The Waterfalls, Hikes, Boats, and Nuts Van Drivers of Laos
The trip to Laos started with a 10 hour travel day. A reasonably early morning, a long, long van ride, a boarder crossing, and finally a boat on the Mekong. Which was incredibly beautiful at sunset. We started in the south of Laos, in the 4000 islands, and stayed on Don Khon. This cluster of islands were very peaceful, and the sunsets were incredible. We spent our days riding bikes, kayaking, and admiring waterfalls. Here we had the best mango smoothies as well, a real highlight of our trip at this point. Ben and I love our mango smoothies.
After our few nights in the 4000 islands, we slowly began heading north. First stop was Pakse. Being right next to the Bolaven Plateau meant it was time for coffee. The Bolaven Plateau is an elevated area in the Champasak Province of Laos where the largest coffee and tea plantations in the country are. We took a day tour to visit waterfalls, and a plantation where I had a delicious latte and Ben got to marvel at an absolutely massive spider. Which I stayed as far away from as I could! The rest of the day was hiking to waterfalls and swimming. I wouldn’t say it was the best group tour, but we got to see most of what we wanted to. They could have done better organising it though.
After Pakse, we flew up to Vientiane. Flying meant that we got to avoid taking a sleeper bus, which we were more than happy to avoid! Vientiane really surprised us, as we were expecting a pretty dull city, since that’s what people said online. However, it was actually very pretty. They have their own version of the Arc de Triomphe, called the Patuxay Monument, which was beautiful. We only walked around for the afternoon, as the next day we got a morning bus to Vang Vieng. A place I was extremely excited for, because it meant I got to go up in a hot air balloon for sunset. An experience that has been on my list for years, and it was an incredible! It felt almost surreal being that high up. I had no gauge for how high we really were, but our peak hight was around 1500m according to our captain. Which my brain just couldn’t really comprehend. The night before hot air ballooning, we hiked up to a viewpoint for sunset, which was relatively difficult and felt very high up. When we were in the balloon, we were looking down on that viewpoint, which was crazy to me!
From Vang Vieng, we took the new high speed train up to Luang Prabang, and then transferred to a van, to Nong Khiaw. This road was the most pot hole covered road ever. Kind of impressive there could be that many. Our driver loved accelerating and breaking harshly between every set as well! After the bumpy journey, we arrived in Nong Khiaw and decided we wanted to hike up to a viewpoint for sunset. Which seems to be a trend with us now! The viewpoint was stunning as we could see the whole town with the river running through it. Once we hiked down, we rewarded ourselves with a shared slice of carrot cake from Delilah’s. Just yum.
The next day in Nong Khiaw was probably the most fun day we’ve had on the trip so far. We signed up for a boat/kayak tour for the day which included a waterfall and a viewpoint hike. We boated up the river to Muang Ngoy, where we hiked to a viewpoint which overlooked the town, and then strolled around the town. We sat down at a cute bakery and ordered a mango shake, and a freshly baked baguette, which was so good. We ended up buying two more to take with us. After town, we boated to a village where we walked to a rice farm, had a delicious lunch, and then hiked to the waterfall. This water was painfully cold! But, we still jumped in for a swim cooling us right off. The rest of the tour was a peaceful boat down the river, and a short, but lovely kayak back to town. That evening we went out for dinner with a bunch of the people from the trip, and Ben had a buddy to hike with in the morning. A super fun day out!
From Nong Khiaw, we took a van back to Luang Prabang, with the most chaotic van driver we have ever had. He had no calm bone in him and was flying over those pot holes. I don’t know if he knew brakes were a thing. Ben and I were flying around in the back. We made it to the town alive and then had few days to explore the capital of Laos. We went to the famous Kuangsi Falls, which were just amazing. We managed to find a British couple who booked a private tuk tuk with us to head off early in the morning to beat the crowds, which was totally worth it as we had the place to ourselves for a good hour and a half. On our last day in Luang Prabang, we did a rice planting experience with The Living Land Farm. This was a super fascinating morning learning how rice goes from farm to table. We got to plant grains, transplant baby rice, harvest fully grown rice, pound it, separate gain and husk, cook it, and the best part, eat it. It was an educational experience, and very fun!
A truly great way to end our time in Laos, and had us leaving the country on a rice high! Laos is definitely somewhere I would like to visit again. The friendly and calm nature of the people (minus the nutcase van drivers) and the overall laid back culture was really nice. There are so many more places I want to visit, so, looks like I will just have to come back to Laos!
