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Published: December 26th 2007
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Over the Thai Border
Hello Laos, here we come! Laos really is a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively. From the moment we walked over the Thai border, we knew that we were in for a treat. The people were not hocking mass produced t-shirt’s at us, we were not being harassed to get into a Tuk Tuk, and the local beer, Beer Lao, wasn’t CRAP!!! We knew we were home, at least for a bit anyways.
We began with a night in Vientiane, which is right over the Thai Laos border, it was a quaint town and we had our first taste of Laos coffee, which was AMAZING! When the French colonized Laos in the 19th century, not only did they leave their beautiful architecture and cobble stone walkways, but fields and fields of exquisite coffee; making the Thailand traveler whose closest thing to a real coffee is a pack of instant Nescafe, a very happy camper. In Vientiane, we visited the Wat Si Saket: built in 1818 it is the oldest temple in Vientiane and houses over 2000 silver and ceramic Buddha images and more than 300 seated and standing Buddha’s, quite a sight. We only stayed for one night as we were anxious to get
Vientiane
Wat Si Saket to Vang Vieng, quite possibly the tubing capital of Asia.
After a very sweaty 4 hour bus ride on an extremely windy and bumpy highway (which we find out is the norm in Laos) we arrive in a town full of backpackers carrying their black rubber tubes back to the companies they rented them from and sharing their stories of the day, making us very eager to get a place to throw our bags down and get the details for the next day…tubing here we come!! We realized the next day that it is not about tubing at all, but rather the three storey high rope swings they have at the bars that riddle the sides of the river. What an adrenaline rush! Of course we had to meet the group of people in town that were soon to become known as the tubing acrobats in town. Doing triple flips and Superman dives off the swings while the rest of the trevellers were simply trying to down as much Beer Lao as possible to work up the courage to climb the ladder to the ropes. It sure made for an exciting three days in town!
When we were
The kids
Laos boy swiming and looking for fish done killing our ears from the pressure of these drops, (I had water in my ears for a week, forcing me to ask people to speak into my good ear, no joke), we got our group together, which was now a force of 9 people, and made our way to Luang Prabang. The drive to was stunning; the dark green mountains and quaint hill tribe huts that lined the road were a striking sight after our days of lazing around beaches and touristy bars. We were all awe struck fighting to get our cameras out the windows and take the best pictures.
Arriving in town we rushed to get Hostels so we could start ravaging this new town. I unfortunately ravaged some bad food that gave me a killer case of what I self diagnosed as Gastro-bloated-painful-itis. Easily translated as, whenever I ate for the next four days, I got a baby sized bloated stomach that caused me to stay in bed the whole time we were in the town. I did mange to venture out for the day at the waterfalls but had to skip on most meals to make it happen. Unfortunately this town was also the
Blue Lagoon
At the base of the Caves parting of the group, with some heading to Bangkok, others to Hanoi and others to try and catch the full moon party on Koh Phangan.
Erik and I decided that we would head North and see the hill tribe area of Laos, so we caught the first bus we could get, heading that way. The next evening we found ourselves in Udom Xai which is not really worth mentioning other than to say if possible, time your bus out of Luang Prabang to not have to spend the night there, as Erik put it in his Facebook status, it is a s@#$ hole! Catching the earliest bus we could out of there, we made in to Luang Nam Tha by 11 the next morning. This town instantly gave us a much better feeling, the people were beautiful there and this is where we had our most intimate times with the Laos people. The first night was an early one as we were invited into some locals home to share their Beer Lao and the dreaded Lao Lao (a near witches brew like a moonshine). They taught us very useful Laos terms like ‘Nyok Nyok’ ‘Cheers’ and ‘Bo Phin Yang’-
‘No Problem’. We even managed to get the head of the house, his wife, to sit and have some beer and Lao Lao with us. It was a great afternoon of laughs and Nyok Nyok’s.
The next night found us at a traditional Laos dinner and ceremonies; it was a unique and unrivaled experience so far. From the dance to the blessings and the food, we felt really lucky to be invited to share this with the local people.
After having our fun filled days of local Laos, we decided it was time to start making our way to Vietnam if we want to make it to Hanoi in time for New Years, so we got ourselves on a bus, (again) and did 12 hours yesterday….yes a wonderful way to spend Christmas day, and got ourselves back to Luang Prabang. We are waiting for our Vietnamese Visa’s to go through and will be off on Friday. Hopefully I will have a chance to see the beautiful town as it is supposed to be experienced…not from the window of my hostel room.
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