July 20th. A big day. Our first excursion outside the beautiful city of Luang Prabang and time for Mr Riley to pull out the big guns. Why? Because it was my 23rd birthday. And boy was it the best birthday ever! We were picked up by the All Laos Elephant Camp at 9am and headed out of the city with the rest of the group. As we approached the hills we drove through a huge construction site where a new road was being built. The monsoon had hit a few days before and the whole place was thick with mud. It wasn't long before our minivan was stuck. It took some time, a lot of barefoot westerners and a JCB to get it out. I think the locals were surprised at how willing we all were (well, not all the girls) to jump out and take off ouir shoes and help shift the van from the warm gooey mud. When we finally got through we took a short boat trip up river and found ourselves in a forest clearing full of massive footprints and elephant poo and then, we saw them. Lumbering through the forest they were strangely silent as they moved, with their young mahouts perched on top. It was so surreal to see them just walking towards us through the jungle, so vast and yet so graceful. My foolish, western, media saturated brain thought for a moment that they must be CGI or something. We climbed aboard the howdah by means of a wooden scaffold and off we went for my first ever elephant ride.
Our elephant ride!
Yaya!
Our elephant was a little tempramental, she really did not want to go on a walk just then and trumpted away for a while, shaking her head in annoyance. I was pretty nervous, being high up and on a pissed off four tonne animal but the mahout, a 15 year old boy with minimal English, didn't seem too bothered. The view from up there was incredible. We stomped through the jungle for about a hour, hanging over the edge of the wooden howdah to watch the elephant walking. They are surprisingly sure footed for such big, cumbersome beasts.
Returning down river to the camp for lunch we learnt the mahout commands, ''pai'' for go, ''hao'' for stop and ''yaya!'' for no bad elephant, before heading back up river in our attractive, oversized mahout uniforms for some proper training. I thought the heavy denim uniforms might be a little over the top but when you're sat on the neck of an animal that enjoys mud baths and has tough wire-like hair over its entire body you're suddenly grateful that you're not wearing your own flimsy clothes. I tried to angle for what I thought was a slightly smaller elephant when we got back to the clearing but I was still pretty dubious when the elephant stood up and I was way up in the air balanced on its neck. Getting up is no mean feat, even if it does crouch down which it often won't, and it took a substantial bottom shove from Theo and an awful lot of pulling by the mahout to get me properly mounted.
The author pretending to be a mahout
Boun Boun!
The way down to the river was just a long slippery, muddy slope. I was at the back of the group and watched Theo's elephant slide down, get one foot caught and slither on its knees towards even ground. With a sigh of relief I registered that my boyfriend was still alive, he had not been cruhed by a falling elephant, then it dawned on me that it was my turn. The mahouts seemed to find the elephants lack of grace absolutely hilarious, which we found very comforting. I was so hot and sweaty with fear by this point that it was wonderful to have a dunk in the river. Half submerged my elephant rolled around, enjoying her bath, and responded enthusiastically when the mahout stood on her back, counted to three in Lao and shouted "boun boun!" (spray). Over and over again her periscope trunk came flicking out of the water and doused me. Elephants can hurl as much as ten litres of water out of their trunks at a time and I took some pretty forceful jets to the face. Back on dry land we rode up the slope and then with a graceful slide down while hanging off her ear my elephant ride was over.
Elephant bath time
Hao!
We tubed back down river, which basically involved sitting in the inner tube of a truck tyre like a rubber ring and floating along in the current, and walked over to the less than inspiring elephant information centre. This consisted of a large room covered in pictures of elephants walking, bathing and mating (graphically) as well as various diseases and afflictions in absolutely no logical order or with any explanations. Our tour guide Chai filled the time while we were waiting for the others to finish looking telling us about his home in the mountains and how his father abducted his mother when he decided he wanted to marry her. His grandfather then swung a chicken in the air, for reasons we failed to understand. Each to their own I suppose.Getting Pally with the Locals
We were so exhausted the next day (and I had some serious groin strain from holding on for dear life) that we spent the day relaxing in the city before renting bicycles for the evening. This was an adventure in itself as it tuned out. We found the bicycle shop deserted and on hunting down a side alley for someone who worked there we found ourselves befriended by three elderly Lao men. They hollered to the shop boy before inviting us to join them. They gave us Lao Lao (oh no!) and beer and let us share in their meal of fried meat and salad with chilli sauce then a whole dried fish. It felt totally surreal to be invited in to someone's lesiure time like that, we were hardly the only tourists out and about then but the men seemed generally insterested in hearing about where we came from and where we were going. We were pretty woozy by the time we actually got bicycles and only really managed to wobble along beside the Mekong looking for food.
Whiskey Village Deja Vu
On our last day in Luang Prabang we crammed in the final sights outisde the city with another tour. We were picked up by the most adorable tour guide ever, little Touy. Touy was only twenty and was still in training with the company. He told us all about his family who lived hours and hours away in a place with no water or electricity. He told us how he longed to see them and to go abroad but he didn't have the money for either. He had taken the job as a tour guide to learn English and because he liked meeting new people from places he would never see, and learning American slang. Touy stole our hearts immediately, which was good because the tour was slightly chaotic.
At the elephant camp Theo and I of course felt like old pros at the riding and clambered on confidently while the rest of the group wobbled and shrieked. With Theo on the neck and a dutch boy and I in the howdah we set off on a relatively short trip through the trees. It was a pretty easy route compared to the last one and we all took turns scrambling on to the neck. Theo and I shouted "pai!" and "quoa!" at every available opportunity which the mahouts walking along side and taking photos like paparazzi seemed to find pretty amusing.
Leaving the camp we went to a small whiskey village, which really was exactly like every other village we'd been to except that was turned over to the tourist trade. It comprised of wooden homes and dusty streets and stall after stall selling scarves and nicknacks. The only difference here was that you were plied with Lao Lao and rice wine to sample and make you buy something. Back at the elephant camp we had to sit around wait for an angry American couple, who having been forgotten in the morning, had to be taken to the whiskey village we had just left. With everyone grouped together again we travelled to the Pak Ou caves, a stunning set of caves in the side of a sheer rock face dropping straight on to the Nam Ou river. We shot across the river in a frail little boat and climbed first to the higher cave then the lower. The higher cave had a strange metal gate covering its entrance and was pretty dark when you got right back inside. It was full of tiers of tiny Buddha statues brought there by pious Lao People. They showed up like eerie lines of soldiers in the light of the camera flashes. The lower cave was much more open with a Mediterranean style white wall and set of stone steps. It too was bursting with Buddhas of every shape and size but seemed more of an open place of worship than the dark Buddha storage centre of the higher cave.
The Pak Ou caves
Lastly we stopped at a Hmong village, another one of one room houses and muddy half naked children and cheap bracelets, before making the long drive back to Luang Prabang.
Kuang Si waterfall
The next day was spent almost entirely in a local restaurant waiting for the time to pass. When it was finally time to leave the trip to the airport, check-in, security and boarding all went by very fast. Before we knew it we were taking off, aboard a surprisingly plush Lao Airlines' plane and being given teeny tiny sandwiches and cake!
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