Island time: Langkawi

Shortly after our return from Laos, we were blessed with another four day weekend so it seemed appropriate to get ourselves to Malaysia's most famous island destination: Langkawi.

30 km off the west coast of Malaysia and right at the border with Thailand, Langkawi was formerly an outpost for pirates and smugglers; today it is a full-fledged vacation destination. It's one of those places so disconnected from the real world that it's difficult to imagine that anyone is actually from there.

Beach bunnies

Langkawi is positively saturated with tourist amenities - five star resorts to hostels, upscale restaurants to messy food courts. And even though there is continuous development along the main beaches, it mercifully lacks those imposing concrete tower-block monstrosities that have ruined so many fine beaches around the world. The biggest eyesore is the fleets of jet skis that are dragged out in the morning and left to bake in the sun all day for tourists willing to pay $50 for 20 minutes of noisy fun.

Actually, the jet skis are the second biggest eyesore. The first is, without question, the hordes of Europeans (mostly Germans, French and Italians - in that order) who think Speedos look good and that there isn't an expiration date (or weight limit) on when one can wear a bikini.

On the upside, this did trigger a tiny spark of national pride. Americans are frequently classed as slobby, heathens - a stereotype I don't strictly deny - but I bet I saw more Speedos in those 4 days than are owned in the entire male population of the United States of America. America 1 - Europe 0.

Fortunately, most people don't find their way off the main beaches and there are a few wonderfully deserted beaches a short drive away where you can virtually have the place to yourself.

Hidden in that clump of trees is the exclusive Four Seasons Resort and if you get too close a tiny Malay man appears to chase you away. Keeping a safe distance, we nearly had the place to ourselves and set up camp right on the line of demarcation and enjoyed the view.
A jellyfish got me on my thigh and I had a lovely stinging welt for a few days, but it seemed a fair price to pay.

Vertigo

As Langkawi is one of those self-styled holiday destinations it has all sorts of bizarre one-off attractions (crocodile farm, rice museum) - the crown jewel of these establishments is the cable car and skybridge.

The cable car is the steepest in the world - it's not like the ones in the Alps that gently follow the incline of the mountain so you never feel quite as high up as you actually are - this thing is more or less vertical, fast and nearly a kilometer long. I don't have any photos that accurately reflect how terrifying it is - this is because my eyes were closed and I forbade Ian from making any sudden movements. This is the best we could do:

The only thing that got me on board was that the girl at ticket counter promised me it was only ten minutes to the top (which is true) and I discovered that the cable car was actually Austrian-made, that made me feel better until I realized it probably didn't come with several Austrian engineers to run and maintain it. Too late.

We made it, but I was so jittery I could hardly enjoy the spectacular views and I had to save my rapidly dwindling reserves of courage for the skybridge (and the trip back down). The skybridge is 700 meters above sea level, a bit rusty, the planks are made of wobbly concrete and it does gently sway and bounce.

Ian strode out like it was no big deal (show-off). I stayed on what I had illogically and arbitrarily deemed the 'safe bit' and distracted myself playing with the camera. In the end, this is as far as I made it, fake smile and gripping the rail for dear life (as if it would make a difference!)

The return ride was as traumatic as going up, safely back on land we sought out cocktails and headed home the next day. Our bumpy descent through the clouds as we were preparing to land in KL gave me flashbacks.

Back to Indochina: Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is quite possibly the backpacker capital of the world - and in my opinion it is rather unfortunate that such a spectacularly beautiful place has been hi-jacked by rowdy bands of 18 year olds. Not that I'm against a bit of fun, but the drawbacks of that being the main tourist demographic has some nasty consequences.

The backpackers turn up in droves to go tubing down the Na Song. This is not our photo, it seemed foolish in the extreme to bring our camera kit on a six hour booze cruise.

Yes, that is a giant slide, and yes people have died on it. We did go tubing one afternoon and certainly had a bit of fun. Once was enough.

The idea is that you get a tube and float down the river stopping off at various bars along the way and risking your life on various rope swings, slides and zip wires. So what was once a beautiful stretch of pristine river and wilderness is now besotted with ear-splittingly loud music and litter. I repeatedly saw kids putting out cigarettes and dispensing beer bottles into the river - which quite frankly I find unforgivable. Make no mistake these are, without exception, middle-class Western kids who are all on a gap year or their winter break. They know better and I suspect the vast majority of them would never do that at home.

Unfortunately the bad behaviour is not confined to the river.  Dress in Laos is generally conservative, the locals do not particularly appreciate girls in skimpy bikinis and shirtless 'bros' strolling around town.

The lack of confidence in their own cuisine, coupled with the catering to 18 year-old white kids leads to a pretty dire food scene. Every restaurant tries to do every cuisine and they don't do any of it well. We did manage to get our hands on some nice bbq river fish and find some decent soup stalls - but I was overwhelmingly underwhelmed. At least cold beer was readily available.

My last gripe before I get to the good stuff - the TV bars. The town is packed with bars showing infinite re-runs of Family Guy and Friends. It's depressing. I mean who travels halfway around the world to watch re-runs of Friends? Hungover teenagers apparently.

It would be easy to think that this was all there was to do in Vang Vieng and that there is no escape from the hordes of teenagers, but respite is remarkably easy to come by. In fact, all you have to do is go across the bridge.

The other side is like stepping back in time, there are small villages and rice paddy fields tucked in amongst the stunning limestone karsts. We rented a small motorbike and spent perhaps the best day of our entire trip winding down dirt tracks taking in the scenery, checking out a few caves and even stopping for a swim at the blue lagoon. The further out you get the fewer the people, in fact we shared the road more often with large (slightly intimidating) herds of water buffalo than people.

Even returning in the evening, it's fairly easy to escape the crowds. Vang Vieng is so saturated with food and accommodation outlets that it would virtually be impossible for every place to be busy at any given time. So after a solid day of exploring (and with remarkably sore posteriors from bouncing up and down on a cheap Chinese motorbike all day) a cold beer in a quiet bar as you watch the sunset over the Nam Song makes for a pretty good ending.

All in all, it was a pleasant few days, very well spent that more than justified the 4+ hours bus journey to go the 96 miles from Vientiane. This is by the way, the best road in the entire country and aside from only being two lanes the entire way and winding through the mountains, I would estimate that - at best - only 2/3rds are paved.

Travel sickness medication highly advised.

Back to Indochina: Vientiane

Anyone who has read the Great Railway Bazaar (or for that matter browsed the most recent edition of the Lonely Planet) will be familiar with the way in which Paul Theroux once famously described Vientiane: 'the brothels are cleaner than the hotels, marijuana is cheaper than pipe tobacco and opium easier to find than a cold class of beer.' The cleanliness of the hotels is still up for debate but the heady days of post-colonial Vientiane in the 1970s is very much a thing of the past.

That isn't to say that Vientiane now lacks charm, but like Phnom Penh, the tourists have arrived and happy days are (economically anyway) here again. I had high hopes for Vientiane, visions of it having all of the charm of Phnom Penh but with fewer tourists. I was dead wrong. Vientiane, and for that matter Laos, is firmly on the Southeast Asia backpacking route. Fortunately - and in spite of the explosion of posh coffee shops, bars and cafes; the locals seem utterly unperturbed - even a bit aloof. Vientiane is so laid back and utterly unpretentious that at first it was quite inconceivable to me that this was a capital city of an entire country.

We set our sights on one of the few actual sites to see in Vientiane, Pha That Luang.

Pha That Luang is the most prominent national monument in Laos. The building seen today only dates from a French reconstruction in the 1930s, but there has supposedly been some form of temple present on the site from the 3rd century. Unfortunately, Laos has been invaded - a lot - so stuff gets destroyed - a lot.

Our first day was happily spent wandering Vientiane on foot and taking in the sites, mainly temples (interspersed with frequent Beer Lao beverage stops.)

We spent day two exploring some of the local markets a bit further afield and were richly rewarded. Not only did we return home with bundles of lovely Lao coffee and fresh green peppercorns, but the markets are almost completely devoid of tourists. All the usual South Asian fare was available: bananas, mangoes, rice, chillies of all shapes and sizes and a few oddities as well, courtesy of the French I suspect.

Vientiane has large ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese minorities, so Chinese New Year celebrations were in full swing. Some friendly 20-something Vietnamese - who either didn't speak a lick of English or were far too intoxicated to remember how to do so, stopped us on our market crawl and force-fed us beer and coconut sweets. I'm sure they would have had us all evening, but we were on a motorcycle and had to make a gracious escape. We also encountered some young kids doing a Lion Dance through the market.

One of the very best things about market shopping in Laos is that while there is indeed all the usual junk - Laos has an absolute abundance of really lovely (not made in China) textiles. The amount of silk is astounding and I resisted the urge to buy some absurdly exotic silk wall-hanging (a lesson learned the hard way some years ago in Morocco when I came back with two silk rugs for the home I still don't have.)

My only real complaint - and this is coming from someone who enjoyed a truly delicious steak (for a whopping $7) at a nice little Belgian bistro - is the food. Or more specifically, the lack of proper Lao food. Burgers, pizza, pasta, sushi are all available to no end - but, except for the odd noodle-soup stand, good local food is far too difficult to come by. There are a handful of street bbqs and a few upscale Lao-fusion restaurants, but on the whole the selection is rather disappointing. We did try a sausage from one of the street food stalls, it was delicious, but we both paid for it a few hours later.