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Published: November 14th 2008
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Morning Alms
Watching the monks get food from some locals and many tourists very early in the morning. Hello, and sorry for the long gap between our last blogs. It is hard to find the time and the place to do a blog when the computers are sooooo slow and crash frequently. We cannot believe it has been two weeks since the last blog!! I suppose we just had so much fun in Laos that we could not find time to write although Mom's know we were safe as we both called from Laos. Our last one left off as we were heading into Laos on the slow boat to Luang Prabang. Day one of two of the boat trip was amazing. It started off very if-y as we were told many bad things about the boat trip from the Laos boat organizer. This was all an attempt to get many people to take the terrible 14 hour bus ride to L. Prabang instead of the boat to which they oversold. They wanted everyone to cram onto one long boat instead of having to send a second. Luckily there was this Australian woman who raised a huge stink and the police yelled down to take a second boat. This second boat was awesome as it had nice comfy car/bus
Laos Cultural Food
Laos has lots of French cultural influence which one can see by the fact that their ethnic dish is baguettes. seats instead of tiny wooden benches rammed together. Also on the second boat there were only around 30 of us instead of 90. The second day, not so lucky. This time everyone from both boats were now on one. We still managed to find the comfy seats, but this time at a price. Th price of sitting right behind the massive, extremely loud engine for 8 hours. The only thing that prevented us from jumping ship, were the WONDERFUL ear plugs we brought. Freakin' life saver! L. Prabang is a small, French colonial town and was very nice. We only stayed for one and half days though. But it was small so we saw all the sites. The best part was waking up at 5:30 am to see the Morning Alms, where 300 some monks walk down the street and locals (although also many tourists) give the Monks food. It was really cool to see.
Our next stop was Vang Vieng. The bus to V.V was great as the scenary in Laos is absolutely amazing. The lush rolling hills and leafed hut villages along the way. Seeing the children play on the street was definetly a sight to see. V.V
Private Monk Tour
While we were on our after hours tour of the oldest temple in Laos with Souly another monk came over and wanted a picture taken with Monica. was awesome!! As the one main thing to do there is tubing. Tubing you say, what can be so great about that. But when you come to Laos you float down the river for about 15 feet and then you get pulled into the bars along the way. So a two hour float becomes an all day event, stopping at bars along the way that have awesome swings, ziplines and slides into the river. It was a great day as we met many awesome people. We are already running out of time in South East Asia so we did Laos in one week.
Our last stop was Vientiene. A rather large city. Again we only stayed for a couple days, just enough time to see all the sites. AKA, museums and temples/pagodas. We also had a private tour of a temple, after closing hours by a novice monk named Souly. This was after he had asked us many english questions about his vocabulary sheet that he had.
In L. Prabang we bought an airplane ticket from Vientine to Hanoi, Vietnam (to save some time on a treacherous 30 hour bus ride). Probably around 2 hours after we bought our ticket
That Luang, Vientiene
One of the sites we saw in Vientiene. This place is called That Luang and it is one of Laos national image. we found out there is major flooding in Vietnam so we were a little nervous to go but we thought we would check it out and if its really bad we can always leave again. Thankfully the flood wasn't bad in the city. Hanoi was insanely busy with literally one million scooters on the road, crossing the street was interesting at best. The honking was nuts as everyone is ALWAYS honking their horn. We only stayed one day as we booked a two day trip to Halong Bay. This was awesome. We had a great boat and a great group of people and floating around Halong Bay for two days, watching the scenary go by does a lot to ease the soul, especially after the hectic Hanoi. Going back to Hanoi after the peaceful boat trip really grinds the nerves. That night we had a sleeper bus booked to take us to Hue.
We arrived in the moring and got a bus to take us to the Ming Mang tomb and the Tu Duc tomb. We had an English speaking guide and he told us so much great historical information about the Emperors and the area that they were buried
VIETNAM!!!
The first day in Vietnam and Curtis jumps into their culture. in. It was fascinating. Hearing and seeing history in the place it occured makes it so real and amazing. The following day we rented two scooter guys to take us around the city and saw some more sites. Vietnam has some very sad history. This one area had intact U.S. bunkers that you could go into and this other place we went to used to be some large palace site that was nearly completely destoryed by the war.
Our next bus ride took us to Hanoi. The tailoring captial which we have already throughly enjoyed and got some talior made clothes. It is really rainy though so we wanted to see some more sites but the rain puts a damper on that. Which, in a good way, makes us relax for a bit as it has been non stop. Tomorrow we head off to Na Trang, a beachy part of Vietnam. So we are hoping it won't be rainy. Vietnam is definetly a very cool country. Each city has its own uniquness to it and it is so much fun discovering it. The people here are great and so helpful!
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