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Published: June 30th 2006
Laos from the air
The rolling hills of Northern Laos from the air. This is one of the most isolated parts of South-East Asia.Hello ! This entry is coming to you from our second country on this trip !
We left Lopburi yesterday morning, waking at six in the morning in order to catch the 7.07 to Bangkok Airport. We walked from our hotel to the railway station (only about 500 metres) and got some breakfast snacks to sustain us on the train journey. The station was already busy, mainly with schoolchildren, all in their pristine uniforms, and office workers heading to neighbouring downs. I'll hardly call Thailand a "commuter society" but there seemed to be a fair few commuters there...The train was already quite busy so we wedged ourselves into a narrow bench with our bags between our knees. The train squeaked out of Lopburi only a minute or so after schedule. Arrival time at the airport was 9.14. The journey was uneventful, although the time was brightened somewhat by the regular passage of snack-sellers, who would announce their presence loudly from several carriages away. Drinks, sausages, rice and curry (at 8am...), all sorts. They seemed to do a roaring trade. Occasionally a housewife would heave herself and her heavily laden shopping baskets onto the train at a market town and get
PG632 from Bangkok
Psychedelic aircraft ! off at the next stop - some of these baskets had whole fish poking out of them !
We arrived bang on time, and crossed the overhead walkway to the airport terminal, over the motorway. Bangkok was still another whole hour away down the line ! We checked in our baggage and spent the remainder of our advance time before the flight queueing to have our exit stamps...
Our Bangkok Airways flight to Luang Phabang left on time, and aside from the presence of an
exceedingly annoying screaming 4 year old behind us ("Daddy ! Is the plane going up or down ? Daddy ! Is the plane going up or down ?"), this too was uneventful. The last 10 minutes of the flight were exhilarating, as we descended extremely rapidly into the small bowl surrounded by hills that Luang Phabang is located in.
On arrival we realised that we had stashed most of our greenbacks in our checked luggage, and didn't have enough to cover two visas as $30 each ! Whoops...plagued by visions of being turned away, on arrival in the terminal I immediately explained, in my best Lao (!), to the official stamping my
Meandering Mekong
Luang Prabang is centred on a "tongue" of land surrounded on three sides by the Mekong. This flows all the way to the South China Sea... passport that I'd need to fetch some money from my checked baggage to pay for the second visa ! Luckily this worked and we managed to escape from the airport without too much delay.
We shared a taxi into town (5 minutes) with a lost-looking Japanese woman I approached in the queue for visas. She was very grateful and it allowed us to split the (fixed) cost of the taxi. We found our first choice of hotel, Chittana Guesthouse, straight away. The young Lao running the place (going by the name of King Kong) was very charming and really funny - he warned us to watch out because "Luang Phabang gets very busy !".
Could he have been more wrong...Luang Phabang is with little doubt one of the most delightful places I have ever been in my life. I think Alex would agree. The photographs will speak a thousand words. This is a beautiful, sleepy town, surrounded on three sides by a mighty Mekong, and inhabited by wonderful, charming, friendly inhabitants. Young monks in yellow robes walk the streets (and surf the internet !), stunning typically Lao
wats are tucked away in back streets, French colonial-style houses -
Where does this bit go...
A monk adjusts his robes against the jaw-dropping Wat Xieng Thiong. some well preserved, some charmingly crumbling - are to be found everywhere. Luang Phabang is like a dream. Look at the photos and wish you were here...
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