Blogs from Laos, Asia - page 8

Looking back its hard to believe that I've been on the road for about three months now. Sometimes it feels like an eternity, other times like nothing. Timing has been perfect and whether it's been alone, or with people, every day has been great. Surprising to me, I've been here in Laos for over a month now. Never would I have expected to end up here for so long, but that's the beauty of backpacking with no set plan. When you find a place you enjoy, you stay for a while. For me, Tha Khaek was a place like that. I happened upon it by chance and ended up staying there for two weeks. I guess I wasn't in Tha Khaek for two weeks, but 12 km outside of Tha Khaek in the mountains at a ... read more

29.3.2012 We felt very hungover from a days tubing. We couldn't really remember much of the night so we tried to piece it all together over breakfast. We had a bus booked at 10 to go to Vientiane, so we had to pack and checkout which took some effort. Sophie was moving very slowly and I had to keep telling her to hurry or we'll miss the bus. The bus journey took 4 hours, which was a bumpy ride. Sophie spent the whole journey trying not to be sick. We found a guest house and had a walk around the city. 30.3.2012 Sophie was still unwell. She was blaming the anti-malarial drugs but I think it's a 2 day hangover. We were flying to Hanoi later on in the day so we checked out stored our ... read more

28.3.2012 We went straight to sleep after finding a hotel to stay in. We woke up in search for some food. We wandered around town, very small and dusty. Not much to see, buildings and roads not in great condition - but we wern't there to do that we were there to go tubing. We sorted it out where we got our tubes from and sussed out where to go etc. We got our swim gear on and bought a waterproof pouch for our camera and some money. We hired the tube and got a tuk tuk to the start. We had no idea what to expect, but once we got there it was nothing like we have seen before - it was brilliant. There was bars either side of the river banging out tunes with ... read more

“My name is Ster, Lob Ster” There were two Australian tourists wandering the streets of Luang Prabang, a local came up and asked “What’s your names” the tourists responded “Rob and Lorenza”. The local repeated the names “Nice to meet you Lob and Loz-enz-da”, the tourists corrected the local “No, that is Rob and Lorenza”. After going through this many times the two tourists changed their names. From then on when approached by a friendly local they introduced themselves as “Lob and my darling wife is called Ster”. This is how we will be known forever more throughout South East Asia. After a few Beer Lao’s most locals got the joke. Cousins Reunion(s) Of all the places you could pick to teach English as a second language I think Luang Prabang would be one of the ... read more

26.3.2012 Baby Erin Grace McAlister was born at 02:30 weighing 7lb 6oz. She is just perfect, we are so proud of Laura and Pete. All our prayers and wishes finally came true xx We went for a morning walk along the Mekong river which borders the town. We saw some monks sieving through stones on the river banks, maybe they were looking for jewels? We visited some temples on the way around, climbing loads of steps to get to one that was carved in the stone. There was also an imprint of Buddha's foot up there, he shore did get around. It was a great view up there looking over the town and the river. There was a young monk up there that we had a chat with and a photo of. He said he was ... read more

I set off from Luang Prabang on a minivan with the Danish girls for the 6 hour journey down to the party capital of Laos, Vang Vieng. Everyone on the minivan was soon introduced and I got some gambling going by getting everyone to chuck in some cash for a pot to guess the correct arrival time. The journey was a slow one as we wound through the dramatic mountain roads of Northern and Central Laos. Steep drops off to the side down the hill sides kept me awake, as did the seemingly endless number of overtakes performed by our driver on blind corners with nothing between us and a long drop off the side. I can only think that the driver was trying to get us in the right frame of mind to arrive in ... read more

After visiting with Ben and Merie in their super posh hotel. Niki and I headed over to the train station and caught our night train to Laos. The sleeper trains are pretty awesome. Its pretty nice that you can get up and walk around as opposed to a bus where you're stuck in your seat the whole time. We knew drink options on the train were limited and the beer there was pretty pricey so we grabbed a bottle of Thai whiskey to bring with. That said we wasted no time heading up the restaurant car to find some drinking buddies. Right off the bat we found a cool German guy named Yahn who was willing to drink into the evening with us. A moment or so later we found a Russian girl named Nadia who ... read more