The Times September 02, 2006
What's new - elephant riding in Laos
Jill Crawshaw hunts out the best new holiday ideas
Elephant trails
A JUMBO treat for elephant lovers — riding in traditional howdah style for five days in rural Laos. The trips are organised by a conservation charity — the 50,000 Asian elephants are under increasing threat of extinction — and a mahout will accompany you and teach you how to bathe, help feed and bond with your elephant. Overnights are in forest camps and in the homes of tribal villagers for whom elephants are often considered sacred.
The journeys are part of ten-day holidays in Laos from a new tour operator, Selective Asia, which also include boat trips on the Mekong river, meetings with hill tribes and stays in the enchanting former capital Luang Prabang.
Website of the day- selectiveasia.com
Posted by Ian Hughes 11 August 2006 - Today’s website of the day is selectiveasia.com a new website offering travel services with a big difference.
There are numerous sites out there “specialising” in travel arrangements to Asia, mainly aimed at backpackers, but Selective Asia is the only one which offers all the freedom and flexibility of the independent travel specialist, with the kind of itineraries and services you would normally only get with larger group tour operators.
We’ve probably all been on those trips where you end up spending a day in a clapped-out old minibus, with a bunch of sweaty strangers and the only person who gets to do what they really want is the guide (who just happens to know the best jeweller/carpenter/fisherman/restaurant on the island. Yeah, right…).
On a Selective Asia tour, it will be just you, your travel companions and your specialist local guide in comfortable transport. Moreover, they never forget whose holiday it is – yours. You’ll get to do just what you want, when you want to do it.
You may think this premium service will come at premium prices, but this is not the case – the packages we looked at were all more than reasonable.
The company offers various different levels of holiday experience with options such as Family, Adventurous and Special Interest, but if you don’t fancy any of these, they’ll create a bespoke holiday for you. Their aim is to do all this within one working day too.
The site itself is stylish and fast, with all the essential navigation tools easily within reach of the homepage. The Why Us? Section was particularly informative and tells you all about the company ethos. Check out the various photographs dotted around the site too – quite spectacular.
So if a trip to the Orient has always been on your To-Do List of Life, trust a specialist and look forward to an experience of a lifetime.
The Times Newspaper 19th May 2007
Need to know: Will Hide travelled with Selective Asia, which offers ten-day trips, including accommodation, guiding and some meals, but not flights, from £395pp.
The children at Viengxay primary school in northeast Laos, not far from the border with Vietnam, seemed rather calm considering a sweaty Englishman carrying a backpack had just tripped over the wall into their playground. The group of 30 or so cast a glance in my direction as I dusted myself down, then quickly went back to the more important matter at hand, their game of boules.
A flick of the wrist, a ball flying through the air, a collective holding of breath, a thud followed by a clack and a muted cheer. A tall boy, the victor, beamed and patted his opponent on the back and was just about to suggest another game when the bell – actually the empty shell of an American bomb – was thwacked by a teacher and in moments the playground was empty. I excused myself and started back on my trail, looking hopefully for a path to the river and a boat that would take me back towards Luang Prabang.
Aside from boules and baguettes and a few whitewashed villas you wouldn’t guess the French had ruled Laos half a century ago. And apart from the odd shell casing made into a school bell or plant pot, a tourist wouldn’t guess that, between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped almost two million tonnes of explosives on Laos, making it, per inhabitant, the most bombed nation on earth. That the people of this small, landlocked country seem more wary of outsiders and more hesitant with a smile than their Thai neighbours is, perhaps, understandable.
Like Kathmandu and Koh Samui before it, Luang Prabang is the Asia travellers’ new darling. The ancient town – you’d be pushing your luck to call it a city – lies at a confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers and has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1995. Those pressed for time can fly in from Bangkok, although a more leisurely way is the two-day boat trip down the Mekong from the Thai border at Huay Xai, or by bus from the capital, Vientiane, breaking the journey at Vang Vieng to float lazily downriver on inner tubes.
Alongside Luang Prabang’s shuttered old French colonial buildings are almost 70 Buddhist wats (temples), half of which are still occupied by saffron-robed monks. There are also dozens of small cafés serving everything from traditional laap (a salad of minced meat, lime juice, garlic, mint and chillies) with a bottle of cool Beerlao, to cappuccinos, chocolate brownies and, the backpackers’ favourite, banana pancakes.
Italian tour groups and Israeli backpackers potter around on bicycles hired for a couple of dollars a day, take longboats up the river to visit the Pak Ou caves crammed with hundreds of statues of Buddha, walk up Mount Phu Si, join the monks in the internet cafés on Sisavangvong Street (a rather surreal sight at first), take a £3-an-hour massage and browse for T-shirts and lanterns at the night market. Accommodation ranges from dollar-a-night crashpads to restored mansions such as the Apsara, a dream of a place with an open front facing the river, creaking wooden floorboards, whirling fans, black and white photos on the wall, glass Buddhas in alcoves and the best bar and restaurant in town.
I wondered aloud, though, to the hotel’s English owner, Ivan Scholte, what Luang Prabang might be like in ten years’ time, a victim perhaps of its own success? Already the ancient daily early morning ritual of tak bat – giving alms to the town’s monks – has become something of a bun flight in places, with tourists jostling for the best photo spots.
“Some feel Luang Prabang should attract a much larger number of tourists and incorporate the infrastructure to accommodate them, including golf courses and bigger hotels,” he says. “This will probably bring in more money initially but the essence of the town will change dramatically as it becomes a theme park. Others feel the authorities should try to bring in a more discerning type of visitor who in the long term will have less of an influence on the local way of life.
“On a more optimistic note, it’s largely due to the Unesco World Heritage status that Luang Prabang has remained as lovely as it is. I think the town looks better today than when I arrived five years ago.”
Certainly sitting in the peaceful Tamarind Café, slurping a strong Lao coffee topped up with condensed milk, and scooping up spicy dips with crisps made from river weed and sesame seeds while listening to the monks chanting in Wat Nong across the road, I couldn’t help but hope that any future growth is managed well.
The next morning I was driven three hours north to the village of Ban LaKhon, by fields of buffalo and rice, overtaking families on mopeds, then alongside mountains hugged by mist, thick with teak and bamboo, past villages where satellite dishes cast shadows on baskets of bright red chillies. There I met my guides, Muen and Champoo, and we walked all afternoon through paddy fields and woods to the dirt-poor village of Phayong, miles from the nearest road, where a very basic B&B has been set up to give tourists an insight into the lives of the Hmong and Kamu people who live there. In the evening I sat down with the head of the village, Mr Vang, and dined on rice, fried greens, salty soup and scrawny chicken, illuminated by a candle balanced on an empty tin of rat poison, before turning in for an early night. Lao cockerels are no respecters of dawn, however, deciding to announce the new day at 3.30am. By the time I slothfully dragged myself out of bed at first light just after six, I seemed to be the last person in the village up and about.
Returning by riverboat to Luang Prabang I spent my last night in Laos at another, more upmarket eco-resort, Kamu Lodge, a great example of putting money directly into locals’ pockets without resorting to scratchy loo paper, nettle soup or hair shirts. The semi-permanent tents, well disguised by thick foliage, were more like something from an African safari. The interaction with the village next door seemed not too intrusive, the food delicious and even the evening entertainment of bamboo-pole dancing – skipping between them as they are banged together at ankle level, participation mandatory – managed, just about, not to be too cringe-making. Maybe it was the free-flowing Beerlao, maybe I was too chilled to care that I looked like a berk. Laos, Luang Prabang in particular, certainly does seem to have a rather calming effect.
The Times Newspaper 21st July 2007
To Asia with Love – A Connoisseurs’ Guide to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand Vietnam
“This isn’t a book that will get you from A to B on a shoestring,” says Nick Pulley from Selective Asia, who gives the guide to all his clients. “But it will get you the best cup of coffee in Hanoi or help you to find one of Thailand’s last secrets – a truly deserted beach.” Details: Global Directions, £8.95.
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