Jan 25th – Vientiane - Veng Viang

Jan 25^th – Veng Viang

Our new guide Mr Ken picked us up this morning and our we set off north for Veng Viang which is a convenient stopping point on route to Luang Prabang. 

The salty water being evaporated

Our 1^st port of call was a salt factory where they extract the salt from the very salty water pumped up from the ground.  We never found out why the water in this area is so salty as our guide didn’t seem to know.  The water is put into shallow aluminium trays and boiled over ovens fed by wood chips from a local factory mill.  It is then put into baskets and weighed and then the baskets are emptied in a shed where there is a giant salt mountain.  The salt is then taken to another building where iodine is added and it is packed into sacks for sale.  This factory provided all the salt necessary for that region.

On the lake.......

Our next stop was Nam Ngum lake created by damming the river of the same name.  On route to it, we couldn’t help but notice that the houses were much more substantial than those we saw in Cambodia and there really wasn’t much litter at all.  Here, there is electricity and running water in most houses and a refuse collection system – all very different from Cambodia which is much more primitive.  For some reason this surprised me as I thought Laos to be much poorer and more under developed than its southern neighbour.

Near the restaurant and boarding point

The view across the lake

Anyway, back to the lake!  When we got out of the van, we were surprised at how cold it was not helped by a biting wind.  We all put on more layers and I couldn’t help but be thrilled to have bought my scarf for the UK with me as it was very necessary.  Kim regretted not buying a scarf from the night market the previous day, but didn’t bite when I offered her mine for a bargain $50!!  At this point, our guide told us that it was 9C - much colder than the UK!!  We shivered inside an open sided floating restaurant and waited whilst they produced 2 coffees and an ovaltine for us to take on the boat, which was also open sided.  The drinks had condensed milk in the bottom of them which was most odd, but as were all so cold we didn’t care.  The boat trundled off for a short trip around part of the lake, and it was lovely with little islands dotted around it with mountains in the background which we glimpsed occasionally when the clouds lifted periodically.  We declined an offer to go to a concrete platform in the middle of the lake so we could admire the scenery better and asked our guide to tell the boat captain to speed up the boat back to terra firma, as, by this stage, the wind had increased slightly and our hands were becoming numb!  We were very glad of our hot soup for lunch which came in vessels with charcoal in the middle to keep the soup (and our hands) warm.

A fish stall

After lunch we had a further 2 hours to drive on quite bumpy roads to our destination.  We had one more stop though which was at some stalls that sold dried, pickled and fermented fish which photographed well but didn’t look too appetizing.

Our hotel is lovely – 2 storey buildings (6 rooms to a building) round a swimming pool looking over the river with huge sharp edged dramatic mountains as a back ground.  We decided to get our photos today as its forecast to pour with rain tomorrow.  As we clicked away, we were rewarded by a hot air balloon rising above the mountains which really set the whole scene off perfectly.

View from our hotel across the river

Dinner was very nice, if not quite expensive, but the bar and restaurant were warmer than our rooms.  The ladies loo had a very warm fan come on when you turned the lights on, so Kim and I had that earmarked as our emergency bedroom if necessary as the stalls were very large.  In the event, we all slept well – Kim doubled up her duvet and put on a sweatshirt to keep herself warm, I used Chris as hot water bottle and he was just dead to the world snoring very loudly – knocked out by some  medication to try and clear his sinuses as he’s very bunged up with his cold.