Blogs from Laos, Asia - page 552

We left Vang Vieng bright and early this morning, we got a truck for about 1.5 hours and then went Kayaking down the Mekong River for around 4 hours. Kayaking was well good,. I managed to capsize while going through some rapids!- was actually quiter refreshing though. We had lunch on some rocks by the rapids, our guide made us shish kebabs on a barbecue which were really nice. After a bit more kayaking we came to a stop by the riverside and were asked if we wanted to do a jump off some high rocks (About 15metres) into the water. Was absolutely bricking it as I was walking to the top of them, 15 metres sounds like nothing but when you look directly down when your on them it seems so high (God knows what ... read more

Oh dear, it looks like the old travelblog has been falling a bit behind schedule. at the time of writing, i am in what appears to be a old prison cell at an internet cafe in northern vietnam, 18km from the southern chinese border, certainly not in laos where i left off. looks like i have a lot of catching up to do so please bear with me as i try to recollect hazy memories of beer, the heat, and very good (and very bad) food. if it is any consolation, i have been writing in my little journal like a good scholar, but even that is about a week behind. that's my organisation skills for you, as i'm sure jon (and chris) will laugh at! i will apologise now for the lack of pictures in ... read more

Hi, Since I had to return to China in the same way (only one border crossing between China and Laos) I did not want to travel too much. This is the reason that I have visited only few places. And also, I felt that I was in vacation from China, no need to rush, just relax and chill out. Almost all travellers in Laos, however, enter Laos from Thailand at one point, travel in Laos and then return to Thailand at another point. This is easy to do since Thailand and Laos have 6 border crossings. When I told people that I was going to China, most of them were a bit surprised. Many of them did not even think about doing it. Apparently, travelling in China is still frightening people. After one month of travelling ... read more

The road from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang is a bastard I've got to say, 6 hours for a 180km trip, they've gotta be taking the piss surely? They fucking weren't - it's the hilliest, windiest road imaginable so we never got above about 40kmh and that wasn't helped by the fact that the driver didn't seem to realise that gears go down as well as up - put it in 2nd gear you muppet; we're going about 5mph! Met a sound London lad on the bus called John so chatted to him for most of the journey. We got dropped off in the middle of nowhere which is always the way so had to get a tuk tuk into the centre of town from there. Found Seng Phet Guesthouse (nealy sounds Geordie that dunnit?), after ... read more

26th February-We managed to get up at 620am and caught a bus at 8am from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. I was well impressed that we managed to get up at such a ridiculous hour (In Luang Prabang there were signs everywhere asking tourists to respect the local culture and be quiet after midnight, consequently life started for the locals at about 6am everyday, by the sounds of things life started at about 4am for the flaming roosters!). We arrived in Vang Vieng after 6.5 hour bus journey from Luang Prabang- there were some killer views along the way, and I say that perhaps a little too literally because we were basically driving around mountains and some of the drops were huge. The roads were extremely windey and at times the “road” seemed to be none ... read more