Blogs from North, Laos, Asia - page 16

Suzanne here... Well, we've fallen behind a bit, so Laos is going to have to be squeezed into a couple of blogs. I'll do the north and leave David to do the south. I can report with some authority that travellers diarrhea is very, very nasty. For seven days I felt like I'd been kicked repeatedly in the stomach, and really sick. I was starting to get a bit worried that I'd need medical treatment, but luckily I'm fine now and really appreciating my good health. Our first stop in Laos was Luang Prabang. What a lovely little town. Evidence of the French influence everywhere, and a really relaxed vibe. We went for a cheap guesthouse, but then really splurged on the food. The first night we went to the Blue Lagoon. Wow! I felt like ... read more

From Kunming in Southern China, we took a sleeper bus to Mengla (even southerner China), then a regular bus across the Laos Border to Luang Namtha (details below). The enormous bus from Mengla into Loas contained just the driver, Alex, myself, a Chinese woman and a massive amount of vegetables. It felt fitting. I entered china in a crowd of Trans-Siberian tourists headed for Beijing, I left in a crowd of cabbages headed for the middle of nowhere. And almost nowhere it was. But it was nowhere with sticky rice and that is all I cared about for a long time. Sticky rice is amazing. In Laos it is the main variety of rice grown and is eaten as a staple with every meal, as an alternative to white rice. In order to cook it, it ... read more

With 5 days to kill before I could enter Vietnam I bravely boarded the slow boat from Muong Ngoi to Muong Khua hoping to find something to do in the tiny Lao town to pass the time. My travel companions were a lovely couple from New York, Diego & Claudia and an aussie doctor from Melb, Paul. Diego assured me that a tour leader in Luang Prabang had assured him that there were trekking options from Muong Khua and that's what he and Claudia were hoping to find. I figured trekking was as good way to pass the time as anything else so decided to tag along with them. Its funny how a completely unplanned side trip can turn out to be the highlight of your trip. You see the reason I had so much time ... read more

Hello again from Luang Prubang. Change of plan due to when we can elephant trek, so not going to Nong Khiaw until Mon (I think). Quick update. Yesterday was spent wandering around the town, visiting various wats, talking to some monks, losing my guidebook, going across the river in a little boat to visit some other wats on that side, bizarrely doing our kung fu forms in front of a decrepit old monastery in the baking heat (as if we weren't sweating enough already!!), and going back over and watching the sun set over the Mekong while some crazy Australian ladies attempted to teach a waiter English. Today was another extremely hot day (where have the typhoon monsoon rains gone?!) and we went kayakking down the Nam Ou and then onto the Mekong where they joined, ... read more

Wednesday 25th August 2010. ‘This cave had better be worth it’. Those were Canada’s first words as we bordered the bus to Kong Lo village. We’d spent last night at Tha Khek Travel Lodge which was in the middle of nowhere. I was pretty kranky as I recall as I’d been feeling Ill on the bus all day. The dormitory was a series of mattresses idly lying down around the inner perimeter of a fairly large room. It was ideal and cheap at 25,000 kip each and we were the only guests there. We arrived in Tha Khaek pretty late and we’d all more or less starved on the coach. We hit the town almost instantly, stumbling into a cheerily little place named the Smile Barge Restaurant. It was an outdoor terrace affair riddled with stray ... read more