honeymoonheaven

Wednesday 16th February 2011 With our heavy rucksacks weighing us down we walked to the local bus station (would have got tuk tuk if we’d known how far it was) got in Sawngthaew to Wat Phu Champasak, and had to wait for an hour until we were graced with the presence of 16 other passengers to get going. An hour later we arrived to a mass of people as the annual Buddhist festival was taking place. The museum kindly agreed for us to leave our bags while we visited the ruins... We were slightly annoyed that the ‘foreigner’ ticket cost 10x the local entry fee, and in addition, they wanted us to pay to take in our cameras (but that was never going to happen!). There were elephant, crocodile & Buddha’s foot imprints in some of ... read more

Monday 14th February 2011 We took a quick walk around town and checked out Wat Sainyaphum, the oldest & largest monastery in Southern Laos, followed by the Dinosaur Museum (which was a small room with bones & fossils in drawers) unfortunately all of the narrative was in Laos & French. The rest of our day included a peek at the old French architecture and lunch by river before taking a Tuk Tuk to the bus station where we were ushered onto a local bus to Pakse. What a disaster!!! This journey should have taken 4-5 hours tops; but due to a stupid American couple causing massive fuss about not having enough leg room and no-where to stow their bags (what do you expect for a pound?) we ended up pulled over at the side of the ... read more

Thursday 10th February 2011 Rather than taking another long “VIP” bus to Vientiane, we decided to take the kayaking trip to break up the day. Our trip started with a large tuk tuk ride for an hour to be followed by an alleged 17km kayak through rapids, with a BBQ lunch by river followed by a mini bus journey into centre of Vientiane. The kayaking part of the journey was much shorter than expected, with a very large chunk of it spent sitting on some rocks waiting for our lunch to be cooked, but we enjoyed it none-the-less. We’d expected to be picked up by a minibus for the 2nd (much longer) section of our road journey, but instead another tuk tuk was waiting for us, and this time it was even more packed than before, ... read more

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 After a second very long (& cold) day on the boat down the Mekong, we arrived in Luang Prabang. We walked around town briefly, ignoring anyone quoting room prices in $’s as you immediately know it’s too expensive, and found a nice place, Souk Ka Phol Guest House, on the main street, ideal location and bargain price of 80,000KIP (£6.40) for two double beds & an ensuite. Thursday 3rd February 2011 After a lazy morning we wandered around town checking out the various Wats - nothing too extravagant as Joanne was not feeling very well. There was loud banging on the front door at 23:30, which Joanne got up to answer as everyone else seemed to be ignoring it. It turned out the owners had padlocked the front door, with a couple ... read more

Friday 28th January 2011 When we arrived at the Green Tulip Guest House we sought advice from one of the owners who booked us on a 2 day trek with elephant riding, a home-stay, and white water rafting + a cooking course the day after we got back all for just £35 each – we thought this was a bit of a bargain. Taking a walk along the north side of town visiting the temples, we realised that we are a bit temple’d out! It doesn't take too long when surrounded by many modern style temples with large gold buddhas – mainly constructed out of concrete. In the evening we visited the night bazaar but it was, once again, very touristy with the same clothes and knick-knacks you can pick up in Bangkok (although at a ... read more