Elephant Crossing!

This was the name of the hotel we've just spent five very relaxing days/nights in, in the stunningly beautiful town of Vang Vieng, about five hours' comfortable bus ride from Vientiane. In terms of natural beauty, this area must really take the biscuit. The Elephant Crossing hotel is just to the south of this town, overlooking the Nam Song River and the jaw-dropping vast ring of saw-toothed mountains. 'jutting up like the ragged back of a stegosaurous' (Lonely Planet's beautifully poetic, and evocative description). We' ve had some beautiful hotel rooms this trip, and this is one of the best, our en-suite bedroom having huge French windows the whole width of the room, overlooking the balcony, the hotel's beautiful riverside garden and restaurant, and the river and mountains beyond, with frequent visits by goats, buffalo, oxen and their young to drink at the water's edge.
The town itself resembles, once again, something out of the Wild West with its dirt roads lined with wooden buildings. It's a very small town, but growing incredibly rapidly. The publishers of the local map we bought explained that they have been trying to keep track of the town's growth, noting 55 places (houses, bars, restaurants, hotels, guesthouses, etc) as of Feb 2005, 69 in Dec 2007, 82 in Jan 2009, and 110 in January this year. Sadly, much of the recent growth has been bars and guesthouses, many Western-owned, catering for the very worst of the tasteless, drunken, loud and aggressive, Western back-packer crowd reminiscent of Bangkok's Kao San Road. Seems most of them spend their mornings in the 'bed and bucket bars' which line the streets, lying supine, watching re-runs of episodes of 'Friends', 'Seinfeld', 'The Simpsons' and such like, and drinking copious quantities of the bucketfuls of bottled spirits of various kinds. Then, from about 11 am to 11 pm, they migrate to the dozens of mainly water fun-park bars which have burgeoned along the river to the north of the town, which compete with each other to pump out the loudest possible rock, hip-hop or techno music, while offering offer lots of different ways to have fun on the river - tubing, zip-wires, rope-swings and bamboo flumes. Without the hellishly loud music, this could be great fun. However, these places are so packed together now that, from wherever you are, you can hear three or four different sound systems at the same time, all of them pretty crap and crackly. For such a peaceful, dignified country as Laos, all of this really jars - with us, as well as with most of the local people, according to Rachel (owner of the Elephant Crossing and friend of Jo).
Andy and I had been planning to do some voluntary work at an organic mulberry farm at the northern end of the town. Most of the profits from the products of this farm (mulberry teas and shakes, silks from the worms, silkworm poo infusions! (honestly!!), goats cheese, etc.) help to finance education for local village children. Unfortunately for us (and particularly for them and the projects they support), we really couldn't stand to be there for any length of time, because of the volume of competing noise from the bars which now surround the place.
Enough of the negatives, though! Gladly for us, we were staying at the southern end of the town in the most serene and gob-smackingly beautiful surroundings imaginable. We had some lazy time around the 'infinity' swimming pool of the Vansara hotel just a few doors along, gazing out at the beautiful limestone mountains all around. On another day we had a day's tour out to trek to some traditional Hmong tribal villages, and four different caves well to the north of the town (one of which is so low that it's only accessible by tubing into it (of course, I chickened out of this, having lost the battle with my claustrophobia), before kayaking back down-river 8km to our hotel. The caves were: Tham Sang Triangle; Tham Sang with Buddha footprint (huge, and his left one, of course!); Tham Loup; Tham Hoi (at least 3 km long, but nobody has ever reached the end of it!); Tham Nam (a tributary of the Nam Song River (on which is the town of Vang Vieng) lows out of its low entrance. We'd met a really nice Indian guy from London, Manish (by name and nature!) on the rickety old bus to the start of the trek, and Andy and he went right into the really low cave on lorry inner tubes - they said the water in the cave was really cold and went on for 300 metres, with only a weedy head-torch and a rope to guide them in and out. Fantastic! Andy and Manish shared a kayak back to town (8 km) while I shared the tour guide's kayak. (He was a much better kayaker!).
On another day, Andy felt rather guilty that his Three Peaks Veterans mates had been keeping up their walking schedule while he was away, so went out for an 8-hour walk(!) around the limestone mountains across the river from the hotel (I turned back, rather wimpishly, after only an hour or so!). I'm going to hand over to him now to explain what he experienced.
Shortly after Barbara retired, I felt the need for some lunch, and along this thinly-populated, dusty, rocky and rather beautiful track, which contained little more than a few scattered villages, a few primary schools, a health centre, some farmland and a massive quarry - but some wonderful views - I came across a tumble-down shack with the very welcoming sign 'Rest' [...aurant!]. But where was the 'Rest'? All I could see was one of the very common, all-purpose workshops we see all over this region: motorbike repairs, tractor and trailer repairs, house repairs, pretty much everything repairs - apart from thirst and hunger! Whilst watching a welder welding with no mask or any other protection other than shorts and flip-flops, I was approached by, I think, the father of some young children playing nearby, with the very welcome questions: 'Beer Lao?' ['Kowp jai!' (Yes, please!)]; 'Noodle Soup?' [Kowp jai!!]; 'Sit here, bag here, tabre here'. Two chairs - one for me, one for my rucksack to keep it out of the dust - and a brand new table still in its wrapper appeared from nowhere, followed by an ice-cold bottle of Beer Lao and a clean class. Children gathered round to watch this grey-haired, white-bearded (beards of any description are unusual here - as are Buddha-bellies!), white-skinned stranger, but their shyness soon evaporated and they allowed a few smiling photos. Very soon the lady of the establishment appeared, taking several ingredients from muslin bags hanging from the rafters, and soon after that a large bowl of piping-hot, delicious, spicy noodle soup with pork appeared. The bill came to 25,000 Kip (about £2.00!), but as I was about to leave, fully satisfied, an elderly man appeared on a clapped-out old push-bike, and was introduced to me as 'Papa'. The grandfather of the children, I think, or maybe great-grandfather, as his appearance suggested he must be about 100 years old, although very sprightly for all that. I soon discovered the source of his sprightliness, as he sat at the roadside, squatting with his bum right down on his heels, with his soles and heels all firmly on the ground (you try it - it's bloody difficult, but everyone here can do it!), rummaged in his tunic and produced a small, orange plastic bag - from which he rolled the biggest spliff I've ever seen! After a few, obviously very satisfying puffs, he rose without a word and offerred me the bag! I now know how to be that active when I'm 100! We've found such great hospitality to be very common all over this region - but usually with the exception of a small, orange plastic bag.
Later that afternoon I passed a huge limestone quarry, that fascinated me for about half an hour. They were blasting away at a massive cliff-face, with diggers and other machinery at the base of it, and dozens of workers - male and female I think, although difficult to be sure with all the dust! - all wearing nothing more than tee-shirt, shorts or sarong, and flip-flops. No hard hats, no ear or foot protection, the occasional rudimentary face mask, women crouching like the 100-year-old man and rummaging around for rocks on the ground to throw them into different sized piles, no protection from moving machinery for either workers, walkers or the many children playing around. And people in the UK grumble about our Health and Safety at Work legislation! It was all very fascinating, though, with several bits of antiquated but efficient machines to grind-up the blasted rocks and boulders and shoot them into huge, conical piles of various sized roadstone, from big rocks to almost powder-like small stones. And a deafening racket!
My walk continued until about 7 pm, the last hour being 5 km in pitch-darkness along Highway 13 - one of Laos' very few 'main' roads. 'Main' includes width for two trucks; metalled surface from time to time, otherwise serious pot-holes; un-marked and abandoned roadworks; trucks, pick-ups, motorbikes, push-bikes, pedestrians, cattle, pigs, poultry, etc all mixed together; little sense of which side of the road to be on; and a rough, stony verge for me to leap to safety every now and then. But it was all really great fun - the whole day in fact, but it took me about half an hour in the shower to get all the red dust off me before some more ice-cold Beer Lao was to be had.
Next stop, Luang Prabang.  See you there!

Views from Elephant Crossing Bedroom Window

Start of Eight-Hour Walk

A View from the Walk

Dusty Sunset!

A VERY NOISY BAR!

The Lunch on the Walk

Several More Views from the Walk

The Quarry

Ready for the Tube into the Cave
(and ready for rotating!)

Tubing into - and outof - the Cave