#laocoffee | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

crashpaddiaries · 7 years

Text

Dear Crashpad Diary #32

Yoooooo freakin beasts!!

What´s going on back home?? New sends??? Great fun?? Sweet life?? All the options right!!! =)

We´ve been running around and trying to hug the universe more and more down here hehehe

The trip has been fantastic and the good vibes ensure to make it happen the best way ever hehehe

with some funny facts that I´m about to tell yas… I mean… write yas!! haha Like: The crazy 4000 islands in a river / People of Laos / Storms everywhere / if only the storms alerts worked / Dumb and Dumber´s Loop / Loop fail / Restos with no food?? / try not to pay the waterfalls / the gay waterfall / Vang Vieng smelly cat / are we in China??? / Fast and furious / Sleeping at the laundry

haha … =) can’t start the post without a smile and laughs upfront heheheheheheh

Twas nice spending my bday at Phnom Penh… nothing too exciting there indeed… big city and not interesting… but… the party was awesome… we destroyed some ice-cream to commemorate life hahahaha and get some serious sugar rush hehehehe

The day after we got a bus to Laos… went up towards the border following the mekong river… that goes from Cambodia to Thailand, crossing pretty much entirely Laos… and we decided give a shot to a place called 4000 islands… in the middle of the river there are thousands of small, medium and big islands… one prettier than the other… what a place!! We spend few days at one of them called Dondet… a small one with loads of hut and bungalows… a hippie atmosphere and rich nature… It was Laos welcoming us greatly!!

Already in the first days we realised how different are the people from Laos… it seems they don’t give a shit about you… I mean… they care and treat you well… but different than Indians, Cambodians, Indonesians… they are not curious… they dont bother you asking “where you go?”, “Yes… weed??” hahahah Also… the english is barely spoken in many areas… which brings a whole new experience to the adventure! haha

Donder is quite popular among travellers and it´ll be easy communicating… fairly good internet too… the only problem is… don´t trust the weather forecast hahaha we were there in the middle of a huge… serious… fantastically intense storm… well… you have to consider that tropical rains are pretty common here… but there we were… walking fast under pissing rain… lightening going on pretty much everywhere… loads of thunders… trying to get to a safe place asap… my good old head torch helping us finding the way… so we got to our “muddy street”… “sweet… we will make it without being electrocuted!!” Just after few almost-jogging-steps, the mud took away my flip flops… I stopped and got it back.. running from guesthouse to guesthouse till getting to our place… what a sketchy adventure… =) As soon as we close the door, Luh´s phone connects to the internet and he receives the following message from Accuweather: Alert! Heavy storm in your area!!

Well… thanks!! hahahaha

From Dondet… and pretty energetic after the storm (haha I had to make the joke… sorry!)… we followed th plan of covering Laos from south to north… and the next stop was Paksé! The city is small and there is not much as well.. but what grabs one attention here is the trip you can do around the area… the called Bolaven Loop… which consists in renting a shitty bike and drive through the waterfally roads.. passing by coffee plantations (what a tasty coffee beasts!!), greeny scenery… hills… mountains… dirty roads… almost untouched communities and bridges above rivers. so glad we did it… twas great!! Hats down to Tad Lo… a small town with many waterfalls, great food, awesome people and fantastic atmosphere! =)

The whole thing was so funny!! Imagine that… 200km and we rented a bike for the both of us… an 100cc… it was defo like the Dumb and Dumber version of the Bolaven Loop! hahahaha

But even dumber was a guy that became a legend in the backpackers mythology! It´s all well set… When you rent the bike you get like a prep talk… explaining where you can go and all the tips… the start is in Pakse and the first day is pretty easy… you drive straight… for good 10k and then turn left… going north until you get to Tad Lo… easy right??

Well… not for a guy that for some reason turned right just after the city and drove all the way down to the 4000 islands…. hahahahah even more awkward was the fact that the guy drove like 4 hours until he gets to Dondet and realises that was sth wrong… haha where are the waterfalls?? Someone replaced´em with tons of islands! hahahahahah people are indeed awesome!! hahaha

Everyone has troubles when tripping like that… some go wrong… some get loads of flat tires… loads fall… have the bikes stolen… but we were fortunately good till the very last day… when the universe decided mess up with our food!! we don’t know why none of the restaurants in the last day´s piece, did not have any food… hahahaha serious?? A restaurant without food??? haha we prob went down some pounds that trip… the tiny bike appreciate the restos effort hehehehehe

After those days paying for the waterfalls entrance and parking pretty often, we got kinda cranky with that and decided not to pay anymore… going for only the ones for free… which so far were the nicest ones up there near to Tad Lo… so… the last stop was in a cascade called Tad Yuang.. getting to the gate the girl came with the tickets already… we decided not to pay once again and she got angry at us because we stopped and did not get the tickets she had already taken off… hahaha that was funny!! But the best was just after she started complaining in her language… Luh accelerate towards the waterfall pretending we would get in without paying… when we took off she started screaming and only stopped, quite ashamed, when she realized he was messing with her and got in to turn the bike and go away! hahahah

Another hilarious moment provided by the waterfalls was in Tad Hang… a nice place to hang with friends.. enjoy the small cascades and a big volume of water coming from everywhere… perfect spot to grab a beer and relax… exactly what the locals do! So there we were, getting there through the stairs when I see a weird woman coming towards us as a missile, passed by me and went straight to Luh saying hi and snuggling his arms hahahahah The lady boy locked the target as soon as he/she saw Luh and came attacking in full speed hahahahah twas so funny… Awkward moment hahahaha

With the loop done we got back to Pakse, spent the hottest day ever there… 38ºC with 50ºC real feeling… is it the real feeling of drying off?? hahaha And the day after we took off to Vang Vieng… passing by Vientiane… the days in Vang Vieng were sweet… such a beautiful place full of blue lagoons, caves, beautiful mountains and the Mekong river cutting it in half!

We met the smelliest girl in Laos… she happened to stay in our room and destroyed the atmosphere in it… I know… sometimes travelling you get a bit smelly… but when that happens… you simply take a shower and wash your clothes… and sadly, for the three of us in that room, she did not learn that yet! hahahah I´m laughing but I cried when I opened the door that day… the air was even greener inside the room! hahahahahah Oh well… I used my earplugs as a nose plugs and twas a lovely night!! hahahaha

Vang Vieng is widely known because of the party scene and the famous tubing through the Mekong river´s rapids… which we did and…. man… was the most boring thing ever… there is no rapids… only 2 parts with a maybe 2 mins in total… for the rest of the time you have to paddle and burn in the sun like a doughnuts baking in an oven hahahahahaha was terrible! The only worth thing was a zipline in the very last bar… but other than that…. a big nope!

Anyways…it has been done in the past with people stopping in bars situated along side the river (they were closed because of the accidents and even worse… after some deaths)… nowadays there are only few bars…. which made me think… maybe it has always been boring… but when youre drunk everything gets funnier and people indeed enjoyed that!

Well… I would need loads of alcohol in my bloodstream to get some adrenaline off that boredom!! hahahaha

But the universe worked in our favour that night…and gave us part of the adrenaline we missed from the “doughnuting”! When traveling from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang… we took the first and only fast and furious bus… but, unfortunately, it wasn’t´t fast and all the neon and lights were inside it… and being a sleeping bus… that did not help at all with our sleep hahahahahah

In addition… we could not believe when they, around 1am, woke everyone up and asked to leave the bus… twas in the middle of nowhere… extremely misty or dusty (couldn’t quite understand)… they needed to get the bus lighter in order to get it uphill through that dirty road… ahahahaha something that only happens in Laos hahahahha

We got to Luang Prabang wrecked… at 4 am…. and the world is so cool and full of good vibes that we arrived to the hostel… asked if they had any place that we could crash and they gave us a bed in their laundry as they did not have any rooms available hahaha we got a really god “morning” of sleep among duvets… bedsheets and pillow hahahaha twas great and smelled fucking good!! hahahah in your face smelly girl from Vang Vieng!! hahahaha

And here we are right now… the probable last stop in Laos before getting to our beloved Thailand… enjoying the good food… the chill atmosphere and laid back way of Laotian life!

Hope you guys had some fun with the post and sorry for the lack of updates lately… I´m not writing often but I´m sending fantastic vibes towards each one of yas! =)

Oh… and after 4 months without climbing, I´m only one month away from my trains and the sweet seshs with the beasts back home!! can’t wait!

Great vibes and huge smiles from Laos!!

Cheers,

Evan

0 notes

owncentsoftime · 9 years

Text

Last Stop in Laos: Vientiane

Our main purpose in the Capitol of Laos was to get a visa for Vietnam. You can’t get in without it and it takes three days and 70USD to process. To get to Vietnam we were originally going to drive, or ride in a bus, but on our way down Laos we stared to hear horror stories about the bus trip. It was a 30 hour nightmare, complete with potential mudslides, curvy mountain roads and seats that would not allow you sleep. Well we had had one to many of those up until that point. We caved. We bought plane tickets from Vientiane to Hanoi. It would only be an hour long flight, so technically we gained 29 hours and lost a giant headache. From an economic standpoint, we thought it was a no brainer. So while we waited for our Visas, we tried to make the most of our last few days in Laos.

And it didn’t start well. Firstly, after we dropped our passports off to the Vietnamese embassy we trekked a few miles out of town to try to find our hostel. We found it on a busy intersection, with nothing surrounding it. We got to the unoccupied reception desk and rung the bell. Then rung it again. Then rung it again. Then went outside to the guy washing his car and tried to show him that we had a reservation, and he went back to his car. We went back inside and run the bell again. Finally we saw someone walking across the parking lot headed our direction. She came to the desk and took our papers and sorted us with a “room”. To get there, we walked up four flights of stairs past a countless number of rooms that seemed to be completely unoccupied, down a hallway at the end she opened a blue door that was our room. In it was a small fridge that was creaking. A TV that had no channels and a bed that had dirty sheets. Not to mention walls that seemed to have been smeared in shit not too long ago. We dropped our bags and quickly got out of there. We needed breathing room. We found a market that was worth wondering. And a restaurant worth eating at. It was the fried chicken sort, with ladies that come by restock your beer supply and even pour them for you. We got assistance from a guy sitting at the table across from us and he ended up becoming our friend for the meal. We stayed out as long as possible to avoid going back to the cesspool. We had no choice but to sleep there that night, but the next morning we were out. We had to find something better.

We found Sari 1. Which was only a minor step up in that they did not have poo walls. Just hard beds. However the guy who owned the place was a sweet heart and told us some good places to check out in town along with telling us what Popcorntime is. (hint: it’s free Netflix. Check it out.) Sari 1 also happened to be way better as far choices went. Right down the street was a rolly vendor who never rolled that made Laos Coffees in the morning. These are probably the best coffees we had ever had. Thailand has Thai tea, and Vietnam has their take on coffee which you will about later, but the Laotians take both of them and combine them into a plastic bag with lots of ice and do something to the drink to make it taste like coffee chocolate milk. They are supreme! It is also another thing we miss.

We kind of just wondered around Vientiane for three days. We took a bus out to the Buddha park, which is just a park chock full of different concrete Buddha statues. OId ones, new ones, small ones, big ones. Ones you can climb, others you can go into. It was kind of cool except for getting back and forth. The tuk-tuk drivers prey on our type (the uneducated to the area foreigner) and over charge for a short ride to the bus station. We get it Laos. You place everything way out of the way to capitalize on our dollars: Bus stations on the outside of town, buddha parks out in the country. I would do the same if I were you. But since I am not, I have to say, this practice is extremely annoying and grows old the first time. Ok, rant over. There were some very good night markets right down the street from us. Where all sorts of soups were proffered, along with giant glass containers of mini meat pies. Also there were sweet sesame fried donut type treats and spicy duck salads. Fried meat balls and fried noodles. It was like a night carnival for your mouth. And it was really fun.

On our last day we went to scope out a sight that we had been walking by since our arrival. This sight is called the Patuxai. It looks a lot like the arc d’triumph in Paris, except with less flair and more Asian inspired art. You are allowed to walk up to the top for a small nominal sum and get a nice view of the town. A funny fact about this structure is that all the concrete that it is made up of was donated by the USA. Only that that concrete was meant for airport runways. The Laotians did not want more runways so they made this nice piece of art? It started to rain while we were at the top, so we waited for it to come and go before we left. When we did, we headed back over to the Vietnamese embassy to collect our new visas. With those in hand we were now ready to depart to Hanoi the next day, but before we did, we need to catch some live music and beers at L’Atmosphere. A bar owned by an ex-pat French Man who we had befriended a few days before on a search for swing dance lessons. It was a party that night and we had a good time, meeting some locals and some dude from Berkeley, named Carl.

This left us with foggy heads the on the morning of the 14th of June. I think they cut the whiskey and rum with some other stuff around these parts because even when we would only have one cocktail, we would wake up in pain. Suppose it’s just a sacrifice you have to make. So with our headaches in tow, and after a quick breakfast at a French bakery, we caught a cab (for 50000 K?) to the airport to get out of Laos! We had a short one hour flight over to Hanoi and after clearing a jam packed immigration line with no hassles, we caught a cab for $2 to our Hotel. More on that next time. Stay tuned.

#laos #vientiane #laocoffee #french

1 note · View note