Slowly but surely... in Luang Prabang, Laos

Waiting in Luang Prabang airport for our flight to Vietnam, I’m wondering where to start with my experience of Laos. So many things - from refusing to pay a bribe at the Cambodia-Laos border (and consequently being “stuck” between two countries), to selling my book to afford lunch and even helping teenage Buddhist monks with their English - have made this part of our RTW adventure one we will never forget. After brief stops in the island of Don Det and the capital city of Vientiane, we were able to wind down and get used to the lazy, Laos pace of life before heading towards Luang Prabang. And just in case we had any doubts as to whether our new easy-going attitude was the right one to have, our bus - going too fast on the mountain roads - crashed into a 4x4 car coming in the opposite direction that was doing the same. Luckily, there were no injuries but there was a 3 hour wait while the village policemen got their act together. This involved them taking lots of pictures on their phones and eventually marking the outline of the bus in chalk, as if the vehicle had been brutally murdered (the sound of the brakes later made me wonder if it had). But we were thankful for the cool mountain air as we sat idle on the hot tarmac of the road, the village kids gawping at the strange looking foreigners (me and Isma) before the driver used Sellotape to fix the bus and got us back on our way! With a whole week in Luang Prubang we slipped into a simple daily routine. Our mornings were filled wandering through a cliché of colourful markets, watching some locals pick fruit and others shove indignant live chickens into their shopping bags. Unfortunately, it was always a matter of minutes before the murky Mekong River would make its presence known, ordering humidity to reign the afternoons, deserting the town centre; leaving nothing but lonely street vendors trying to sell fruit shakes to anyone who dared walk through the infernal heat. But as dusk brought with it the tempting night market, where spare notes were all too easily exchanged for tasty snacks and trinkets, we would head to a side street off the riverfront for the highlight of our day: helping local students improve their English. The bizarrely named Big Brother Mouse is a centre where Falangs - the Laos word for foreigners - can drop by and help high school / college and university kids with English conversation, homework and reading. Ask the right questions and you can even learn about local culture and customs - what better way could there be to really understand the secrets the city keeps from those of us who are just passing through? Needless to say, we both felt a buzz after the “classes” having exchanged knowledge with students that were so enthusiastic about what is often a frustrating second language. Other travellers asked us if the students actually improve their English through this project; we answered in a hundred different ways, and even questioned whether we were getting more out of it than them, but I think that Laos has taught us that the term 'slowly but surely' is often the best answer.

Guess what I found out in Luang Prabang?

1. Laos is the most heavily bombed country on earth. In Vientiane, we visited the COPE visitor centre, which educates people on unexploded bombs left behind from the USA's attack on Laos during the Vietnam war as a "just in case" tactic. Documentaries are shown at this small museum that reveal how so much of the Laos population has been physically affected by stepping on unexploded bombs and how COPE helps to rehabilitate these patients.

2. There are three main types of ethnic groups in northern Laos: the Khmu, the indigineous people of northern Laos; the Hmong, an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of the neighbouring countries such as China and Vietnam; and the Lao people. The students explained the physical differences between these groups, which made me seem very knowledgable when talking to new students! What I thought was interesting was that these groups inter-marry and and mix with one another despite having their own dialects. If only this were the case in every country...

3. The Khone Papeng waterfall in Laos, is the largest waterfall in the whole of Southeast Asia. This is not the one in the cover photo, so check out the gallery for the money shot!