We get dropped off at the bus station in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Driving through town in our open air shared taxi we were thinking this is more Little Snoring than London. As capital cities go this has to be the quietest, most laid back one on the planet. Even the taxi drivers don't toot their horns or tell you their life story. We landed on our feet with the Mixay Guesthouse as breakfast was included in the price and turned out to be curry ... Paul was in heaven. Our second stroke of luck was turning right out of [View Full Entry]

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the international team unite! more on that story later first lets go to finance so for 35bucks you get a visa for laos at the airport which was ideal as i hadnt arranged one due to the fact before i left i had never even heard of the place let alone knew where it was and wanted to go there. because of this though i had a great time, the lack of guide book and a clue for that matter i decided just to go up to some random people and see where they were staying and maybe catch a ride [View Full Entry]

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Hi all, Thanks for all your lovely messages, its really good to hear from you all. It feels like we've had an eventful time since last writing. We crossed the Thai border and took the slow boat down the Mekong river for 2 days to Louang prabang, it was a lovely way to travel becasue of the scenery howeverthe overnight stop wasn't great, we arrived in the dark & had to drag our luggage up a rocky steep bank we were desperate to find a bed for the night so unfotunately chose a room which we later realised had cockroaches in. [View Full Entry]

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One of the things I appreciate about Laos - and much of SE Asia - is the amount of freedom, and responsibility you are granted. You personally appraise the situation, and based on that, and perhaps advice from other travellers, you 'do', or 'do not.' There isn't always this looming figure in the background making sure that you don't overextend youself-we have been given the wherewithal and innate inability to make sound rational choices. At least that is what seems natural; personally, I am still working on the 'rational' choices thing. But there's time and probably more journeys to work on [View Full Entry]

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We hated to leave Luang Prabang, but there are more adventures ahead for us. The choices for transportation between LP and Vientiane, the capital, are a 45-minute plane ride or a 12-hour (more or less) trip by public bus. Let's guess which one we opted for.... Were we back-packers we would have opted for the latter, because about 2/3 of the way we would come to their favorite place in the whole world: Vang Vieng. VV is an absolutely gorgeous location on the Nam Song River, a natural paradise amid soaring karsts (limestone sentinels), however it has become a hamlet of [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday I finally turned the corner. I woke up feeling human again. So we tried to make up for a couple of lost days. In the morning we took on the “must-do” event of climbing Mount Phousi. This, the only elevation on the peninsula of Luang Prabang’ is the sacred mountain. A daunting 360 stairs take you from street level across from the Royal Palace to the summit. It is cool in the morning now so the trek that wound back and forth across the face of the hill was a pleasant climb. We were rewarded at the top by a [View Full Entry]

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Vientiane is a like a small bangkok with some French influence. Only spent the night there before doing a a one day jungle tour between Vientiane and Vang Viene - Nice thing is after the tour I went directly to Vang Viene on the last bus. [View Full Entry]

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After a very long sleep i proceeded my Vientiane explorations and till early evening all main (tourist) attractions in the city were covered. For diner i went to kind of expensive restaurant that serve the food in local-music-and-dancing sauce. In my opinion, the dances look very much like in Thailand and Nepal....you think i am missing something very basic and important ?! Btw, i made today a stock of very good pictures (mostly at Pha Tat Luang area) but it will never be seen due to annoying bug that happened when i was showing the camera memory card to a monk [View Full Entry]

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Heute möchte ich meinen Blog mal mit mehr Fotos als Text füllen. Hier also nur 2-3 kurze Bemerkungen zu den letzten Tagen: - wunderschöne aber lange Fahrt nach Luang Prabang - Bus hat einige Schwierigkeiten, resp. der Fahrer hat keine Ahnung was es mit den Gängen auf sich hat … - Bei einem Stopp werden 2 Passagiere vergessen und so wendet der riesige Bus inmitten der Berge auf einer kleinen Strasse - Schönes Zimmerchen in Luang Prabang und schmackhaftes europäisches Essen (von dem Reiszeug wird man einfach nie richtig satt) und Crepes!!! - Besichtigung der Tempel - Ausflug mit d [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday at the evening i got a train from Bangkok to Nong Khai (small town on Lao-Thai border) so today at 6 o'clock at the morning i checked out from Thailand and entered Laos. Probably due to the fact that i already had a valid visa the whole bureaucracy procedure lasted less than 10 minutes. Vientiane (Laos capital city) is half on hour far from the border so already at about 9 o'clock i was taking a shower at my room in a guest house. After one day in Vientiane i can fully understand why some people saying that Laos is [View Full Entry]

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