (we won't see them now until we get to New Zealand)  Shortly after leaving Peter and Linda Mark thought that the clutch was a bit odd, not feeling how it did this morning, as he wasn't sure we pushed on for a bit and then the clutch went and poor old Mark couldn't get out of third gear.  This was quite a problem considering that the road we were on was very hilly, and Hector did struggle up the hills in 3rd!!!  When we got to the top we checked how far we had gone and compared it to how far we had to go if we turned around to head to Vientiane, it was nigh impossible to turn around and we only had about 60km to go before Phonsavan.  We pushed on staying in 3rd gear until the clutch gave us a tiny bit to change gear.  Whilst Mark was driving I was reading the Haynes manual to figure out what was happening and came to the conclusion that the system hadn't been bled properly when the garage put the slave cylinder back on.  We finally made it to Phonsavan and checked into the 'Nice' guesthouse.  Tomorrow we will try to bleed the system manually!

Peter and Linda.                                        Laos scenery

Thursday, 4th May 2006 Phonsavan

We came to Phonsavan to have a look at the mysterious "Plain of Jars" which, as the name suggests, is a plain full of megalithic stone jars. No one knows what they were made for nor who made them, but there are hundreds of them scattered over the plain, all carved out of a single piece of rock and some weighing in at more than 6 tonnes. However, all that would have to wait 'cos we weren't going anywhere until we had sorted out the clutch. We found the local builders merchants and found some transparent hose of what looked like the correct diameter. As we only wanted 1/2 a meter the very nice lady in charge gave it to us for free! We found a suitable container to use and I (Mark) had just put my overalls on when it started to pour down. This was not the best thing that could have happened as Hector was parked on a piece of dusty roadside which soon became horribly muddy under the deluge. When the rain eventually stopped there was a huge pond of mud right where I'd need to be lying...typical. So I end up lying under the Land Rover in the mud whilst Amy depresses the clutch pedal and keeps the reservoir topped up. At first lots of air came out with each depression, but soon just fluid was coming out and we thought that things were looking up, so we tightened everything up and Amy took Hector out for a test drive as I was too muddy to be allowed in the cab! Talk about nerve wracking. After 10 minutes she hadn't come back and I had visions of Amy parked up by the side of the road with no clutch and was just about to start walking after her when she came whizzing around the corner and pulled up to report that everything was fine - great news! So after a spot of lunch (boring vegetable noodles) we drove off to "site 1" of the Plain of Jars.

The very first thing that you notice when you pull up to the car-park is a huge sign erected by the Mines Advisory Group (MAG). This is an organisation trying to clear Laos of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) of which there is, unfortunately, a terrifyingly large amount. Everything from North Vietnamese hand grenades and tiny "Bomblets" from American cluster bombs to huge 5000kg bombs lie on and under the red soil waiting for some poor, unfortunate sod to stumble across them and blow themselves up. The MAG sign is shown below, click on it to read what it says and then guess how careful we were walking around!

The Plain of Jars itself is a curious place - the natural landscape has been sculpted by decades of bombing and is now a hybrid - the basic topography is still there but the hills are artificially rounded and there is a noticeable lack of vegetation,  especially when compared to the lush forest covered hills that we drove through to get here. The jars themselves seem a part of this landscape and contribute to the slightly surreal feel of the place.

Us and a jar                        Scenery around the Plain,                    and some more jars.

After a couple of hours here we called it a day (one stone jar soon looks very much like another stone jar...) and drove back to town. On the way we stopped to get Hector washed as some of the mud and dust from Cambodia had set like concrete on the underside.

Friday, 5th May 2006. Phonsavan to Vang Vieng. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK'S MUM!

We finally made up our minds not to go into Thailand at Huay Xai, but rather to head back to Vientiane and cross over the Friendship bridge. With the clutch still working we made good progress back to Vang Vieng. It was lovely weather today and we got to see some more of the beautiful scenery that was covered by thick cloud when we drove up here. On arrival we booked into the same place we stayed last time and, at Amy's insistence, settled down in front of Friends for the afternoon. In the evening the heavens opened and it poured down all night, which made us feel better about not heading up North.

Hector and the red soil of Laos and the stunning limestone carst scenery en route to Vang Vieng. 

Saturday, 6th May 2006. Vang Vieng to Vientiane.

An easy drive back to town today, and once here we re-acquainted ourselves with the really good food available here! 

Sunday, 7th May 2006. Vientiane.

We were woken up at about 0530 this morning by yet another huge thunderstorm - there's certainly a lot more rain around these days! After we eventually got up we had breakfast at the Scandinavian Bakery (always good) and then pottered around town doing admin type things and buying some more DVDs for the laptop.