We are in an unexpected city, a bonus. Yesterday afternoon a group of us, suffering serious withdrawal symptoms of Western food, went in search of a McDonalds, I'm ashamed to say. After walking for about an hour, some of us decided that it wasn't worth it. I'm pleased to say that I had no McDonalds swill. Instead, the splinter-group of rebels went to a small cafe selling dumplings for an insanely cheap price. Lovely.
Chengdu is famous for its Pandas. So the morning is spent seeing them in their sanctuary. They have remarkably intelligent looking faces when you see them for real, not like the gormless look they always seem to get in illustrations. We feel quite privileged to see such a famous but very rare animal in the living flesh.
August 4th, day 109
Since we had to say farewell to our truck, we have to use other transport. In some ways, it seems more real when you are on public transport with locals going about they daily business. So while it's a shame to lose the truck, it's also a good thing that we had the adventure of an 18 hour overnight train from Chengdu in Sichuan down to Kunming in Yunnan.
So late afternoon, we boarded the train. It's not quite what I had in mind. I was expecting a cabin with 2 pairs of bunks, sleeping 4 of us, all fellow Odyssey travellers. But no. It was not cabins, it was 3 bed high bunks without doors, without privacy, full of Chinese. We had all top bunks most of the way along the length of the carriage, with many Chinese families below us.Sounds bad, but it was strangely fun. Being in such close contact with the local people was an adventure we'd have missed out on if we hadn't lost the truck. We would also have missed out on the amazing city of Chengdu and the pandas. That evening on the train, several of us went to the restaurant car and drank the bar dry whilst marching up and down drunkenly, wearing the ticket inspector's cap, much to the amusement of the train staff.
August 5th, day 110
The train lights and cheesy canned musak come on at 7am, which is horribly early for one with a mild hangover. No need to get out of bad, though, the train won't arrive in Kunming for a few more hours yet, and our top bunks are above head-hight so afford some limited privacy.
The day is quite un-eventful, Kunming looks quite interesting but we are only here for one night. Joy and I celebrate our penultimate night in China with a bottle of Chinese wine. It's very cheap but actually quite nice.August 6th, day 111
We board the coach to take us to Jinghong. Once again we are on public transport but outnumber the Chinese. It's a long journey but the coach is luxurious and air-conditioned and showed some very cheesy films on TV screens.
Jinghong is a picture-postcard Chinese town with traditional looking but all new looking buildings on the banks of a river. It is the Mekong, so we are a stone's throw from South East Asia, the final section of this epic trip.
The evening is spent eating excellent food on a restaurant terrace on the banks of the Mekong.
August 7th-11th, days 112-116, Luang Namtha in Laos
Another day, another stamp in the passport. We take a public bus from Jinghong in Yunnan, China down to Luang Namtha in Laos. On first impressions Laos appears poorer but a lot more relaxed. A green riot of hilly jungle interspersed with flat rice paddies with the occasional worker in conical straw hat and water buffalo surrounds us as we proceed slowly on bumpy roads.
Luang Namtha is a small town in the far north of Laos and on first impressions appears very western tourist-oriented in a way I have not seen yet, especially in China where a western face is a rarity. Many restaurants line the main street, with menus in English. I'm glad to see they all sell Laos food, not just pizzas and burgers.
There's not so much to see and do in the town itself, the main reason to be here is the activities on offer. Find a group of confused looking backpackers and there's an activities booking office nearby, where you can book everything from a 2-day hiking and kayaking experience in the jungle to a cooking course. Joy and I plump for a day's jungle hiking on one day and a cooking course on another. I could describe both endlessly but I'll just say that the hike was hot, tiring, and absolutely brilliant. What an incredible wonderful and unique environment the jungle is. Shame the people round here take great delight in cutting it all down.
August 12th, day 117, Nong Khiew
We spend one full day relaxing in this tiny village on the banks of the great Mekong River, and 2 nights in typical jungle accommodation - bamboo huts on stilts. We sleep under mosquito nets, which is really very cosy.
August 13th-16th, days 118 - 121, Luang Prabang
The trip is 2/3 the way through!
It takes a few hours to travel from Nong Khiew to Luang Prabang by riverboat. This is a lot more exciting than a dull boring bus! On the way there we stop at a Buddha cave, not as big as the one in China but still impressive.
Luang Prabang is a small town, but bigger than Luang Namtha, on the Mekong. The guidebook says it has 33 temples (or 'wats'), which makes this town a fairly dim 0.033 kilowats (ha ha ha!) Anything which isn't a Wat in Luang Prabang is probably a bar/restaurant so it's a great place for evening entertainment.At 5pm every day, one of the roads in the town centre closes to traffic and fills with market stalls for the Night Market, a fascinating place to wander around and see what interesting things are on sale.
On one of our days here, we go on an elephant ride. A quick bus and boat trip out to the jungle and we arrive at the Elephant Sanctuary. We start with a gentle ride - the elephants are fitted with a bench for 2 and we ride around for a while. After, we wash the elephants. This involves riding the elephant bare-back as it wades through water, and then dips itself down under the water. You get just as wet as the elephant does. It's a lot more fun than the actual ride.
A quick swim under a waterfall later and it's back to Luang Prabang and several beers.
August 17th, day 122, Vang Vieng
A town completely devoid of any redeeming features. Full of very tacky western tourist bars with happy hour promotions. A club 18-30 town. Avoid.
August 18th-21st, days 123-126, Vientiane
The capital of Laos, actually quite a big town on the Mekong, and over the Mekong lies Thailand. No bridges here, strangely, no border crossing.
Vientiane is not as nice as Luang Prabang, not by a long way, but there are certainly some interesting things to see.
At the end of a long boulevard is Laos' answer to L'Arc de Triomphe is Paris. It looks a little bit like it except with a more Asian look and none of the charm and grace of the original. You can climb up to the top and take in the views. The sign describing it says "from a closer distance it appears even less impressive, a monster of concrete". I couldn't have put it better myself.From there we go to That Luang, the most impressive stupa in Laos, and the national emblem as pictured on banknotes. This is large, tall, brilliant gold, and closed fror lunch. Never mind, we can still see it.
August 22nd, day 127, Phu Hin Bun
Two nights, one full day, in a national park. The accommodation is once again the jungle standard - bamboo huts on legs, sleeping under a mosquito net. Judging by the bites we picked up, we weren't the only ones under the net.
The highlight of this section is the magnificant cave. We all got in boats on the river, and a short way upstream the river entered a cave. The boat drove into the cave, and we all turned on our torches. Before too long, we were so far inside that the only light was torchlight, around us only blackness. The cave was a good 20 or 30 meters high in places, and 15-20 meters wide. This is a truly magnificent cave.
About 15 minutes in, we were able to get off the boat inside the cave at a raised dry bit. Here, the cave was illuminated with atmospheric lighting to highlight stalagtites and stalagmites, and we went off on foot to explore this part of the cave.Then back in the boat and continue further into the cave. After a while we saw daylight and shortly after came out the other end and had a picnic lunch beside the river before the return journey through the cave.
August 23rd, day 128, drive to Savannakhet
Savannakhet is a border town, because tomorrow we head into Vietnam. Shame the border in question here is the Thai border, but at this latitude Laos is very narrow. Nothing much to note about this town, just a night stopover en route.
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