Travel Diaries: Laos

There’s something so comforting and consoling about being near water. The ocean, a lake, a river - I feel so magnetised and at peace when I’m near it. I’m not arsed about the psychology of it, but I would assume it’s got something do with it looking and sounding therapeutic. Personally, I think it’s me tapping in to my inner ape and feeling a sense of strategy and security, positioning myself near it to survive. My ancestors (not just mine obviously) constructed settlements near water for its strategic purpose, and I think this might still be engrained in me somewhere. I need to live in a city near water, in an apartment on the San Diego Bay, on the Rhône in Lyon, or by the Albert Dock in Liverpool - I’m just drawn to it. Perhaps it’s because I fraudulently consider myself Mediterranean because of my upbringing… or perhaps I’m full of shit and talking absolute nonsense, but either way, I was delighted to check in to the Sunrise Riverside Hostel in Luang Prabang.

We’d booked three nights in the former royal capital, with activities planned each day courtesy of the now fully fit Eden. Josh checked us in, a Sam Smith lookalike in his late twenties, raised in the East Midlands, who worked on reception. He had originally supposed to have spent a month in Luang Prabang, but a year later he’s still there, and is the only resident sporting blonde highlights. In the queue to check in, we bumped into two girls from Mirfield who we’d chatted to briefly the day before. They were Eva and Ella, equipped with arguably even broader Yorkshire accents than us, it was bliss listening to them, and gave us a little taste of home. Josh charged us for our stay (he must’ve had Money On [His] Mind) and gave us a couple of keys for the room. Moments after walking in ourselves, an Irish couple lugged their bags in, and introduced themselves as Jade and Niall, and they were followed by Kyra (pronounced Kiera), a young lady from Vancouver. We got chatting and had all noticed the inviting Italian restaurant on the corner of the street, and decided to go see what it had to offer. A pepperoni and red pepper pizza was my choice (I’d asked for pepperoni with a few chilli peppers, but the waiter said “are you sure? Lao chilli is very spicy… maybe red pepper?”), and it was exactly what I needed.

The two days on the slow boat had been great. The girls would disagree, but I love being on a boat - I’d even go as far to say it’s my favourite method of travel. I must’ve been a fisherman, sailor or, even cooler, a pirate in a previous life… and no, that’s not a reference to the viral video (700 views) of me on YouTube dressed as a pirate at five years old. The food on the boat, however, had been substandard downers, and a big, cheesy, sloppy pizza was the perfect upper. Unbeknownst to me, it would be one of the only decent meals I’d have in Laos…

As I was walking back to the table after my post-meal cigarette, I noticed Eva and Ella were sat on a table for two right beside our table for eight. There was only six of us, so we invited them to occupy the two remaining seats. We continued to top up on Beerlaos from the slow boat, before heading down the cobbled alleyways down to a riverside bar named Jungala. Niall and I found one of many common grounds in the shape of both being pretty nerdy about war, particularly the Second World War, and exchanged fascinating pieces of trivia over a few more beers, before calling it a night.

Hungover, and all absolutely coughing our guts up, we secured a spot by the pool the following day after Mia threw up her breakfast in the restaurant toilet. We then visited a museum housing some of the many UXOs (unexplored ordnances) from the Secret War that are found even still to this day across Laos. Remarkably, they were selling jewellery and key rings made from the recycled steel used to make the bombs, with all profits going towards their safe diffusion and removal.

Fuelled by some below-par food, myself, Mia, Eden, Jade, Niall, Kyra, Ella and Eva (the group by now affectionately nicknamed “Luang Pra-Gang”) decided to hike up to the top of Phousi Hill, a Buddhist temple boasting great sunset views. Some idiot thought it would be clever to smuggle a few beers up there, find a quiet spot, and drink them whilst watching the sun fall. I use the term “idiot” because it was far from a hidden gem, with half of Luang Prabang in attendance, and getting pissed up in front of Buddha isn’t exactly the most respectful thing you can do in this country. The steps were almost violent and provocative, all of different steepness, or stepth as I like to say from this very moment on, and after crawling up to the top, we were frustratingly deserving of a beer, but thought it best not to disturb the peace. Alas, we ventured back down way before sunset and drank them by the river.

We called at the shop on the way back to the hostel to get some more cans, and whilst the girls got ready, myself and Niall had a wander over to the Italian restaurant and bought eight pizzas to takeaway. After lining our stomachs we hopped into the back of a tuk-tuk and instructed him to take us to the bowling alley. Yes, bowling alley. The nightlife scene in Luang Prabang is still developing, with Laos’ answer to Hollywood Bowl being the only place open after ten o’clock. However, it couldn’t be any different from Cardigan Fields - it was like walking into a speakeasy nightclub, with smoking indoors permitted and Beerlaos readily available. It didn’t take long for Mia to start doing the worm in celebration for every time she hit more than three pins, and it was amusing to see all the same backpackers from the slow boat on the lanes.

The next morning we were up sharp-ish for our excursion to the Kuang Si Waterfall. We nipped for some breakfast at the Zaori Cafe, an upmarket brunch place which had a full section on the menu dedicated to “avocado lovers”. I ordered avocado and eggs on toast, but was served bottled guacamole and eggs on toast. I was absolutely infuriated. I tried not to show it and cause a scene in front of our new friends, but I was fuming. I can be a bit of a snob when it comes to food, in restaurants at least, and one of my biggest pet peeves is a dishonest menu. The toast was shite and the avocado wasn’t avocado, so what was I actually getting out of this “high end” breakfast gaff? A pair of eggs? They’re easy to come by here judging by the amount of chickens that are wandering the streets, and avocados are available in abundance at every fruit and veg stall, so it was just pure laziness and cost-cutting.

We had arranged an 11.30am pick up through Sam Smith, but it was noon before our sleazeball driver stumbled down the street towards the open reception and shouted “waterfall”. As he dawdled towards us, walking like he had ants in his pants, he was itching his crotch in a Michael Jackson-dance-like fashion at an alarming rate. Upon closer inspection, his t-shirt had labels that read “Heroin” on both sleeves, and he soon earned himself the nickname of “Heroin Michael Jackson”. I thought “King of Smack” was a nicer sounding moniker, but I was outvoted. The Luang Pra-Gang and eight more backpackers piled into the back of his mini van, whereby only 80% of the seats had working seatbelts, and we set off to the waterfall.

He drove exactly like you’d expect someone nicknamed “Heroin Michael Jackson” would (Bad and Dangerous) with a complete disregard for his and his passengers safety, as if chasing a dragon down the windy, pothole ridden roads of Laos. We somehow got there in one piece, and spent the day bathing in the ice cold waterfall. Heroin Michael Jackson (HMJ) granted us a few hours at the falls, and had told us to meet at the pick up point at 15.30, where he’d then take us back to the hostel. Our group got to the meeting point early, so that we’d have a better chance of sitting in a seat with safety features, but to no one’s surprise, HMJ was nowhere to be seen. By four o’clock we were starting to get a bit annoyed, the hostel were ignoring our calls, but just as we were starting to think They Don’t Care About Us, he came flying down the road, weaving in and out of pedestrians, stray dogs and golf buggies. He ragged the handbrake, told us to get in, but when I asked him “what time do you call this, pal?” He just ran towards the bushes for a piss. The journey back was just as bad, if not worse, with HMJ stopping on a cliff-edge road for yet another wee. Despite his bladder seemingly being the size of an egg cup, we made it back to the hostel without having to stop again.

Later that evening, we nipped over to the night bazaar (not a patch on Chiang Mai) and were again thoroughly disappointed with the food. Cold, precooked noodles were about the best thing we could find, but still had a laugh nevertheless. The saving grace that evening was finding an £8 fake replica of the Fila made Fiorentina home shirt from the 1998/99 season, with the glorious Nintendo sponsor across the front. It’s a great copy and was an absolute steal. We said goodnight to Jade and Niall who were a day ahead of us, and were checking out the following morning to get the train south to Vang Vieng.

I went for a haircut and beard shave the following day and came out physically and mentally scarred. I have a tough time with barbers if they don’t know me, as I have an abnormally shaped rear skull and two protruding moles either side of the back of my head, which I’m surprised haven’t been sliced clean off by now. The latest barber gave it a good go, completing the skin fade I asked for with a dry manual razor… it felt like he was using a paint scraper. I recovered from my trauma by the river and completed the previous diary entry. Whilst there, I got chatting with an elderly Vietnamese man who was visiting Laos for a month. He had fled the war in Saigon at three years old, and only returned to his home nation for the first time since in 2023. He and his family had moved to Brussels, where they opened Belgium’s first ever Vietnamese restaurant. After a lengthy discussion, I said “tam biêt” to him, and went back to the girls to inform them of my rendezvous with Edward Scissorhands, but they were too busy sunbathing to care.

In the afternoon, the activities manager had kindly booked for us to go jewellery making at the aptly named Garden of Eden Workshop, just on the other side of the river. They’d had an issue with one of the machines so the activity was postponed by an hour, but by way of apology they offered to pick us up and drop us back off at the hostel afterwards free of charge. After the language barrier proved finding the car difficult, we finally located it and jumped in. At the workshop, we were greeted by Lan and Bey, both in their early thirties, and Alik, a teenager, who were all related in an unspecified way. Together they showed us how silver jewellery is made from start to finish, from melting the metal with a blowtorch, to shaping it, engraving it, resizing it, and making it nice and shiny. It was a great experience, and I came out of the workshop with two rings and a necklace.

The chaps took a keen interest in my new Fiorentina shirt, but I had to specify I wasn’t Italian and that my team was Villa. They knew their footy, supported Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea, and we had some decent banter in their broken English. Lan gave me some insight into the lives of Lao people; the food they eat, what they do in their spare time, how their businesses work. It was all very interesting, and solidified the notion that, amongst all the piss ups, the authentic experiences with the locals are always the highlight. They took us home on the back of their scooters, and we waved them goodbye with our blinged up fingers.

Our last night in Luang Prabang was spent at the Redbul Restaurant, where I had the traditional beef larp and rice. Essentially just minced beef with loads of coriander, it was tasty and had quite the kick. Our deep chesty coughs had become borderline embarrassing by now, as we spluttered like some sort of pitiful A Capella group everywhere we went. It had been bad for a few days, and it was probably quite inconsiderate of us to stay in a dorm room whilst we were in a phlegm-filled state, and we genuinely felt bad if we’d disturbed anyone’s sleep. But, a pair of posh southern girls had evidently took offence to our condition, and sook vengeance for, I assume, keeping them up the last couple of nights. They drunkenly ploughed through the dorm room door just before two o’clock in the morning, turned the light on, and mentioned at full volume “I don’t care if we’re loud, they’ve been doing the same to us”. It’s difficult to articulate the kind of anger that was taking over my body. My blood began to boil in my toes and swept up through my legs and into my torso. Their banter was absolutely dreadful - I wouldn’t mind if someone had woke me up with a Peter Kay-style sketch, but these girls were laughing and debating about who was better at bowling. Boiling point had reached my head by this stage, I was ready to blow my top, shaking and screaming on the inside like a an overdue kettle… I stuck my earplugs in and managed to at least muffle them for the next hour they spent talking at full volume, tossed and turned for another three hours, until they got up again and started throwing up. Karma’s a bitch.

We woke up at around 7.30am and banged about as loud as we could, before bringing our belongings up to reception ready to be picked up and taken to Luang Prabang railway station. Much to our amusement, one of the girls who had kept us up just some six hours earlier tottered up the stairs, back arched like Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, palm over her mouth trying not to vomit again. She went over to the shop and swayed back past us with a big bottle of water. Karma is a massive bitch.

The transport arrived thirty minutes late, as is the norm in Laos, but got us to the train station in good time. A beautiful piece of modern communist architecture, the train station stood proud over the wooden huts and shacks, displaying the full extent of Chinese financial influence in Laos’ transport industry. The security was scrupulous, again at the influence of the Chinese, but once we’d got through, the rest of the process was relatively simple. We boarded the comfortable and spacious carriage, and I popped two paracetamol, two ibuprofen, two Imodium, one travel sickness tablet and a sertraline, in a desperate and pathetic attempt to feel normal again. The journey was one of the most scenic so far, travelling at 120km/h through the beautiful valleys of the Vientiane Province. It was so beautiful in fact, that I almost felt like I was back on my favourite train journey - the TransPennine Express service from Liverpool Lime Street to Leeds, going through the stunning and familiar West Yorkshire countryside - although it feels rude to compare.