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Published: July 19th 2009
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Sabai di ("hello" in Lao)!
After a 12 hour (night) bus journey to
Udon Thani, a 45 minute taxi ride to
Nong Khai, exiting Thailand, crossing the Mekong River with a 10 min shuttle bus to the Lao border, and a 20 min tuk tuk ride, we (traveling with another friend) finally arrive in
Vientiane.
First impression of Laos: Magnificent (and very green)!! For some reason it looks greener than Thailand, but it may just be me...
Vientiane
Vientiane is the capital of Laos; it's a really nice city with many things to see. Although we only spent a couple days here, we were able to a lot of sites. The sun here is unbelievable - it's extremely hot and humid and you're burnt before you know it. Note to future Vientiane-travelers: Sunblock!
Anyway, we spent the first day walking around, visiting local markets, Buddhist temples/wats,
Wat Pha That Luang (the Golden Temple), strolling along the Mekong River and seeing the
Patuxai Arc also known as the Victory Gate or Gate of Triumph, formerly known as the Anousavary or Anosavari Monument (it's a monument in the center of Vientiane).
One of the
best things while traveling, I think, is all the different people you meet from around the world. In Vientiane we met some really great people from Switzerland, the Netherlands, the States, and Australia. We had dinner together and afterwards went out for drinks. It's amazing to hear everyone's stories and journies of how they got to where they are today. Does that make sense? The following morning a couple of us went to the
Buddha Park, which is about 25 km outside of Vientiane. It's small but really nice; probably the size of a soccer field and has roughly 100+ different Buddha statues.
Since we were content with what we had seen in Vientiane, we decided to move on to one of Laos' "party" cities: Vang Vieng!
PS. Of course, I tried falafel here and it's one of the BEST I've had so far!
Vang Vieng
We heard different things about Vang Vieng (VV): Party town and backpacker's hangout where all you do is drink, and an incredibly beautiful place with awesome trekking opportunities. We figured it was worth checking out since it's en route to Luang Prabang anyway.
After a three
and a half hour private minivan ride to VV, we ("USA" Mark, "Swiss" Mark and myself) arrived at about 1800 hours. As I step out of the van, I see people stumbling around already....obviously inebriated! We dropped our bags off at the nearest guest house and took off for dinner.
As you stroll down the streets of VV, not only do you have to choose the restaurant but you also get the option of watching one of the following TV shows: Friends, Family Guy, or the occasional Simpsons. Many, if not all, of the restaurants have huge plasma TVs throughout the place; excellent example of TV dinners. Once you've figured out where to eat, you are then seated at your table. However, before sitting down you take off your shoes (e.g. flip flops), and climb onto a meter/3 ft high bamboo platform. there are no chairs, only pillows; the table itself is only about 1/2 meter high....now only if they would let me eat with my hands! (=
Anyway, I was told that VV is a small "hippie town" so I was curious to see how it would compare to
Pai . This place, in my opinion, does not
even come close to Pai! Pai is the epitome of a hippie town, VV is a developing country's version of Adams Morgan in Washington D.C. or the Platielstraat in Maastricht...tijdens carnival/during carnival!
VV is known for their inner tubing - here you can rent water tubes, float down the river while stopping at bars and getting absolutely hammered. Not my cup of tea so I decided to skip it.
I have to give VV some credit though, the scenery is amazing! Limestone mountains seem to just shoot out of the ground. They're extremely steep and covered with trees so they're nearly impossible to climb. We booked an all day trekking adventure for one of the days; unfortunately however, it was raining the whole previous night and that morning. Since we weren't able to get a refund, we exchanged our tickets for a ride to Luang Prabang.
Luang Prabang
Probably my favorite city I visited in Laos. Like Vientiane, it's situated along the Mekong River and has quite the European "feel" to it. Since Laos was briefly colonized by the French, many (street)signs and billboards are written in the two languages (the other being
Lao, obviously).
Luang Prabang is a great walking city...also makes a great place to go running - did this a couple times along the water, magnificent! So after walking around for a bit, we (still the three of us) decided to go see
Wat Tham Phu Si (try saying that three times fast!), which is located at the top of a hill, in the middle of the city. Although the +/- 279 steps up are a killer during the middle of the day, the view of the city is definitely worth the climb.
The city also has some amazing 32m waterfalls,
Kangsi Waterfalls, some 27 km outside of town. We were feeling adventurous so decided to rent two motorbikes for the day, 80.000 kip (+/- $8), per scooter. When it's not raining and your know how to ride a manual bike, these things are a lot of fun and a great way to see any city.
ALl was going well on our beautiful sunny journey, cruising along brown rivers and bright green rice plantations, between huge limestone mountains and passing a herd of cows every now and then which, at times, like to dominate the roads; all
was going well until about five kilometers out from the waterfalls: A flat tire! We were out in the middle of nowhere and rarely does anyone pass us, let alone stop, so we start pushing the bike to the neatest village. Once we're there, we kind of just stand there...at a loss of what to do next. Barely anyone speaks English. Luckily, out of nowhere, comes a guy about our age and motions for us to follow him, which we do. He leads us up dirt paths into the village and stops under a wooden house built on stilts, like most of the other houses there. A few minutes later, the "repair" man arrives; a lady, who simply has a piece of cloth wrapped around her body as if she just got out of the shower, waves me over as she shoos away the chickens. She seems to be in the middle of lunch which consisted of white rice and three different bowls of a clear broth; I think one of them had fish in it, the other meat and the third was miscellaneous...! It ended up costing us an extra 100.000 kip (about $11) to fix the tire and
45 minutes later, we're on the road again.
Think it's over?? No way Jose!! Two kilometers later, we get another flat tire, same bike, same tire!! This is definitely not funny! Haha We decide to ditch the bike and rough the next three km to the waterfalls - two go out on the bike to the waterfalls, one gets dropped off and comes back for the other.
The waterfalls are really nice....just like any other waterfall though: Just another place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff (according to Wikipedia)! You can climb up to the top on either sides of the fall. There are also places where you can swim, but none of us partook in that.
After that, "Swiss" Mark and I got a tuk tuk to pick up the broken down motorcycle and take us back to the place where we rented it. On the way back, however, we were also able to stop at a Hmong Village where we saw some of the local kids learn English, among other things. Really neat to see!!
Anyway, time to go again -
Kids
These kids were playing around the wats and definitely knew how to pose..haha good fun! I hope all is well with everyone...to end, a quote which was given to me by a dear friend:
"
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." - Martin Buber
Much love and peace!
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AZ
non-member comment
FUN, FUN, FUN
I am sorry but the tire story is def. funny............... it reminds me when lali and i stocked on our way out from the grand canyon, the battery died, it was so dark, and NO car would stop for us, we had to stand in the middle of the road to make the car stop................... not funny when it happened, but looking back at it, its pretty funny.