Hi All,
We’ve hit the halfway point (and haven’t even got close to killing each other yet)! 4 and a half months of incredible adventures and another 4 and a half to go. While we miss home at times (especially our family and friends), our overwhelming feeling is disbelief at how lucky we are to have this opportunity to travel and how much we need to make the most of it while we can. We cannot believe how much we’ve seen already and how many amazing things we’ve done. Ross pointed out that if we were to do our trip in 2 week holidays each year, it would take us 20 years to see everything!
We have spent the last four days and three nights exploring the spectacular caves of the Khammouane province by motorbike. Danielle even took turns to ride this time; only on the flatter, quiet roads though so Ross still did most of the driving which he was of course happy about. The scenery was absolutely incredible and far exceeded the views of the last trip. As we drove along the very quiet supposedly ‘main roads’, we could see steep, mountainous kast cliffs all around us. Driving through small villages was even more spectacular. In the foreground were quaint wooden houses and rice fields with the backdrop of huge, jutting mountains. One section of our journey passed through the most bizarre landscape - hundreds of lakes filled with dead trees. It is difficult to explain the beauty of these but somehow as the bright sun reflected off the blue water, they just were beautiful.
Over three days, we visited five caves, all very different but impressive in their own ways. Our first stop was at Xieng Liap Cave. Unlike the large cave we visited in Vietnam, this was ‘wild’ with no obvious path or boardwalk. We clambered over the rocks to see a beautiful reflection in the pool of water at the other entrance to the cave. Next we visited the religious Pha Inh Cave. Used as a Buddhist temple, this cave opening was decorated with handmade, colourful prayer flags and a small shrine. Our third and final cave for the day, Tham Nang, was our favourite. The first section was lit with slightly cheesy multi-coloured lights to illuminate the stalactites and stalagmites. Then we boarded a small rowing boat to explore the rest of the huge cave. We were shocked by just how tall it was - easily big enough to fit a ten story tower block.
On day two we visited ‘dragon cave’, Mangkone Cave, which although vast didn’t wow us as much as the others. We were more surprised by how young the lad was manning the petrol pump as we pulled in to get fuel yet again for our pint sized tank. This boy, surely no older than 10, confidently undid our fuel tank and filled it up. Then just as we were leaving the station, another bike pulled in with 2 boys of a similar age on. This had us both laughing as these 3 small boys were totally at home in, what to us felt like, a very adult situation. In the afternoon we enjoyed a swim in the cool springs - amazing after over 100km on dusty roads. This trip has been a trip of firsts, one being swimming with monks and copying them diving off the rocks and into the 5m deep pool below!
Our final stop was Kong Lor, a vast flooded cave which stretches for 7km under limestone mountains. Not sure what to expect we put on head torches and boarded a very narrow, shallow canoe with outboard motor and Lao boatman. As we headed into the cave the light faded to black; far from slowing down our driver opened the throttle up and we hurtled through the cave into the black abyss. We clung on for dear life staring at far off shadows which as we got closer turned into jagged rocks and stranded tree trunks. Our boatman was either lucky or knew the cave extremely well, dodging all the obstacles until we ran aground at a small section of rapids. We jumped out and watched as five men hauled the boat up stream for a few meters into deeper water where we continued until we reached the caves exit a good half hour after we’d set off. We hired push bikes to explore the beautiful countryside and little villages at the other end of the cave. We found that the locals were all so friendly, shouting ‘sabaidee’ (hello in Lao) to us as we passed - clearly not yet fed up of tourists as we have seen in other countries. We headed back through the cave and agreed that as we hadn’t capsized in the pitch black our driver had well earned his tip!
Laos is certainly an incredibly beautiful country - everything we hoped it would be. Next we are travelling North to see more of the cultural towns and cities, places we hadn’t even heard of, let alone known anything about before planning our trip here. Hope you are all well at home and enjoying the chilly, snowy weather; something that’s hard to remember when it’s 30+ degrees here!
Love R and D xxx
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