Blogs from Laos, Asia - page 5

Hello all, After catching a flight to Luang Prabang we spent the first day finding an agent to trek with the following day and in the evening we headed out to the night market to scoff our faces before our trek. We set off on a bumpy and dusty road in the back of a van with two other men (Tony from Switzerland and Migon from Argintina). We also had two local guides, Nick and Tim. Two hours later we arrived at the start of our adventure! We were told to carry as much water as we could as it had to last us two days as the village we were staying in didn't have any drinking water. We squeezed as much as we could (10 litres between us) into our small rucksacks and headed off ... read more

Finally then the pictures of Luang Prabang, a city i have fallen in love with ... so much i have seen, experienced and inhaled that right now i think words are not gonna express what and how i'm feeling by just 'being' here ... and i won't bore you more with my little 'verses' which keep coming, about life, the universe and everything else too ... however that's a whole different story so this blog once again will be practically only told by pictures, once again i've ended up at a computer which doesn't rotate my pictures, however m really glad i already got them online (however in alphabetical order instead of story wise order), so just absorb and hope ya get at least one iota of a feeling what i'm experiencing ... enjoy... read more

this town exist of one main street with bunch of guesthouses and restaurants, again geared towards tourists (as the tourist industry income is so much more than any of the prior existing jobs, like farming and fishing ...) ... a bit a pity, however totally understandable everyone in town who can work in this service industry does ... Anyway the second day Pheng (who lives up north) joined mi with a young friend Phick and together we explored the Poktha caves, a hideaway for the governing body of Luang Prabang province during the heaviest time of the secret 'unofficial' war with inwhere almost 3,000,000 bombs were dropped in Laos ... now having travelled around here for bit and spend some time with the locals it has become even a bigger question to mi that the international ... read more

Pak Ou means cave next to the river Ou ... a few hundred years ago this cave was used by a ruling king to hide 4000 Buddha statues from the invading Birmese army ... who were destroying each buddha in their way looking for gold ... every new year more statues are placed in addition for people to assist their prayers ... also during this time of year many locals travel to this cave to rinse the many statues of their dust, so the new year can start 'clean' ... anyway had trouble loading again, so no titles and just chronological time ... and again a little tilting of the head sometimes ... which by the way i see is way better, as i see now that the landscape pictures are compressed when rotating ... enfin ... read more

t took mi about 8 days before i was ready to venture out of Luang Prabang and took a bus up to Nong Khiaw which is 3.5 hrs north by bus. I crossed the bridge to Ban Sop Houn, where miracuously i picked a guesthouse which is run by Church (yes his real name-by the way i think about everyone has an 'h' in their name). While i was checking in i received a message from my french friend Ghislaine (from Chiang Saen) and was mumbling her words in french (usually i understand the language better when i hear it ...) and the next moment Church started to talk with mi in fluent French ... This town exist of one main street with bunch of guesthouses and restaurants, again geared towards tourists (as the tourist ... read more