When me and Katja were waiting at Thakhek Bus Station though, we both learned something different. We learned about the origin of the English saying: 'Screaming like a pig'.
We were just sitting there, waiting on our bus to Vang Vieng, when we suddenly heard a strange noise coming from the luggage storage in the bus next to us. It took us a while to recognize the sound, but then we realized it was a pig. It wasn't screaming just yet, that part is still to come. First I want you to think about the fact that there's a pig running around in the same room where all the luggage from the passengers is stored. That's strange right? For example, what if the pig has to shit?! I'd rather not think about what would happen to all the luggage then. Well, luckily it wasn't our bus, so not a problem of our concern!
Oh, by the way, the day before, in another bus, the man on the seat behind us took his ducks with him in the bus. They weren't caged. So what happened was that there were some ducks running around between the seats. Oh, and the man next to us took his chickens. The chickens were tied together with a rope around their feet. Also still alive. This isn't a problem at all in Lao, and it wouldn't have been a problem for us if the animals would just have been quiet. They weren't. The bus ride was dominated by the cacophony of terrified screaming chickens and ducks. How nice... Ok, back to the pig.
At the moment the bus with the pig in it started riding, suddenly every single head of every person at the bus station, turned in the same direction. One of the man started running after the bus and yelled: 'Stop! Stop! Stop!'
What had happened, was that the pig's leg was hanging out of a small open area in the bus, and it was grinding over the concrete. It was already painful only to see it, but the pig made sure we all could feel his pain. The pig: 'Oink, oink, ooooiiii, oink!!!' I've never heard such a horrified screaming sound in my life. Luckily the bus slowed down a little and the man put the leg of the pig back inside the bus. So. That's how we learned about the saying: 'Screaming like a pig'.
We waited for another hour, and then, finally, our VIP sleeper bus arrived. Katja stepped into the bus first. She was already sitting on her tiny, less than one meter wide bed when I walked in. To my surprise all the other beds were already occupied, and, to my even bigger surprise, there were two persons in each bed. So Katja's tiny bed, was also my bed. I don't think I've ever - I don't count my baby-bed from back in the days when I was still a cute little girl - slept on such a small bed, and especially not with someone. My god, it was tiny. For the first time I was extremely jealous of all the small Asian people who looked so comfortable in the small beds, while me and Katja were still trying to squeeze in. The bed was not only narrow, it was also by far not long enough for my Dutch body. In the end we both found a position which was quite comfortable, considering the circumstances - and I have to admit, I slept like a baby!
When we arrived in Vang Vieng after a long ride, I did the 'getting back on the horse' thing. Our bus dropped us of on a - how fortunately - gravel road. We didn't know where our hostel was so we had to take a motorbike taxi. While sitting in the back, driving over the gravel, I was absolutely terrified. I saw the whole accident happening again. But of course, nothing happened and we arrived in our hostel safely. The only danger that occurred during the ride was the possibility that I would drown in the cold sweat that stood out from every pore of my body. Yes, I know, I'm a coward!
Well, Vang Vieng was a lot better than we expected so on our first night we decided to extend our stay for three more night, so five nights in total.
The next day, we explored the area on a mountainbike and went to a big cave. It was a nice, but scary trip. The cave was gigantic! It was a huge empty area with a lot of nice stone figures in it. Our guide stopped every once in a while to point his torch at a rock and tell us: 'Dragon. Bird. Snake. Dog. Man.' etc. We tried to recognize the figures and most of the time it worked. So, at first, we weren't scared at all when we passed by some English girls in the cave and they pointed their torch at something, and said: 'Spider'. Ah yes, a stone figure of a spider, I thought. Well. Not. It was a huuuuge black spider. I didn't realize that this deserted-looking cave had some inhabitants after all. And once you noticed one, you start noticing all the other ones as well. My god there were so many! Do you remember the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? Well, in that cave I felt exactly like Ron Weasly. Totally freaked out and surrounded by way too many eight-legged creatures. Brrr that was scary! But, brave as we are, we carried on walking and climbing through the cave, and eventually we had reached the "lagoon". There wasn't much of a lagoon inside because it is dry season here. But it was a nice walk. We took the same way back and tried to ignore all the spiders on the way.
I was relieved when we exit the cave.
On Saturday we took the bicycles again and decided to cycle to a market. It was an adventurous trip, over dirt roads (my ass was hurting sooo bad from the saddle, I'm definitely not used to cycling anymore haha) and through the forest. There were some steep hills, and, most exciting, some seasonal bridges. These bridges only exist in the dry season, because in wet season they will be washed away by the violent water.
These seasonal bridges are considered capable of carrying people, animals and even locals on motorbikes. They consist of bamboo, and more bamboo. Extremely stable and reliable if you'd ask me.
Sometimes the advise of a wise man is needed to do things you wouldn't do otherwise, and I think Dylan's 'don't think twice, it's alright' is most suitable in this case. Because if you would think twice and would actually be wise, you'd never take the risk.
Well, we did it. And the bridge didn't collapse. I still think we had an angel on our shoulders.
The locals on the other hand, were laughing at us and even taking pictures while we were crossing the bridge extremely careful and slow. I felt a bit stupid, but, I've already cracked through a bamboo surface twice this trip, and I certainly didn't want it to happen for a third time while standing 10 meters high above a river. Better safe then sorry!
Oh yes, we failed in finding the market. Apparently we took the wrong way... All this effort and all these risks for a market which isn't there. Yes yes, that's Asia!
It was a nice bicycle ride though, so no hard feelings on the non-existent market!
Our Sunday wasn't a lazy Sunday at all. We got up at 7.30 in the morning and had a huge breakfast. It was ziplining day! We went to a small village up in the mountain and had to do a short trek to climb to the top. Once we were there, our guide explained us all the ins and outs about ziplining. Our groups consisted of three English girls, a Korean family and us. We were all pretty excited about the ziplining tour down the mountain, except for the Korean mom. She looked horrified even before we actually started. It turned out to be an extremely funny tour!
The ziplining itself was great fun! And what made it even better, were all the facial expressions of the Korean lady. First of all, she was too short to be able to reach the platform after the lines. Luckily our tour guides, had a chair on each platform, so when she arrived, they quickly put the chair under her legs so she could stand up. Second, she was screaming all the time and murmuring things in Korean whenever she managed to survive another zipline.
Last of all, and most funny, was the end of the tour. The last platform, high up in a tree, didn't have a ladder or anything to get down. The only way was to kind of do a free fall, while the guides secured you. This free fall was extremely scary and a lot of fun! The Korean woman though, didn't want to do it. But there wasn't another option. So she did it. The rest of the group was already down and waited for her to come. She yelled to the guides: 'Slowly! Slowly! Please, please, slowly!!!' But of course, they didn't listen, hahaha! They let her drop down until she almost hit the ground, and then stopped her. Hahaha! She looked as if she was going to cry! Great fun!
The next day, we decided to go tubing. If you're in Vang Vieng, tubing is a must. It's tubing is famous all over the (backpackers) world.
A few years ago the tubing in Vang Vieng used to be different. There was a LOT of drinking involved, and also several slides and other fun stuff. But two years ago, after a few backpackers had drank themselves to death, the rules became more strict. Nowadays there's only a few bars along the river, and no more slides.
All this didn't make it less fun, and it turned out that we had picked the perfect day: St. Patricksday!
The first bar we were at, was located at the place where we were dropped of. It was the start of the tubing place. The bar was some sort of Irish/Asian pub. There were small huts where you could sit and drink on the river and everything was coloured green. We did a beer there and wanted to go further, but then we suddenly needed to shotgun a beer with the crew there to celebrate St. Patricksday. I'm am probably the worst beer-shotgunner ever so I was already soaked before we even hit the water.
Then we started tubing. After about 20 meters we arrived at the next bar. Beers again.
50 meters further we arrived at the third bar. It had a basketball field, a volleyball field, and a lot of mud. In our attempt to walk up the hill, we slipped in the mud and ended up with our ass on the ground, haha! There was a bunch of people standing there and waiting for this to happen, so we had a nice crowd that all saw us falling. Guess we were not the first ones haha!
Then I decided to play some volleyball with the people there. It was a fun game. No one was able to hit the ball properly but we all had fun in attempting!
As the day proceeded the party became better and better. I'll not give too many details but we had a lot of fun.
At seven in the evening, after the tubing we went crazy on the pancakes of an old lady on the street. We ate three of them and went to bed!
Then, we went to Luang Prabang. This is, I discovered, one of those few Asian cities I could live in. It's an awesome place! The atmosphere is very relaxed and, even though it's one of - if not THE - biggest cities in Laos, it's still a small town.
I stayed in Luang Prabang for a whole week, basically to just wait for my flight to Indonesia on the 28th and because I liked it there. We just chilled a lot, spent a fortune on the night market and on the amazing food in this town, watched a lot of movies in our private movie room and went to the famous waterfalls.
One of the highlights of my stay in Luang Prabang was definitely the live music on the river on our second (?) night there. The band was amazing and the atmosphere was great. They played a lot of good songs and we sang along with every single one of them.
Another highlight was our trip to the waterfalls. The waterfalls were one of the prettiest ones I've ever seen. There's one big one, at which you can climb to the top for an good view (I wasn't able to climb the steep trail because of my knee, but I heard it's amazingly beautiful up there). The rest of the waterfall consists of many small waterfalls and natural pools, in which you can swim. Of course we wanted to do this so we jumped in the water, but to my surprise it was one big Dr. Fish Spa in there. And those tiny fishes don't only eat your feet, they eat fucking everything! I totally freaked out, haha! Oh, not only because I'm a big coward, also because those shitty things were eating my knee. They loved it. A big feast. I didn't want to loose all the progress my knee had made so, moving as wild as possible to scare them away, I swam to the side and climbed out of the pool. Survived it!
After Luang Prabang I had a horror trip to Jakarta, one night bus, a night train and a very short night in Bangkok. I arrived in Jakarta yesterday evening and I'm going to investigate the city in the coming few days. On my first evening in Jakarta I've already sort of decided to skip the volunteering in Borneo and spend my last two months of travelling both in Indonesia. I love it here.
Today I am going to visit the family of my Indonesian aunt, Babs. They live near Jakarta. I'm excited to go there, and I have no idea what to expect. A new adventure!
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| 'Selfie' on the back of an elephant |
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| Mountainbiking in Vang Vieng, you cross some scary bridges! |
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| Ziplining Vang Vieng |
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| Waterfalls Luang Prabang |
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| In the hostel, Luang Prabang |
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