Luang Prabang: The wonderful Wat Xieng Thong

I am very behind on this blog at the moment, bear with, blog posts are coming.

Luang Prabang has been a definite highlight for me in Laos. The small peninsula city is stuffed full of cute French cafes; gleaming, golden temples; and bougainvillea-draped streets. At night the city streets are filled with handicraft stalls; buffets are piled high with delicious food; and you can faintly hear the sounds of pins being struck by bowling balls. More on all that later.

In amongst all these entrancing attractions and attractive excursions, one place that I visited just stood out head and shoulders above the rest; the royal temple of Wat Xieng Thong. In English, the Temple of the Golden City. Before the abolition of the Laotian monarchy in 1975, it was where Lao kings were coronated, and it remains the crown jewel of this city.

Sorry, that pun was bad, but it was too bad not to be used.

The monastery was built in 1559-1560, and much of the original structure remains, with much being restored over the last century thanks to royal patronage and more recently it’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

It is just incredible, and very, very different to any other wat I have seen in South East Asia.

There’s a theme in this temple around mosaics. They are everywhere.

Inside the sim (main sanctuary building), the artists took a break from mosaic, and decided on moody lighting and gold painting.

Across from the main sim, on the other side of the concrete courtyard, there was a building housing the royal funerary carriage. It was much too dark inside, and the carriage too large, to get a decent picture of the entirety. But I did manage a photo of the fierce creatures on the prow of the carriage.

Now, up to now, you must be thinking why this monastery is so special. Nothing so far can compete with the majesty of Bangkok’s Grand Palace, nor the self-assured elegance of the temples in Chiang Mai.

However, I may have kept the best parts of this temple till last.

First of all, behind the sim is the Sanctuary of the Reclining Buddha. The image of the buddha itself is not that impressive (in fact, I didn’t even photograph it), but the building housing it is covered in the most beautiful mosaics depicting everyday Laotian life.

If these mosaics were not enough, there was one other wall of them.

Something I have learnt in Thailand is that there’s always something on the back wall of a sim. Most of the time it is another Buddha image. But this time, it was something a little more special.

The whole temple, despite the slightly discordant artistic techniques and styles, combined into a marvellous, technicolour whole that was markedly different from any other Buddhist temple I have been to. It was not on the same scale as those in Bangkok or Chiang Mai; but it felt far more welcoming, and warm. You could almost feel the love which had gone into building, maintaining, and restoring the temple.

It was just a really special temple, which I was so glad to have seen in my short time in Laos.

In the next blog, I cover what else I saw whilst walking the old streets of Luang Prabang.

DSP

The £25 Budget: Bangkok & North Thailand

Hello and welcome to the first in a series of budgeting blogs where I break down how I am spending, what I am getting for that money. Hopefully, if anyone out there is planning to travel in some of the regions I’m visiting, it may be of help to see a realistic budget breakdown from someone who does street food but also Starbucks.

I am currently travelling with a daily budget of just over £25 ($40).

Country: Thailand (Bangkok & the North)

Cities visited: Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai, Pai

Number of days: 15 (05.05.15 - 19.05.15)

Total Expenditure: £371.61 (c.19,200B)

Average daily expenditure: £24.77 (c.1280B)

These last fifteen days in Bangkok and the north of Thailand have been amazing. I have explored one of the most exciting and crazy metropolises in the world; I have explored ancient ruins and royal palaces; I have braved renting a moped and rambled around the Thai countryside; and I have seen more markets and eaten more Pad Thai than I can count. It has been an amazing two weeks, and it is even more amazing that I have managed to spend less than £25 per day.

I've been cycling in Bangkok

I've been cycling in Ayutthaya.

I've been motorcycling in Pai.

And I did some sunbathing in Chiang Mai.

While I’ve been keeping track of my expenses, I’ve been tagging my expenses into different categories, so both you and I can understand better how far money goes in each of the places I’ve been travelling.

Categories:

Accomodation: £39.67

I really tried to keep my accomodation expenses down. I stayed outside of the expensive tourist ghetto Khao San Rd in Bangkok, used Couchsurfing for one night in Bangkok, and caught a sleeper train in Ayutthaya to keep my costs down (which is included in Transport). The end result was an average of £3.60 per night, or 186B

Alcohol: £64.16

I didn’t try too hard here. In addition to the odd beer with lunch, this money includes six decent nights out, which averaged at around £10 per night. Again, I really wasn’t trying to avoid spending here, and drank in the popular tourist bars for the most part.

Attraction: £15.70

This covers any museums or sites or temples that charge entrance fees or camera fees. This figure is very inflated because of entry fees to the Royal Palace and Wat Pho in Bangkok, which combined cost £11.94. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss them, but they could be more reasonably priced.

Entertainment: £17.73

This covers massages and similar unnecessary extras. My average massage cost in Thailand was 175B, which is £3.39 (per hour).

Equipment: £22.17

Toiletries, replacing broken or damaged equipment and clothes. It also includes the occasional souvenir vest, as I argue I am using it by wearing it so it’s an essential.

Excursion: £11.82

This covers organised trips and tours, which I try to avoid as much as possible. In fact this tag had only one entry, for my trip to Lod Cave in Pai. Expensive, but worth it.

Fees: £16.89

This covers unavoidable visa and bank fees. As there is no visa cost for Thailand, this amount is just what Thailand and my UK bank charged me to access the money I spent on this trip. Sadly this is still the cheapest way to access money, as I at least using a debit card get decent exchange rates.

Food and Drink: £100.01

Perhaps I had too many Starbucks or trips to western restaurants with AC, but this is by far my largest expense, even though I separate water into a category below. I do eat a lot of street food, and finding Pad Thai for 15B was a personal best, but I do also eat a lot, and enjoy Western breakfasts and expensive sushi. Average daily cost for food and drink (excl. alcohol and water) was £6.67 (343B)

Loss: £1.58

A necessary category for someone as absent-minded as I am. But thankfully so far all I have realised I have lost is around 150B from a trouser pocket.

Mobile: £10.93

I decided that this time, whilst travelling, I would get a local SIM, and utilise a data package. For my money, I got 4.5GB of data to use over 30day. I ran out of data the night before I left Thailand, so it was spot on for me.

...I am not including the fact that I am also currently paying for my data plan back in the UK….

Transport: £61.06

Thailand really is a cheap place to navigate. Bangkok has ferries that cost pennies, and an efficient metro network, and outside of the capital, transport costs for tuk-tuks and buses plummet. This amount includes a sleeper train for around £15, and the bus to the Laotian border for £6. Even including these in the average, I spent only £4.07 per day on transport. This could have been even less if I had the energy to barter more effective with greedy tuk-tuk drivers. In Bangkok, just use the taxis! They have AC and are cheaper!

Water: £9.91

I separated this from F&D just out of curiosity, and it is surprising how quickly water mounts up when you are buying 1 or 2 big bottles per day. Daily average cost = £0.66. This would have been more without most of my hostels offering free tea and coffee, and without my frequent fruit shakes bought on the street. Mmmm...mango!

So overall my first part of my travels in Thailand have been fairly cost effective and affordable. I realise that my expenses will not be the same as everyone. Most people probably don’t eat as much as I do, and people with less time will undoubtedly move around more and use more organised tours, driving the costs up. But if you’re travelling slowly, £25/$40 per day is more than ample for Thailand.

DSP

Thailand to Laos: Three days of Slow boats & Slower Days

When I started researching northern Thailand and Laos, what appealed to me most was the romantic method of transport between the two countries; a two-day long trip drifting down the grand Mekong river by slow boat. It was everything that appealed to me about South East Asia, and specifically Laos and Cambodia. It sounded romantic and old-fashioned drifting past dramatic and untouched jungle, and yet also delightfully dysfunctional to take two days to travel a distance of less than 250km as the crow flies, and only 470km by road.

The trip was completely unnecessary yet unarguably an essential experience. I really couldn’t wait to spend two days with nothing to do except admire the scenery, listen to my neglected music collection, and catch up on blogging. Perfect.

DAY 1

Before I reached the Thai-Laos border at Chiang Khong/Huay Xai, I had to cover the 300 kilometres between Chiang Mai, where I had left the last blog post, and the border town of Chiang Khong.

I also have to introduce someone; here’s Niko.

He is to be my partner in fabulous crime for the next few weeks in Laos. He’s 28, unfortunately American, and if it isn’t already obvious, as camp as a row of tents at a Scouting World Jamboree. He put a post on a Couchsurfer forum that he was planning to explore Laos over these next few weeks, and as our dates matched, I sent him a message suggesting we team up. He agreed, and so far (my blog is running a week behind currently) I haven’t wanted to kill him yet. This is high praise, as I can think of only around six people I would say that about. It takes a rare person not to bug me when you spend near 24/7 with them.

I confess, I did not get off to a brilliant start to my day, waking up an hour late, and therefore keeping Niko waiting over breakfast.

I was giving him a preview of things to come; it was totally deliberate and totally nothing to do with the three buckets of long island ice tea I’d consumed last night.

I finally resurrected my sorry, sunglass-wearing-by-necessity self out of bed, met Niko, booked bus tickets, and checked off the last temple in Chiang Mai (all included in my last blog post) before packing my bags and saying a sorry goodbye to a city I’d come to love. Chiang Mai, I will be back, and I will love you even more then.

At the bus station, we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of bus we had bought for 299B (£6.00). We got free water, and I got two packets of complimentary biscuits; Niko suggested that one was his, but I didn’t concur with this at all. The bus journey of around five hours flew by while we flicked through the standard traveller conversation (‘Where have you been?’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Have you been to _____?’) and moved onto more unusual topics. I was very glad we appeared to be the only English-speakers on the bus as we discussed prostitutes and the double entendre of Multiple-Entry-Visas.

I am ever the most appropriate one.

Night fell before we reached our stop for the night; the small Thai town of Chiang Khong, sat across the Mekong from Laos. After a grumpy thirty minutes spent tramping around town looking for hostels before returning to the first one we’d seen by the bus station, we headed out to grab some street eats from the local market we had spotted on our early pointless sightseeing tour of the town. I scored my cheapest Pad Thai so far at only 15B (£0.30) and decidedly to splash out on some fried fish for a further 40B, thereby completely negating any saving I’d made on the Pad Thai. Whilst ordering food, a monsoon storm set in, and so we waited it out under a shelter next to celebrating Thai family. This being a small, local Thai town, of course the locals were friendly and wanted to talk to us. Niko, who lives on and off in Bangkok, spoke enough Thai to impress them, and they just wanted to practise English. One lady showed us all of her grown-up children, and then impressed us by saying she was only forty-five. I of course said “No, you are not see sip ah (45), you are sam sip (30)”. She was delighted; her husband just rolled his eyes.

It seems flattering a woman with regards to their age is universal.

It seems husbands are also universally unimpressed by this.

When the rain eased, we bid goodbye to our Sangsom-soaked Thai family, and headed back to the hostel via a last trip to 7/11 for boat provisions.

And in case you were wandering what that was in the background of the shot, it is an illuminated portrait of what we think is a Thai princess.

Cus...yeah....Thailand.

DAY 2

Today started far too early, with my alarm going off just before 07.30. There was only time for brief, bleary-eyed breakfast before a sorgnthaew took us to the Laotian border. Until a few years ago, the crossing was made in small, longtail boats that skimmed across the river gracefully between the two towns. Now there is a wide-arching bridge spanning the Mekong 10k south of Chiang Khong, whilst the river crossing is reserved for just Thai and Lao people. Modernity at times destroys romance.

The border was remarkably painless, though it was slightly irritating to need to pay a bus 20B to cross a short bridge over the Mekong. We could have walked if we were allowed.

The Laotian side was of course more chaotic than the Thai side, with misleading signage over counters, and passports just given back to whichever white person was stood nearest the counter in question. Their attempts to read out the names on the passports had little effect, especially after I mistakenly heard my name when they read out something along the lines of ‘Xi Ping’.

The Lao side of the border was eventually cleared after around an hour, which included a tea break for the visa officials. My attempts to draw out money at the border was thwarted by a 1,000,000K withdrawal limit. As there is around 12,500K to £1, one million is only around £80, and my exorbitant bank fees mean I prefer to withdraw as much as possible in one go. So, I stayed broke for a few hours longer.

Not the best view...

A short, very, very, very slow tuk-tuk ride into town took us to the boat pier, where we bought tickets for the daily departure to Pakbeng, the halfway point to the old Laotian capital of Luang Prabang. My search for an ATM was again fruitless, but my signalling for a local SIM card resulted in someone speeding off on a motorbike and returning after five minutes with a Lao Telecom SIM. It took some sorting, but eventually worked, and resulted in internet...until ten minutes later when we left the town by boat and the signal died. Annoying.

So many boats, but only actually one or two left that day.

Soon, we were underway on today’s voyage of just six hours to Pakbeng. The boats were a little novel, as they were fitted with seats salvaged from buses and coaches, with no pair matching another. They were reasonable comfortable, though did have a tendency to migrate slowly whilst we travelled. I settled down with my phone and laptop for a leisurely, relaxing voyage.

The first of many, many awful group selfies.

We soon left the border towns straddling the river far behind, and were surrounded by lush, forested, undulating hills, dotted here and there with thatched local cottages. The forested hills and distant mountains loomed over the river and our small craft floating upon it, and it struck me that this view is one that has not changed for hundreds of years.

Note the miscellaneous seating.

Beautiful as the scenery was, the people we were surrounded by were for the most part far less beautiful. It was 11:00am, and were floating past pristine scenery in a traditional, conservative country in Asia. And yet a healthy majority of the boat were already topless, playing loud music from phones and speakers, and cracking out the Lao whisky and Thai rum that they had bought before boarding the boat. I have no problem with drinking and having a good time, but I did not feel that this was really the right time. Furthermore as the afternoon wore on, certain passengers became increasingly rowdy, and somewhat disrespectful to the Lao crew who told them to calm down. What the Lao passengers perched upon the prow of the boat must have thought I cannot guess. It was just embarrassing and unpleasant.

However, each to their own. I just turned up Taylor Swift and let the idiot teenagers liquify their livers.

The late afternoon was spent sitting on the side of the boat, toes inches from the surly brown waters of the Mekong, fingers tapping to the mellow tunes of Dido.

Soon enough, we were pulling into Pakbeng, the sleepy little Lao village that functioned as the overnight stop for the boats. We were told to be back tomorrow at 08:30, and left to our own devices. We had prebooked some accomodation for the night in Pakbeng right next to the hostel, so we quickly dumped our bags and went exploring for Lao food and ATMs.

Hello Pakbeng!

My hunt for an ATM with a decent withdrawal limit was pointless so I accepted my 1,000,000 worthless kip, and stomped back down the hill in search of food. What I instead found was the largest coffee I had ever had, sealed in a small plastic bag rather than a cup.

We eventually decided on a little restaurant just up from where we were staying, and I got to try two new dishes; first a Tom Sum or Thai green papaya salad, which was an incredibly delicious combination of spicy chilli, rich peanut and refreshing papaya; and then some beef laap, which is a Lao dish consisting of minced beef mixed with mint, lime, and salad leaves. Again, refreshing, light and delicious.

My first tastes of Lao food.

DAY 3

Our last day on our journey to Luang Prabang was another early start. Waking up was easy though as Niko and I had both passed out before 10:00pm. We hiked down the hill to the boats with our bags, stopping to pick up water and boat supplies (ie. two gigantic Ham & Cheese Croissants I had spied in a bakery the evening before). The second boat was much smaller, and more cramped, but I wrangled a window seat which made up for it.

The atmosphere on the boat was much more chilled, thanks both to the sobering beauty of Laos, and most likely some killer hangovers.

Again, I spent the day napping, listening to music, and photography the scenery. Blog was meant to happen...but...didn’t.

The day was very relaxing and uneventful.

At one point we were overtaken by a boat

Then there were some caves and a selfie was taken in the excitement.

Again, just awful.

Something I have found with Lao is that the country is beautiful, but the tourism industry is not. The tourists are inappropriate and obnoxious, and the Lao involved in tourism similarly are miserly and rip tourists off. It made a slight sour end to the journey that we were made to get off the boat 20km upstream from Luang Prabang, and then buy a bus ticket from the middle of nowhere into the city. The city is perfectly accessible by boat; it is just a tourism scam which there is no way around. It’s part of a pattern which is really starting to affect how I enjoy this country.

But on the bright side, we got to ride in a colourful tuk-tuk.

Welcome to beautiful Luang Prabang.

Editing?!?!?! Who said editing???

More on that tomorrow. Right now it is 01:00am, and I need sleep.

DSP