Tag: Laos

I feel somewhat conflicted about our excursion to ride elephants in Luang Prabang.   The decision to take part in this activity was complex, because of all the negative things that can be associated with the commercial use of animals.   I mean,  there are some positively atrocious outfits that are cruel to their beasts beyond measures of reason and who make a profit at the extreme cost of a creature’s health or well-being.  There are also some commendable operations that rescue animals from what might otherwise be a perilous existence and support the animal by arranging respectful and educational visits from tourists.  The thing is, there are many operations that function somewhere between those two extremes and we couldn’t be sure where our tour company fit into that spectrum.   In hindsight, I suppose that if we couldn’t be at least ninety nine percent sure of their standards and procedures regarding the treatment of the elephants, we should not have gone.  However, what’s done is done, and we went.

This isn’t to say that we had a bad experience, or that we witnessed terrible cruelty;   I am ambivalent about it because I am uneducated.  I don’t know what it takes to keep an elephant – I don’t know anything about elephants – so I just felt poorly equipped to decide whether we were supporting a local industry which keeps elephants from being killed or supporting a company that works them cruelly.  For example, how many wraps of a chain around a foot is necessary to keep a 40 year old male elephant from running loose?  Are the seat harnesses uncomfortable for them?  How much food does an elephant need and do they get it here?  These remain unknowns.  I guess I feel like I still don’t know what it was we supported with our $46 and I am uncomfortable with not knowing for sure.

For the record, though, things looked pretty decent when we were there, a camp outside Luang Prabang called All Lao Tours Camp.  The place has been in operation for years and was recommended to us by people who had recently participated in a 2-day ‘learn to be a mahout’ program (mahout = elephant trainer) and they said it was great.  We were there only for a short time, long enough to climb aboard one of the three elephants working that day and plod around through the jungle for about an hour.  The ride was uneventful, rather unexciting – apart from being able to actually touch an elephant for the first time.  The most enjoyable part was feeding them bananas when we returned to the camp. (Check the ‘Videos’ section of our blog to see the Marc feeding one of the females.)

All in all, I remain ambivalent.  I don’t know if what we did was ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but I don’t think I’ll ever do it again.

After spending three days eating five meals a day in Vientiane, we rolled our bloated bellies into Vang Vieng in mountainous Northern Laos. There is a well lubricated tourist route from Vientiane up to Luang Prabang with a stop at Vang Vieng in the middle. V.V. has got a bit of a reputation for its Westerner-friendly food, its restaurant TVs blasting repeats of Friends and The Simpson’s every night at full volume, and, redeemingly, its outdoor pursuits.

First things first (while, second really, if we count ‘drink wine on the balcony overlooking the river’), the four of us set ourselves up with scooters to explore the town and the surrounding caves. Not that riding a scooter is difficult, but sometimes, riding a scooter can be difficult! This was my first experience with the using of the gears on a motorized bike-type vehicle and there were more than a couple of wobbly starts and jarring down-shifts. Marc insists my driving is better than his; my pride does not allow me to disagree so I was always the pilot.

Anyway, with scooters, we were able to fire out to see a few of the local caves (used as bomb shelters in decades past) and to slide into the organic farm just outside the town for a little vegematarian lunch. Heaven forbid we should go a few hours without eating. Fantastic mulberry shakes. It was fun, though, to see some stalactites and get the legs moving in between bike and table.
At our last cave, we had the option of renting a couple of inner tubes to float into a flooded cave. The water was pretty icy, we had no swimsuits and the sun was sliding behind the mountains so we hesitated on whether or not to go but, in the end, couldn’t say no. Thus, we have the headlamp-wearing tubers cringing in the cold water as we pull ourselves along ropes leading into the cave. It was a chilly 15-min ride but fun nonetheless.

Day 2 we signed on for some rock climbing. Marc and I are novices, Doug is an expert and Amy opted for a day with book by river. Now, Doug is still an expert, Amy is well rested, and Marc and I are bruised but enthusiastic to try climbing again. Our guide took us out to a couple of rock walls located conveniently next to a river bar. (The river bars are set up at regular intervals over 3km for the people who float on inner tubes down the river for an afternoon.)

With quivering muscles, we called it a day around 3:30 so had enough time to relax with a beer on the river before heading back and this is where we witnessed something new. It is the job of one of the guys at the bar to stand out on the river’s edge, a bit upstream from the bar, with a bamboo pole attached to a long rope. As the foreigners – known as ‘falang’ here, a word which came from ‘francais’ when the French were here – float towards the guy, he will toss out the pole so they can grab on and be towed to shore. This is known as “fishing for falang” and was amusing to watch from the bar.