Gateway to South East Asia

(NB – our camera has been sent back to the UK for repair 😢)

From Kathmandu, our journey into South East Asia takes us via Kuala Lumpur. We only have one day here before we head to Laos – the airport is about an hour’s drive from the city centre, so our original plan was to get a hotel with a swimming pool really close to the airport and just hang out there for the day. However, our plans were thwarted as all the hotels were fully booked. So, we managed to find a simple guesthouse in the centre of town and planned to spend the day exploring – a blessing in disguise!

In terms of cities we’ve visited so far, KL seems closest to Dubai, with its heat & humidity, high-rise buildings and multi-lane highways… but it’s much more real, with its feet firmly on the ground. It’s much easier to walk around and there’s a lot more human activity on the streets and pavements around the city. The air is much less polluted than, say, Kathmandu and it really seems like a city that would be liveable in. 

When we arrive (there is surprisingly little traffic), we ask our taxi driver where he recommends we eat local food. He tells us that the road we’ve just driven down, walking distance from our guest house, has lots of traditional Malay food in roadside restaurants. We walk partway down the road during the daytime and it looks fairly interesting but nothing particularly to write home about. In the evening, our plan is to have an early night as we need to be up at 4am to get our flight. So Fi pops out to grab some takeaway food that we can eat in our guest house. She returns with yummy barbecued food, eyes shining and telling me I absolutely have to go out and take a walk around. So as soon as we’ve eaten, I head off for a wander and to find an ATM. The street we walked down earlier in the day is now completely transformed. It’s now pedestrianised and tables from restaurants down the length of the street have spilled out, entirely filling the road from both sides. The atmosphere is so vibrant, teasing all of my senses, the restaurants buzzing with conversation and laughter, with food sizzling away both in the kitchens and on barbecues out on the street. There’s everything – chicken, beef, fish, prawns, squid, fruit and the smell is mouthwatering. Everywhere they are serving jackfruit – it seems a real delicacy here and all the locals are eating it. Even though I’ve eaten, it’s so tempting to pick up a delicious looking kebab of seafood!  I resist, find an ATM, get some cash and head back to the guesthouse. But this is the first time on this trip that I have really wished it was just Fi & I, free to go and really explore this city at night!

After a precious few hours’ sleep, we get up in the middle of a night to head back to the airport and fly to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. As usual, having filled in five sets of immigration, customs and visa forms, we’re the last through the airport. The only other people left in the customs hall by the time we leave are an Australian family with several children of various ages – it’s clear from overhearing their conversation that they’re having a somewhat challenging time, coping with the bureaucracy of immigration when at least two of the children have been sick on the plane. We have a brief conversation and sympathise with each other before going our separate ways. 

Of course, the benefit of getting up so ridiculously early is that we have most of the day left to spend in Vientiane. Here the tuk-tuks have a different design – they are longer, with bench seats down either side and a hammock slung down the centre for when the driver is waiting for his next fare. The French colonial influence is immediately apparent in the architecture, including typical French shutters on most of the windows. The main streets are wide and airy with very little traffic – it doesn’t feel like a Capital city at all. It’s elegant and chic with a very relaxed vibe about it. The temperature is also several notches down on KL – balmy and warm but not too hot – we’re at once happy with our decision to spend 2 nights here rather than one.

To get to our hotel, we turn off the main street up a dirt road, immediately after an enormous Buddhist temple, adorned with gold and multiple dragons. Our couple of days in Vientiane is spent chilling around the hotel pool and meandering around the town, with its extensive choice of cafés, coffee shops and restaurants, serving croissants, pastries and delicious coffee & juices, as well as local / Thai food; plus some lovely stylish shops. The pace of life here seems very gentle & relaxed, almost indolent – it is the polar opposite of Mumbai or Chennai, but extremely pleasant!

Our plan is to travel north from here to Luang Prabang, preferably overland. Having done a bit of research, I discover that there’s a town called Vang Vieng about half way that seems to be a popular stopping off point. As soon as I search google images for it, I know we have to go! A bit more research confirms that decision. So we book tickets on a minibus, Fi finds some accommodation and off we set…..