Just off the end of Route 13 lies Vangviang. This is back-packer heaven with a plethora outdoor activities on offer to amuse and abuse. Rather than stay in the town, which is tacky beyond belief, we found an indescribably picturesque but intensely hot and humid rough camp just on the outskirts with en-suite swimming pool - of the muddy, fast-flowing variety - and integral karst monolith. Amazing. A quick slither down the adjacent bank ended in a plunge into the river and welcome surcease from the brain-frying heat of the Lao mid-afternoon. This day was by far the worst we had encountered in that respect since India.
The next day we had enough time to 'play' and so went into Vangviang to see what potential there was on offer for suicide. Laos, in common with many of the countries we have been through, could not really be considered a litiginous society. They, instead, take the view that if you die doing something you decided to do yourself then well it is kinda your own fault. Radical huh? Coming from a cotton-wool society this is something of a refreshing take on things, encouraging one, as it does, take responsibility for one's own destiny. And so, risks duly weighed and, well, pretty much disregarded, off we set for a morning of fun, frivolity and caving.
It didn't take long to realise that this was no day-trip to Cheddar Gorge. The walk into the caves took us along the edges of padi-fields and through jungle for around 15 minutes during which time we were given a definitive practical demonstration of exactly why they call this the 'wet season'. Thoroughly soaked in a way that is only possible through complete immersion in a tropical rain-forest or, shall we say for example, the sea, we arrived at the cave mouth. Here we were issued with head-torches, an unusual design in that they required activation by twisting two bits of bare wire together, and led resolutely into the first of two caves. This was the 'dry cave', which in relative terms I suppose it was. Large, carpeted in thick sticky mud and bedecked with some of the more impressive stalagmites/tites I have seen, this was used as a hide-out for local people during the Vietnam war. In this particular chapter of the Indo-China saga Laos was intensely bombed by the Americans who were engaged in the oxymoronic (or maybe just moronic) practice of 'armed reconnaissance'. This was largely because parts of the Ho Chi Minh trail extended across the border from Vietnam. In fact, the Americans allegedly dropped, on average, one bomb every 8 minutes on this country for the better part of the 9 year duration of the war bestowing on Laos the dubious accolade of: most intensely bombed nation ever in the history of modern, and therefore probably all, warfare. Not bad for a country that was to all intents and purposes neutral.
It is difficult to appreciate, 40 odd years on, what it must have been like during that time, especially for those of us who have never seen conflict in any measure. Certainly there remains no outward evidence of the raveges of war. It is also easy, on another level, to snigger good-heartedly about the astonishing range of the SE Asian diet. Standing in a small huddle in this dank cave, our torches extinguished to give us a full appreciation of the total absence of light and realising that people lived here, in these conditions, under an almost constant barrage of high explosives, starved to the extent that they were ready to eat cats, dogs and even spiders just to survive very effectively takes the hilarity out of the situation, however.
Having said that we saw one of the spiders in question and, let me tell you, there was meat enough there for a full three course meal with optional doggy bag. Yeech!
To visit the second cave we were again given the standard issue torch, complimented on this occasion by a truck inner tube. They were not joking when they said this one was 'wet', involving as it did entry mounted on said inner tube through a small hole no more than 10 inches off the surface of the river. Tubing 100 odd metres into a flooded cave with no more than 3ft of clearance to the roof and an exit not much bigger than my hand-span is a great experience. It is also, perhaps, one of the stupidest things I have ever done give that it was raining heavily just outside. I can still see the headlines. All's well that ends well, however, and we celebrated with an hour or so of far less dangerous traipse swinging into the river from a stupidly high platform followed by a very welcome and slightly more relaxing iced late in one of the local cafe's before jumping once again aboard our trusty steed and heading for Vientiane.
The next day we had enough time to 'play' and so went into Vangviang to see what potential there was on offer for suicide. Laos, in common with many of the countries we have been through, could not really be considered a litiginous society. They, instead, take the view that if you die doing something you decided to do yourself then well it is kinda your own fault. Radical huh? Coming from a cotton-wool society this is something of a refreshing take on things, encouraging one, as it does, take responsibility for one's own destiny. And so, risks duly weighed and, well, pretty much disregarded, off we set for a morning of fun, frivolity and caving.
It didn't take long to realise that this was no day-trip to Cheddar Gorge. The walk into the caves took us along the edges of padi-fields and through jungle for around 15 minutes during which time we were given a definitive practical demonstration of exactly why they call this the 'wet season'. Thoroughly soaked in a way that is only possible through complete immersion in a tropical rain-forest or, shall we say for example, the sea, we arrived at the cave mouth. Here we were issued with head-torches, an unusual design in that they required activation by twisting two bits of bare wire together, and led resolutely into the first of two caves. This was the 'dry cave', which in relative terms I suppose it was. Large, carpeted in thick sticky mud and bedecked with some of the more impressive stalagmites/tites I have seen, this was used as a hide-out for local people during the Vietnam war. In this particular chapter of the Indo-China saga Laos was intensely bombed by the Americans who were engaged in the oxymoronic (or maybe just moronic) practice of 'armed reconnaissance'. This was largely because parts of the Ho Chi Minh trail extended across the border from Vietnam. In fact, the Americans allegedly dropped, on average, one bomb every 8 minutes on this country for the better part of the 9 year duration of the war bestowing on Laos the dubious accolade of: most intensely bombed nation ever in the history of modern, and therefore probably all, warfare. Not bad for a country that was to all intents and purposes neutral.
It is difficult to appreciate, 40 odd years on, what it must have been like during that time, especially for those of us who have never seen conflict in any measure. Certainly there remains no outward evidence of the raveges of war. It is also easy, on another level, to snigger good-heartedly about the astonishing range of the SE Asian diet. Standing in a small huddle in this dank cave, our torches extinguished to give us a full appreciation of the total absence of light and realising that people lived here, in these conditions, under an almost constant barrage of high explosives, starved to the extent that they were ready to eat cats, dogs and even spiders just to survive very effectively takes the hilarity out of the situation, however.
Having said that we saw one of the spiders in question and, let me tell you, there was meat enough there for a full three course meal with optional doggy bag. Yeech!
To visit the second cave we were again given the standard issue torch, complimented on this occasion by a truck inner tube. They were not joking when they said this one was 'wet', involving as it did entry mounted on said inner tube through a small hole no more than 10 inches off the surface of the river. Tubing 100 odd metres into a flooded cave with no more than 3ft of clearance to the roof and an exit not much bigger than my hand-span is a great experience. It is also, perhaps, one of the stupidest things I have ever done give that it was raining heavily just outside. I can still see the headlines. All's well that ends well, however, and we celebrated with an hour or so of far less dangerous traipse swinging into the river from a stupidly high platform followed by a very welcome and slightly more relaxing iced late in one of the local cafe's before jumping once again aboard our trusty steed and heading for Vientiane.
posted by Al at 5:25 am
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