Symphony of Puke!

we thought our bus ride from vang vieng to luang prabang would be a cinch. it was a short 4 to 5 hour ride up through the mountains that we hadn’t heard any bad things about, besides if we could do a 24 hour bus ride through Vietnam we could get through anything. this bus ride turned out to be the most treacherous thing i’ve had to endure on this long journey. the first hour or so was fine but after that i started feeling nauseous. i thought i was a huge baby for feeling so sick but the turns in the road were sharp and so close together my stomach just wasn’t taking it. all of a sudden, as i’m feeling like i’m going to vomit, i hear a girl (poor lil 14 year old french girl) a few rows ahead of us throw up. awesome. it was then i realized the whole bus was feeling the same way i was. so, for the next few hours all we heard was the crinkling of barf bags and the sound of puke. thankfully i had a stuffy nose so i couldn’t smell it but drew certainly could. by the time we reached luang prabang the bus was empty of barf bags and everyone was hunched over and green. i don’t know how but drew with his iron stomach managed to escape the sickness and even though i felt sick i never actually did vomit. i would never suggest that ride to anyone. ever. ever.

we got to luang prabang though and found it to be a nice little town with one main street packed with shops, cafes, and restaurants. it was more upscale than vang vieng which made it a bit pricier but nice nonetheless. we spent no time finding out about tours and things to do in town. everyone had told us we must go see the waterfall right outside of town so we booked that trip for the very next day.

years ago drew had taken me to my very first waterfall, snoqualmie falls, outside seattle, and i loved it! this time around was even better because we got to climb to the top and then go swimming on one of the three tiers. the water was so clean, clear, and warm! no one had been swimming when we got to the second tier and we were a little unsure of if we could or not but we couldn’t resist. there was a group of Japanese tourists right behind us and they loved it so we all jumped in together! there were many hi-fives going around that day!

on our trip we met a guy named ben from London and a girl named stacy from canada. ben was a really cool guy who actually worked in British television and stacy had been living in phnom penh for the last year working on the Truth and Reconciliation trials (the trials for the victims of the Khmer rouge. it’s the first time they’ve EVER been given a voice and are able to tell their stories. pretty damn impressive). we wound up going out to dinner with them later that night! in between the waterfall and dinner though drew and i climbed to the top of the hill in the center of luang prabang. at the top was a Buddhist temple with neat ‘days of the week’ buddha’s and a great lookout. we hit it right at sunset, which was perfect. in the morning you can go up there for sunrise and right before see the monk procession down the street. we tried to wake up for that but opted for sunset instead.

anyway, dinner was rad! we got the laos bbq which was a mixture between chinese hot pot and korean bbq. in the center of our table was a grill and on top of the grill they put this huge pot that has a bump in the middle. what happens is, on this bump you place your meat and tofu and all of the juices from that drips down into the mote surrounding the edge of the pot. this is where you put water and veggies. the heat brings the water to a boil, the juices from the meat drip down, and the veggies cook down in the boiling water to create this magnificent soup! i think out of all the bbqs and hot pots we tried, this was by far the tastiest!

since the beginning of the trip all i wanted to do was ride an elephant. our plan was to head into northern Thailand from luang prabang via the Mekong river, see some temples, and it would be there that i would get to ride some elephants. thankfully after talking to stacy she persuaded me into riding elephants in laos instead of thailand. apparently it’s much more touristy in thailand and she said she saw a few places there that didn’t treat the animals very nice. so, we opted to stay in luang prabang an extra day and book an elephant trek. it had to be the perfect one though where we could bathe the elephants as well though. after a lot of looking around we finally found one! it was the best!!!!! there was one too many people on our trek so they asked drew to ride actually on the elephant while the rest of us sat in wooden benches. i wanted so badly to ride on the neck of the elephant but got too scared when the time came so drew did it instead. the trek lasted about an hour through the jungle and we ended at the edge of a river. it was this river where we got to climb on the backs of the elephant, get in the water with them, and scrub ‘em down! i LOVED it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the elephants were so fun splashing around with us! my guy even took a dump in the water and we watched it float past us. y’all know how big elephant poop is!!! it was the best!

the night market in luang prabang was pretty epic as well. they mostly had hand sewn pillow cases and duvet covers. they were beautiful though and in all different colors and designs. they also had some really neat artwork. it was definitely the best night market we went to on this trip!

since we did my elephant trek in laos we didn’t really find too many reasons to head into northern thailand. we were also really anxious to get to bangkok and even further down to the beach. by this point we were a little tired of mountains and temples and were ready to hit the sand. so, we opted to take the bus back down south. one might think i was crazy for wanting to take the puke bus back but thankfully my doctor gave me some sleeping pills for those long, hard journeys. it was a 9 hour ride back down to Vientiane where we would catch the bus to bangkok but we decided to break it up with one more night in vang vieng on the way down. it was nice having one more day there in that town. we really became attached to it over the few days we’d spent there.