Wednesday, 19 December 2007
After choosing an "adventure-trip" itinerary from the day before (on the main drag in Luang Prabang there are about two dozen competing travel agency-type shops with different "adventure tour packages" ranging from supposedly ultra- "eco-friendly" activities to going to "whiskey-making" villages - yechh - we later learned this was a total ripoff) we waited outside the Haysoke Hotel for our 8 AM shuttle. Neither of us had been on an elephant ride before so we thought that since this country was once known as "Land of a Million Elephants" it would be appropriate to do this here rather than any other place. On the same day's trek we were also going to visit one of the smaller waterfalls and finally end the day with some bamboo rafting on the Mekong.
Little did we know the misadventures that would ensue during the final activity of the day. But, first things first...
After boarding the shuttle van, we picked up a few more tourists from different hotels and drove a few miles outside the city to a -- you guessed it -- "loom" village. This was actually just a warehouse where if you wanted to you could pay a lot more for items the villagers made and displayed here before they went into town and sold them for a lot less. Makes a lot of sense, right? Well, supposedly, at one time, a few years ago, you could make some great deals here and bargain with the actual people who made these items but now some "agencies" have taken over everything, keep the profits and pay the men and women who actually do all the work a small cut. Ah, the far-reaching glories of capitalism... glad to see how the Laos Communists are keeping such hated Western-style exploitation in check. [read
here for an article describing what has been happening to this town since we left]. We had been warned about this from some of the Lonely Planet postings so we didn't pay too much attention. It was interesting though, to see how the looms worked in the back of the sweat shop -- I mean, "factory."
After a about twenty minutes of this nonsense, we drove down the road to a clearing where a few "Swiss Family Robinson" style tree house-platforms (not as cool though) and thatched huts were erected. We were brought up one and told to "rest a few minutes." This didn't make a lot of sense since the day was just starting -- what did we need to rest for? Well, conveniently enough, there just happened to be shelves filled with overpriced snacks, water, newspapers, garish and cheaply-made souvenirs and other items. It soon became obvious that the sole reason we were to "rest a few minutes" was to entice us tourists to part with our money. Everyone was on to this and we could see the frustration building on the part of the merchants who kept bugging us to buy their crap. Sorry, Jack, it ain't
gonna happen. After a few more minutes of haranguing they gave up and our tour guide mysteriously reappeared, bringing us over to another structure nearby, this one where we'd get to what we came here to do -- an elephant ride!
Like we mentioned earlier, neither of us had ever ridden a creature this size so it was quite the experience. The first thing you notice is how huge these animals are. Then you notice the flimsy wooden "seat" affixed to the back of the elephant, the movable "safety bar" and the distance between where you are going to sit and the distance to the ground. With a quick prayer to the gods we put on our plastic "pith helmets" (yes, everyone had to wear one!) boarded the questionably safe "elephant bench", placed the completely useless "bar" in place and sat down, holding onto the seat. The guide took us on a 45 minute path through the jungle, into the river and back around a loop. It was quite impressive to see (and feel!) the elephant walk up some pretty steep inclines but you got the feeling that the poor beast had done it a few thousand times before and would probably be stuck doing it a few thousand more times after us. Whatever. At least we ended up with our lives intact. We can now say we've done an actual elephant ride (and don't think we want to do it
again -- actually we're sort of joking, it was fun). After the ride we had the opportunity to feed our elephants which we and everyone else on the tour got a kick out of. We were handed bunchnes of bananas and the elephants ate them whole--peel and all! We took turns feeding our elephant, Bounsou, and taking pictures of each other. Fellow tour goers took turns taking photos of each other feeding their elephants as well. Fun was had by all, especially the hungry elephants!
Then it was our turn to eat. we all gathered back in the "Swiss Family Robinson" raised hut and were served fried rice dishes with our choice of meat, and everyone bought cold Beerlaos to go along with our meals. We shared our table with a very cool British bohemian chick named "Maz" who, like us, was going to Siem Reap in a couple days. We told her we'd look out for her (ha!) and then said goodbye as we headed for the waterfalls with a few others while her version of the tour left her to scrub down the elephants!
After driving a few miles we reached a riverbank where we boarded some canoes and headed down to the Tad Se waterfalls. As it was extremely humid this was something we looked
forward to. Plenty of beer was available... swimming in crystal clear water and drinking .50 bottles of BeerLao -- what more could you ask for? It was quite the relaxing scene. We met a few other tourists from our group, mostly couples from Germany, Austria and Australia. All very cool, down-to-earth folk. No Americans, strangely enough. After swimming in the beautiful ponds and doing a few jumps into them, it was time to leave. Our "version" of the tour led us to go bamboo rafting on the Mekong rapids. We were surprised that the other tourists we had just been chatting with were not going with us. We were on our own with our two guides.
Laura had wanted to go kayaking but for some reason that was not an option for this particular trek. We thought "bamboo rafting on the rapids" would be a good substitute. T
he only problem with this line of thinking was that at this time of year the water level was at its lowest peak. The water in the river was barely two feet deep, if that! So with two heavy (by Lao standards!) Western tourists and two Lao guides on shallow water the raft did not make good time going down the non-rapid rapids. For awhile everyone went smoothly. We saw some interesting sites: beautiful jungles, fishermen, farmers yelling "Sabadee" to us (the Lao greeting for "hello") and river vistas. Then things started to go south. First, our raft got stuck with some driftwood and vegetation near a rock. Try as they might, the guides could not break us free. After about ten minutes they finally told us to get off the raft since we were so heavy and stand on the rock while they pried it loose. Charles stood in the
foot-deep water and helped out while Laura took some video of it all. Pretty funny if you think about it. With the raft loose we were free to drift down to the landing point. Unfortunately the water level was so low and with the non-existent current it was up to the boatmen to pull the raft forward with their bamboo sticks. This was a lot of work and what should have been a half hour trek turned out to be taking a lot longer... Laura whispered to Charles, "after seeing some of that movie, 'Turistas' I'm starting to get nervous - what if these people pull around a bend and kill us!" Charles tried to assure her that our guides didn't look or act like killer-madmen and that we'd just have to take our time and enjoy the trip. So we stuck it out and tried to do just that. Every time we asked how much longer (as it was getting dark) the answer would be, "15 more minutes." Laura cringed at each answer of "15 more minutes" because her poor bladder was about to burst. Eventually she couldn't wait any longer and we shared the news with one of our guides who pulled us over to the side of the river where she found a private place to relieve herself. She had to shoo away a slightly-too-inquisitive cat. A good
90 minutes later and in almost complete darkness we pulled into the landing area where some impatient drivers were waiting nervously. (We thought for sure we heard the faint sounds of the banjo duel from "Deliverance" in the distance.) After some back and forth between our guides and the drivers we loaded ourselves into the van and headed back to the hotel, completely exhausted from the day's activities.
After showering off and getting refreshed we headed out for a late dinner. But before leaving we decided to cancel our tour for the following day. We were toured out and also wanted to make sure we had time to explore Luang Prabang proper. We discovered that by 9pm that many eateries were already closed, and one of the local pizza joints was finally calling our name! (We swore when we got to SE Asia that we would NOT eat western food, but by this time--less than one week into our trip--we were craving something other than SE Asian food.) We ended up having some wonderful pizza at Pizza Luang Prabang. Laura had a simple margarita pizza and Charles had some sort of tasty meat pizza. Of course, Laura chose the better one! Some sort of alcohol was consumed, probably wine. We splurged for a $2 tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel and crashed like two zombies because we knew we had to wake up at the crack 'o dawn to witness the offering of alms to the local monks (or "feeding the monks" as Charles liked to call it).
