Laos

My first stop in Laos was the small town of Luang Prabang. The first thing that struck me about Laos was that it is so much more relaxed than Vietnam, no aggressive street vendors, and hardly any traffic. What a difference from the bustle of Hanoi.

Luang Prabang is famous for it's colonial architecture, as well as the many buddhist temples. As I'm fairly templed out by now, I didn't bother visiting any of the temples, I did get up at 5.30am one morning though, to watch the daily procession of hundreds of monks, as they go through the streets accepting food from locals (and in the past few years from tourists as well).

As SE Asia is now in its rainy season, many afternoons where rained out, which was a good excuse to find shelter in a coffee shop and read a book.

Vang Vieng, famous as a backpacker hangout, was my next stop. Though less than 200km south of Luang Prabang, the drive takes about 6hrs, as the roads wind through mountain passes. The scenery is spectacular!

Vang Vieng is famous for two things. Tubing down the river, and a several restaurants/lounges which play the series Friends all day, every day!

The tubing experience is more of a pub-crawl on water that watersport, as there are bars every 100m or so. Every bar also has huge swings, loud music and great atmosphere.

The rest of Vang Vieng life centers around the 'Friends' restaurants mentioned previously, where you get sucked in and after a few hours realise you're still lounging there, waiting for the next episode to start. Spending about a week in Vang Vieng, it was a great time doing absolutely nothing but lounging and taking time-out.

My last stop in Laos was the the tiny capital, Vientiane, which has a population of only 300.000. Spent one rained-out afternoon there, before taking a early morning flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia.

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