29th February 2020, Chũ
I awoke feeling conflicted on that bitterly sad morning. The room which had become my home for the past three months was now stripped bare, leaving just one solitary figure sitting on the bed next to his backpack and suitcase. The exciting thought of what adventures awaited me in Laos was marred by the sadness I felt to be leaving Sun School.
I had come to view this building, with its two classrooms, kitchen, office and the real estate agents on the ground floor, as a home. Not only this, but Thai, Ha, Oi and Mit, the family with which I had been staying had shown me such kindness and acceptance that I couldn’t help but feel I had gained a second family in some strange way. And so, when the 29th of February finally arrived, the date stamped on my visa which signalled the end of my first stay in Vietnam, it was with bitter reluctance that I heaved my suitcase down the several flights of stairs and prepared to leave.
Promising to return in under a month to visit, I battled tears as I said farewell to little Mit and Oi, not sure whether they truly understood why I was leaving. Thai helped me into a taxi and escorted us on his bike to the bus station, before one final embrace and I was bundled into a VIP bus, bags and all, and we were soon trundling back through the town of Chũ towards Hanoi. Little did I know at the time, but this view out of the window, peering through the gap between my mask and the brim of my cap, would be the last I ever saw of the place.
I arrived at Ms Anh’s apartment in Đặng Xá, Hanoi, just before noon. Meeting Anh, her five-year-old son Vu and Wissam, a volunteer from France, we shared lunch together briefly before I set off into the centre of Hanoi, leaving my big suitcase behind. After what had been quite a miserable bus journey from Chũ, my spirits were lifted by the now familiar buzz of Phố Cổ, Hanoi’s Old Quarter.
I drifted happily through the streets, exchanging some dong for Laotian Kip, sending a postcard, assisting a pair of lost German tourists and visiting the infamous train street where the Reunification Express rolls through directly in front of all the shops and storefronts. Determined to get to Nước Ngầm bus station as early as possible, I grabbed a quick iced coffee and hopped onto another city bus which trundled south towards the terminus. The layout of the station was now familiar to me, and I wasted no time in rushing to the Hoang Giang booth, grabbing my ticket and heading out into the expansive forecourt. I wandered through the rows and rows of hulking sleeper busses, scanning every number plate for the one which would match the scribble on the piece of paper clutched in my hand. Soon enough, I found my bus, a bright orange beast softly purring away, and thirty minutes later we were easing out of the station and onto the highway.
Now experienced in the art of bus travel in Vietnam, I had made certain that everything that could be charged was full, and was therefore faced with no such battery traumas as I had done on the bus to Nha Trang. The bus had left at around 18:00, and after a few hours on the road, I settled down to sleep.
At what must have been around two in the morning, I was awoken by the sensation of the bus finally shuddering to a stop and the eerie silence that followed the engines cutting out. I knew we had arrived at the Nam Phao international border with Laos, and tried my best to drift off into sleep again.
Shortly before 7am we were woken by one of the drivers calling to us, and all the passengers stumbled out of the bus, bleary-eyed and confused. The driver gestured wildly in the direction of a large grey unremarkable building that lay across a concrete forecourt. I wandered around stretching my legs and bought a Unitel sim card from a little store on the side of the road. I soon realised I had no idea where anyone else from my bus had gone. There were several busloads of people wandering around aimlessly and I couldn’t determine where I should go. Walking round the side of the large grey building I ventured through some sliding doors and soon saw a line of people who I recognised from my bus. A few Germans, a Portuguese couple, a French lady and a Spanish man formed the queue, and we waited patiently as the Vietnamese guards in their striking green uniforms stamped us out of the country.
I was last to leave the building and I hurried out wishing not to lose the others on my bus. I saw the Portuguese couple marching off into the distance ahead of me and rushed after them. We joined a procession of people filing down a long gentle slope and over a bridge for about a kilometre. Along the way we had our temperature scanned in a little gazebo, and although Laos was yet to record any coronavirus cases, my mask was still firmly strapped to my face. After waiting for what felt like an age in the little building on the Laos side of the border while countless travellers paid a couple of dollars to jump to the front of the queue, I finally had my visa stamped and approved and was the last to climb back onto our bus which had driven round to wait for us. Overall the border crossing had seemed inefficient and longwinded, and the whole experience made me appreciate even more the freedom of movement in Europe.
By the time we stopped in a little service station I was ravenous, not having managed to get any food at the border crossing. Despite the terrible food which was well overpriced at almost £2.50, I wolfed down some rice, cabbage and chicken before hopping back onto the bus for the last three hours to Vientiane.
The sun was high in the sky by the time we reached the bus terminal and I scrambled out into a tuk-tuk truck with some other Vietnamese travellers and a couple of Lao. I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead as we rattled along into the city centre. A Vietnamese girl who was studying in Vientiane and spoke a little English gave me some advice on how the tuk-tuks operate, and I managed to get the driver to drop me just 200m from my hostel.
Showered and refreshed, I set out into the city. I had not walked further than the length of one street before I began to notice the indescribably calm of the place. Never before have I visited a capital city with such an unmistakeable feeling of tranquillity. I ventured down towards the Mekong river, across which I could see Thailand, hazy and blurred in the afternoon sunlight. Walking with deliberate slowness in passed several wonderful Buddhist temples which struck me with their gold details and elaborate architecture. The temples of Laos remain one of its most fascinating features. It was impressive for me to see such a relatively poor country pour so many resources into creating this exquisite place of worship and maintaining them in pristine condition.
As I approached a long park near the edge of the river, I bought a mango milkshake and sat on a grassy hillock, watching the locals walking by. I was shocked initially by how many smiles I received. Not that I wasn’t used to the attention, for in the little town of Chũ, where no tourists go, the sight of an Englishman is a rarity. But the smiles I received in Vientiane surprised me due to their peculiar authenticity. The smiles of the locals matched the atmosphere of the city, calmly welcoming and friendly. Sitting thinking about the locals I wondered if it is perhaps in the nature of the Lao people, being mostly a Buddhist country, to smile in this way purely to wish happiness upon their fellow humans.
Walking towards the famous Patuxay Monument, I beamed back at every local I passed with a new feeling of congeniality. The feeling of calm continued into the evening, and after eating my fill at a barbecue buffet which was bustling with locals chatting and laughing together, I wandered back through the streets into the centre again. The expansive night market stretched for a great distance along the road by the park I had visited earlier, and the enticing smells of the street-food stalls made me almost regret my choice of meal.
Despite wishing to visit some bars and meet some new people, a headache had been creeping up on me all afternoon, and I retired early, sleeping long and catching a bus at 9am which took me north to Vang Vieng.
On the bus, which was really a glorified minivan, I met a couple in their early twenties from the Netherlands, Thomas and Odette. The three of us shared travel stories for some time as our driver took us thundering down the roads with complete disregard for bumps or potholes. We arrived in 35-degree heat at Vang Vieng and I parted ways with Thomas and Odette, promising to meet them later that evening.
After checking in to my hostel, I grabbed my towel and my trunks and immediately set out on foot through what appeared to be a ghost town. The streets were deserted, and indeed it was the hottest part of the day. Locals lazed half asleep in their massage parlours and shops, waiting patiently for something to happen. I walked on through the dust and the heat and soon arrived at Tham Chang Cave. Paying four thousand to cross the bright orange bridge and a further fifteen thousand to climb the stairs to the cave itself, I was soon deep inside the mountain, exploring the depths of the cave. As ever, the completely foreign rock formations of Indochina did not fail to impress me, and I wandered around the cave for nearly thirty minutes before I could stand the feeling of sweat no longer and made my descent down the steep steps.
Steps to Tham Chang Cave 
At the foot of the rockface gushed a little stream with the clearest water, and nestled away beneath the rocks lay an opening. I wasted no time in stripping down and plunging into the crystal water. As I ventured with some trepidation towards the opening in the rockface, I discovered it to be a cave which turned sharply to the left and soon widened out. In an instant I was swimming in pitch darkness and I turned around to hear the voices of three Swedish girls slowly making their way into the cave. One of them had brought a little headtorch which helped light the way ahead a little, but still we could not see much. Luckily a Chinese man who I had seen sitting on the side of the pool when I entered the cave joined us and his headtorch was much more powerful, illuminating a great cavern over our heads. I cautiously led the way forwards, the beam of the headtorch lighting the way. The sounds of splashing echoed off the walls in the eeriest manner, and I turned back to look for the opening to the cave which, to my surprise, had vanished from view. I estimated that we had swum around three hundred metres into the mountainside and were now completely surrounded by rock and water.
Finally, the cave seemed to reach a dead end, but not before we found a little tunnel leading nowhere in which we could easily stand up, for the water was shallower there. I felt immensely grateful to have met these fellow travellers, for without them I would not have been able to venture so far into the cave. The moment the Chinese man turned his head away from where I was facing, I was confronted with suffocating inky blackness. I could not tell where the nearest rock was, nor how deep the water was. The experience of swimming in the darkness into an unknown cave was quite unique and one that I will cherish forever. Having explored as much as we dared, we made our way around craggy stalactites back through the cave into the big cavern at the entrance where daylight leaked softly through cracks in the ceiling.
Back at the hostel, I chatted mildly with a lady from Canada, who complained about all the fuss over coronavirus. She seemed to think that it was all a big overreaction, and in the peaceful town of Vang Vieng where not even the locals wore masks, worrying about the virus seemed futile and redundant.
Later that evening I met Thomas and Odette at their hostel for the free whiskey shots which tasted like petrol. We soon moved on to the big bottles of Beerlao as we began to play dice, and shortly we spilled out into the street and were swept up in the party atmosphere of the town. As we arrived at Sakura bar and began to play beer pong, I was shocked to see how what felt like a ghost town in daytime was now bustling and thriving with tourists from all over the world. After two prostitutes grabbed me by the arm and dragged me outside promising ‘anything’ for one hundred thousand, I stuck close with my new Dutch friends. There was a festival atmosphere in the air, and I let the sea of partying tourists wash me away into the night.
3rd March 2020, Vang Vieng
Fighting the hangover like a soldier, I arose early, desperate to make the most of what little time I had in Laos. Hiring a bike for the day, I set off over a treacherous bamboo bridge and out of the town towards the iconic shapes of the limestone hills. The smooth tarmac raced away beneath me for a few kilometres before it ran out and I was left with a face-full of dust and the clattering sound of pebbles hitting the underside of my bike. I skidded and bumped along the rutted track, squinting through the cloud of dust kicked up by the occasional passing of large trucks until a sign directed me sharply to the right into a little carpark where I left my bike. Paying 10k for the privilege of climbing up to the viewpoint, I was soon on my way up the steep stairs. The rocks were jagged, but where steps had been cut into the hillside, they were well-maintained and easy enough to climb. Around twenty minutes later I reached the top.
Climbing the last few metres over jagged rock with the help of bamboo handrails, I stood at the highest point next to a little shelter with a roof and no walls and looked out at the view. The dust I had struggled with on the drive here was clearly not localised, and as I turned a full circle I saw that the further away I looked the more the details of the landscape seemed blurred and faded. I could see a gentle gradient between the clearly defined outlines of the rocks upon which I stood and the hazy, faded horizon which was almost too obscured to make out. Between these two points lay an breath-taking scene, with flat fields stretching out across this vast basin of a valley, hemmed in on either sides by the shockingly steep limestone protrusions. Two motorbikes were strapped tightly to the top of the viewpoint, and I marvelled at the strength needed to haul these up the steep incline. I was alone initially, and sat in the sun for some time, gazing at the view and relaxing, until a flurry of tourists arrived all at once and I decided to leave, filling a bin bag with plastic bottles on the way back down.
My next stop was one of Vang Vieng’s famous lagoons. There are at least five of them, each offering something slightly different, and I had chosen Blue Lagoon Three simply because of the photos I had seen on Google maps. When I arrived, I was not disappointed. It was shortly before midday, and the lagoon was quiet. The brilliant blue waters sparkled in the sunlight as shoals of fish drifted slowly past, unafraid of the couple of swimmers in the pool. I wasted no time in plunging in, and the refreshing water felt incredible, washing away all the sweat and dust from the hike that morning. I spent some time jumping from the tree into the lagoon and drifting on my back in the bright blue water, before returning to my pile of belongings on the bank and sitting in the sun.
After some fried rice from one of the nearby restaurants, tended by sleepy Lao who eyed the tourists disinterestedly, I climbed the steep stairs up to the entrance of Phu Kham cave. This time I had remembered to bring my headtorch, and it was well I did, for I was soon lost inside the immense cavern. I had never seen such a cave! The ceiling towered above me and must have been at least 15m high. As I ventured further away from where a great hole in the side of the mountain shed light into the cave, it began to get darker and darker. Soon I rounded a corner and found myself utterly alone, and in pitch blackness. To test this, I turned my torch off completely and stood very still, listening. Nothing. Absolutely nothing came to my senses. Not the faintest breeze rustled the hairs on my arms, not the faintest scent tickled my nose, not one slight echo reached my ear, and not a single photon caught my eye. I was disorientated, and quickly turned my torch back on. I stuck to the right-hand wall and followed it into the darkness. The wall to the left of me was too far away to see with my little headtorch. It could have been thirty metres away, or it could have been a hundred. My feeble light failed to penetrate the suffocating darkness. I was soon completely lost and had no idea where the deepest point of the cave was, but I kept walking slowly and cautiously, keeping the wall close to my right. In many places I saw handprints and names scrawled in an earthy red on the walls, and this reassured me that I was not the first to tread this path. At some point I realised I must have curved round almost 180 degrees, as in the far distance ahead of me I could make out the slightest shred of light. I kept going, clambering over boulders and slipping between stalagmites until I could recognise clearly the same hole in the ceiling near the entrance that I had seen on the way in.
Making my way back to the lagoon, I swam yet again, but this time it was a lot busier. Amidst the crowd of tourists swimming and jumping from the tree I met Eddie, from England, and Olaf from Norway, two members of a tour who were the same age as me. This was only the second time in three months that I had met other people travelling on their gap year, and I welcomed the chance to speak to a fellow countryman. We agreed that we would probably bump into each other later that night, and I took one last look at the idyllic spot before retrieving my bike and racing back through the heat of the afternoon to the town of Vang Vieng.
After resting at my hostel for some time, I left in search of food and bumped into Eddie and the rest of his tour group in the street outside. My Dutch friends had had a long night the previous day, and Odette wasn’t feeling up to another night out, so I wished them all the best for the rest of their travels and joined Eddie and the others. Tagging along with them, feeling a little guilty and very much an outsider, we grabbed some food and beers at an Irish pub, before Eddie and I went again to Sakura bar where we met another tour group with several British girls on their gap year, including a girl called Amy from Dartmouth, just twenty minutes from my home, and a girl called Evie who will be joining me at university in September. Having met barely any Brits thus far in Vietnam, I was pleasantly surprised to meet so many here in Vang Vieng. Returning to Viva Pub later in the evening, I met two lovely Swedish girls called Tilda and Anna and spent the rest of the night with them.
4th March 2020
After the second night out in a row, the hangover got the better of me, and I boarded the bus back to Vientiane like a zombie clutching my water bottle and sheltering beneath headphones and cap. Halfway into the journey I perked up enough to look at my surroundings, and began to chat with the German lady next to me. She was from Cologne, and with my immensely rusty German I scrabbled together one end of a conversation while we weaved our way through the Lao countryside. She was maybe in her late thirties and very friendly, and we chatted amicably about anything and everything before finally arriving in Vientiane.
Anna and Tilda from the previous night had also travelled that day to Vientiane, and had it not been for a splitting headache which sprung upon me in the early hours of the evening, I would have gone to meet them. As it was, I grabbed a kebab (my stomach craved something more familiar than Lao food) and wandered briefly through the market enjoying once more the good-naturedness of the Lao people and their heart-warming smiles, before turning in for the night.
The following day I proceeded straight to the airport. Panic set in when I discovered that of the two money-exchanges in the airport, neither would sell me VND or USD. I needed $25 or 600,000 VND to pay for my visa for the next three months in Vietnam. I was about to look for a tuk-tuk to rush me back into the centre of the city to find a place to exchange money, when I spied an American couple just exiting the arrivals gate. I rushed over to them, explaining my predicament, and thankfully they swapped $25 for some kip I had left over.
One short flight later and I was back in Vietnam. I welcomed the familiar language on the signs and the atmosphere of Hanoi with open arms. I realised with a shock how comfortable I had become in Vietnam, and the feeling of walking out of the airport to where the number 17 bus awaited me was akin to the feeling of coming home.
As for Laos, I could not tell how I felt. Had the country stamped its way firmly into my memories forever? Yes. But had I really gathered a good idea of the nature of the country itself? Barely. The four days I spent there were undoubtedly full of wonderful and exciting new experiences. New sights, tastes, ideas and people that will all stick in my mind for years to come. That for me is the truly priceless gift of travel. And yet, four days is not nearly enough time to connect with the locals, nor is it enough time to fully experience the local culture, from food to festivals, weather to worship.
Laos remains to me a mysterious country, with countless secrets hidden away waiting to be discovered. Whether I shall return in the future or not remains to be seen, but I sincerely hope so.
Cấm Sơn Lake – Vietnam Blog 11