Living the Life in Laos

We'd heard rumours and whispers from other travellers that Laos was the "hidden treasure" of south east asia...and a after week spent here we discovered this is truly the best way to describe this stunning country which sits on the eastern border of Thailand...

Chiang Khong:
We arrived in this border town late in the afternoon, with a mini-van full of friends ready to be made. We all bonded that evening when we stumbled across the town's annual Temple Festival which was hilarious! Before we knew it we were whisked on to the dance floor, ribboned lays sprung around our necks and all the local bachelors lining up for a dance!! As quickly as we learned the traditional Thai dance moves, we were stripped of our lays, thrown off the dance floor and sent on our way! The rest of the party played bingo till way after we'd left the following morning!! We did not sleep much that night........

Slow Boat to Luang Prabang:
We took a long boat over the border, and we were in Laos!! Hurray!Our second country, more stamps to decorate our passports, yay!! We got on our slow boat and set out for our 2 day river journey down the Mekong towards Luang Prabang. The other option was to take a 6 hour speed boat, however this comes with a high risk of bodily harm, and possibly death and boats disintergrate upon any minor impact....hmmm, maybe next time?? We stopped off in a small fishing village called Pak Beng, a cute yet random town where the electricity turns off at 10pm - no wild parties in this town! However, every second local was trying to sell us any drug we wanted - seemed like a normal passtime in this sleepy town! But don't worry Mum, D.A.R.E to keep kids off drugs, you taught us well!!! The boat journey was spent meeting fellow travellers, reading books and catching the breath taking scenery down the river.

Luang Prabang:
It's hard to believe that a place so southern could so obviously show heavy remnants of French influence and culture.....but this is the case with LP, with cobbled lanes, beautiful shabby buildings and hundreds of Monks. It is still relatively untouched, a seemingly quiet, clean and refreshing town. We hired bicycles for a day, to show off our skills and was a great way to see the place! We climbed up to a golden Temple sitting high on a hill in the centre, where the 360 degree view showed the town and surrounding mountains in all it's glory. We decided to be adventurous, so went mountain biking and kayaking through the jungle to waterfalls, and paddled 3 hours back down to LP, was such a great day - too much fun!!! Our nights were spent at the Lao-Lao Garden Bar with our new friends from the boat, playing spoons and being far too raucous for this quiet Laos town!! We drove down to Vang Vieng through the most amazing landscape we'd ever seen, high rolling hills that faded into one another through a thick mist that seemed to hang over the whole country. We defninalty had a moment, and had to pinch ourselves as the sun set in a perfect bright red circle on the horizon.

Vang Vieng:
This town offers little in the way of architectural splendour, but what it lacks in beauty it certainly makes up for in possibly the most fun activity known to man - tubing!! Em, Livvy, and our adopted English sisters Kelly and Louise all headed for the river at midday, and began our 7 hour floating journey, to what would become one of our funnest adventures so far!!! There are river side bars and restaurants dotted all along the banks of the river, that we would get pulled into by long bamboo sticks. They all boasted massive swings and flying foxes out over the water - boys take note: This is a MUST to any adrenaline loving junkie, words can't describe just how cool it really is!! We ended the day with a fake 'Full Moon' party (one day early) and sat around a camp fire listening to random - RANDOM Americans singing about disabled ninjas!? Aaaannnd, we pulled out the cards for another round of spoons........!!

Vientienne:
Livvy was super sick on our trip down to the Capital, power chucking out the window of our mini-van during the 3 hr journey. Sickness was due to sunstroke (yes, the sun....) and we were all feeling a little worse for wear, so we checked in for an unplanned night in this non-descript town, and watched Sadam's sentencing on CNN.......catching up on the real world and feeling sorry for ourselves =) It was a welcomed rest - and preparation for what was going to become our most interesting journey yet.............!

Vietnam, coming soon.........

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Videos from "Living the Life in Laos":

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