....It's been two weeks since i left Vientiane and moved up north to Luang Prabang, something was telling me that i had to come back to this magical place....I don't know if it is the stunning glittery wats, the orange robed monks walking in the streets holding their black umbrellas, the colorful nightly hmong tribe market selling Lao textiles, colorful mulberry paper lamps, traditional medicine (like cobra snakes in bottles for Reumatism), the shuttered mansions along the old streets or the fact that this old city is between two beautiful rivers "Nam Khan & Mekong" filled with plenty of cocon [View Full Entry]

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Well sticking to plans has never been one of my fortes and while travelling i have not changed much...still have not managed to get up to this temple on top of the hill which i have been planning to see since i arrived here in Luang Prabang...and i am leaving tomorrow morning having still not visited it. Not that i would change what i have done,I had a lovely day today back on the river (i know...you would think i would be bored of it)...the guy from the hostel and 2 of his friends were looking for a village to explore [View Full Entry]

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We were greeted at small and cozy Luang Prabang airport by Bou Pan to bring us to the Lao Spirit Resort located at a river outside of the ancient town. Thomas and Christine are friends of mine from Biberach in Germany who had taken over the management of the resort 3 month ago. We were here to see how they were doing, to give them some help and also to stay longer at one place and to relax. It had rained very severe since the last weeks and the road to the resort was in a very bad shape. It was [View Full Entry]

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Minor change of plan today... the owner of the hostel had arranged to go to Khuangsi Waterfalls so after cornflakes with banana...coffee...and peanut butter on baguette i had quite a buzz of energy so thought why not... There was a group of about 15 of us, including 3 girls who are staying here who also stayed at the same place as i did in Bangkok and 1 guy who i stayed with at Spicy Thai and then the other 11 were on the same boat trip as me from Chang Khong for the last 2 days...they had met the 3 british [View Full Entry]

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Well i made a huge blog...and then i lost internet connection so lost it all so once again i will start again. Finally made the long journey from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang. i first had a minibus adventure through Northern Thailand to Chang Khong ...suprisingly, the world being small and all there were 2 people from Nottingham also on the Minibus (very loud i have to admit...), We arrived at Chang Khong to a guesthouse which was acceptable- rather dingy but ok...the ticket included dinner,breakfast and lunch and the trip so can't complain too much...it was also my first time [View Full Entry]

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To the border... After hearing some wonderful stories about the beauty that is Laos, and following careful planning of time frames and budgets, Dav and I decided to take a flying 5-day visit into Laos. Unfortunately all flights within a reasonable time frame were booked out, and so, still keen to go, we took perhaps the slightly less comfortable, and only slightly less expensive, route in... Day 1 saw us squeezed into a minivan with 10 others and all our luggage for a 6 hour journey to a small town called Chiang Khong, separated by Laos by the mighty mighty [View Full Entry]

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Our second day in L.Prabang and it was activity day, A slow boat up the Mekong to visit the Pak Ou caves and its 1000's of unwanted buddhas. It took us about an hour and a half or so to motor upstream, stopping at the so called whisky village. Here they makes 3 types of rice whisky that range from crazily 50 odd proof and taste like lighter fluid, to the more sedate 15% or so that taste a lot more flavoursome and drinkable. The red rice one Shabana liked as it was a little like Port. For the crazy people [View Full Entry]

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Sabai-dii! That means "hello" in Lao. We left Thailand about a week ago, and since then have been in the country of Laos. To get to Laos, which shares a border with Thailand, we had to cross a river in a small boat. Laos is similar to Thailand in many ways, but also very different. For example, the language is very close, but not the same. "Chicken" in Thai is "gai," whereas in Lao it is "kai." "Thank you" is "khap jai" here in Laos, but was "khap kun" in Thailand. Someone who speaks Lao can usually understand someone who speaks [View Full Entry]

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So, we crossed the boarder into Huay Xai. We stopped one night while we arranged to get the slow boat to Luang Prabang the next day. We considered doing the 'Gibbon Experience' as planned before we left home (where you trek a little, and zip wire into treehouses to sleep overnight) but it was really, really expensive. Figured it would have to be seriously amazing to make it worthwile so gave it a miss. The currency in Laos is so funny. 15,000 kip is one pound. We are multi-millionaires. Excellent. We got dinner for 10,000 kip each and thought 'yes, finally [View Full Entry]

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Well we made it to Laos, it was a day later than planned due to an unfortunate combination of sickness, malaria tablets, food and timing. Suffice to say I didn't have a very nice night and on arrival at the airport i decided that discretion is the better part of valour and thought we would postpone the flight until the next day. The next day we did make it and entered the Bangkok duty free section of the airport, man that place makes Heathrow look like a corner shop in comparison. It does a fair job of imitating any number of [View Full Entry]

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