Nota Bene

ສະບາຍດີທຸກຄົນ!

Let me continue my tourism tales in and around Vientiane – the capital of Laos. Located 25km from the city center by road (15km as the crow flies) is a rather curious little place that goes by the name of Buddha Park. Here, on a relatively small patch of land (180x100m), stand around two hundred assorted Buddhist and Hindu statues, sculptures, and all sorts of other stone installations.

They look pretty ancient; however, the park was built either in 1958 (if the internet is to be believed) or in 1959 (if our guide is to be believed). Not that it matters. Anyway, these aren’t historical artifacts but relatively recent “faux antiques” made of… reinforced concrete and, in places, simply brickwork under a layer of cement. But don’t let that put you off; the place is still very charming and visit-worthy.

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Ooh – déjà vu! These scenes out the window sure looked familiar – but of course they did: I was only here last month!…

And here are some of our guests flying in!…

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With our tourist weekend in Luang Prabang over, it was time to get down to business. The next couple of days in Vientiane were pretty much all work, work, work (meetings, introductions, handshakes, negotiations, and so on – business as usual), but we still had some time left over for sightseeing: perfect! And the highlight, without a doubt, was the Lao Art Museum.

I’d say it’s a very strange place…

First, it’s sumptuous – a real masterpiece:

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Now that we’ve covered the campsites, it’s onward and downstream on the Sayan Oka River!…

In places, the beauty all around us was simply off the charts:

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ສະບາຍດີ folks!

Back to Laos – for a continuation of my tales (and pics) from the Luang Prabang side…

Curiously, the city is the country’s alternative capital (the government hopped back and forth between Vientiane and Luang Prabang several times), which is why traces of investment in urban infrastructure from days of yore remain here. And since back in those ancient times it wasn’t all about buses and subways, what they built were temples – some of which have survived through to today.

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Today’s post is all about the campsites we stayed at on our summer rafting trip down the Sayan Oka River, of which there are many and in different flavors, but which all turned out to be decent. Even though there was a pretty heavy stream of rafting tourists (every day we crossed paths with one, two, or three groups), and on top of that fishermen started showing up farther downstream (they come upriver in motorboats through some fairly rough riffles), we always found a nice little spot to spend the night.

Sometimes it was in a forest:

And very nice they were too:

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In Luang Prabang (Luang Phabang) in Laos, the Kuang Si Falls should be first on any visiting tourist’s itinerary! It’s an utterly unique-looking cascade of waterfalls and travertine terraces. Here’s the main waterfall (50+m high) ->

And the terraces farther downstream:

You can even swim:

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Hi folks!

Back to my habit of mixing things up both chronologically and geographically, today’s report isn’t from Southeast Asia (Laos); it’s from Buryatia – just north of Mongolia. Actually, Laos is directly south of Buryatia, but I digress…

First – quick recap…

Our Sayan Oka River escapade: ~280km to cover on the water, with a couple of rapids and countless very interesting riffles along the way. We started at the Buryatian village of Orlik, and from there it’s all the way down to Verkhneokinsky (Irkutsk Region). The elevation at the start is ~1370m, and at the finish it’s ~560m. That’s a total drop of ~800m. Along the way the river cuts through the Eastern Sayan, where it gets pretty wild in places. That stretch is roughly 170–180km long (depending on how you count it); the rest is the warm-up/run-up at the beginning, plus coming out onto the plain and floating down to the finish at the end. Everything in-between is in the mountains. The most interesting and most action-packed segment of the whole run is the Orkho-Bom gorge, which is 65km long – though I never did figure out exactly where it begins or ends.

The first two days of rafting were fairly calm: we just cruised along with the current – only occasionally paddling over to where it ran faster. And now and then we came across some shallows and easy little riffles.

But then we came to the start of the mountain section – waaay over there, just before those mountains, was the left turn into the gorge. And we’re off!…

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If you ever have the chance to choose exactly how to get, in daylight hours (ideally in the morning), from Vientiane, the capital of Laos, to Luang Prabang (which was the capital roughly half a millennium ago), then… well, first let me explain why I’ve started this post with that… incomplete conditional clause (oof)…

Now, Vientiane is home to the country’s main international airport (the one we flew into). But the really interesting tourist activities are in Luang Prabang, which is 200+km north of the capital. There are various ways of getting there: 1) taking the new Chinese railroad (two hours; lots of tunnels – 75, I just peeked – and you can’t see a thing in those); 2) bouncing along in a car for 300km, which takes some 10–12 hours (with stops); or 3) flying – merrily and with gusto – by helicopter, from airport to airport, in an hour-and-a-half (and in Luang Prabang the airport is within the city limits). So, back to my first rush-in sentence: if you ever do need to get from Vientiane to Luang Prabang – make sure you take the chopper option! Yes, it’s fastest, but also – the views along the way will simply knock your socks off!…

My dearly beloved wife was so thrilled that she even commented, “It’s like Kamchatka!” Well, that’s the highest possible accolade for the contemplativeness of the scenery around us )

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If you take a close look at the photos from our rafting trip down the Sayan Oka River – say, at the waterfall or the spot where we parked up – you may notice a few oddities on the surface of the landscapes that surrounded us there. Maybe not. Maybe it’s just me with this fixation!…

Aaanyway – what am I getting at?…

Just this: We were in a river valley amid a mountain massif. But the river itself is hemmed in between steep banks on both sides that are tall, steep, and unmistakably volcanic in origin:

Eh? How did that happen? Look: on the horizon – mountain peaks; the banks of the river – undeniably volcanic lava rock:

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