http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , Laos en-us Mon, 09 Nov 09 18:34:43 +0000 Mon, 09 Nov 09 18:34:43 +0000 From Chiang Mai I took a bus to the border and the next morning I got onto the slow boat that would take me on a two day trip down the Mekong river to Luang Prabang. There were a whole bunch of other travellers taking the boat too and I got chatting to a few of them sitting near me a process made a lot easier when the beers were broken out around lunchtime. The slow boat was pretty relaxed and t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/blog-451904.html LaosOn arrive Ventiane la capitale dortoire. C'est trs petit et plutt tranquille. Bye Bye Ventiane.Dans le voyagement je rencontre un Francais vraiement sympa qui s'appelle Josselin. Je suis donc maintenant accompagn d'un bon pot et d'une amoureuse... Merveilleux non Alors pour plus de plaisir on doit aller Vang Vieng. C'est une petite ville 3 rues de jeunes touristes dbauchs o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/blog-451761.html laos is echt geweldig vooral het noorden aan de grens met China. Urenlang in de bus langs bergpadjes en geen kilometer vooruitgaan. met een klein bootje op de mekong tussen die geweldige bergen. de mensen zijn misschien niet altijd even vriendelijk in het noorden maar alleszins wel echt. Onderweg verschillende toffe mensen tegengekomen. reizigers waarvan enkele zeker en vast vrienden geworden zij http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/blog-451371.html I'll start from the end and then return to the forest trek. Yesterday at the evening right after we returned from the trek i went to a travel agency in order to check possible flight dates from Luang Prabang to Siem Reap. At the agency i learned that there are no available flights at the days i was looking for 34 days starting 8.11 and that my best option is to cut one day of Luang Namta plan http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/blog-450927.html Today was all about biking the Luang Namta area to explore the town visit some temples a few villages and one so called waterfall. Nothing new or overwhelming but definitely satisfying Tomorrow i am starting a 3 days foresttrek in the Nam Ha national park. The group made up of 6 tourist Australia France and Israel one or two englishspeaking local guides and ethnic local guide one t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/North/Luang-Namtha/blog-449917.html As planned yesterday we spent our day swimming at the Kuang Si waterfalls visiting Bear Rescue Centre near by and wandering around Luang Prabang at the eve time. Short photo report attached for your entertainment. Today after 8 hours ride in a minivan i arrived at Luang NamTa. Tomorrow i am biking the area and looking for partners for the forest camp trek. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-449670.html One of the best things the French left behind for backpackers anyway was the 10000kip baguette. 80c in other words for a full baguette. The choice of filling is simple and revolves around chicken or bacon and a bit of simple salad They fry the bread first before filling it just to make it extra tasty. Luang Prabang has more baguette roll stands than it needs. This does not take away from the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-448914.html Luang Prabang is a very spiritual town. If you like peace buddist temples and quant little shops near the Mekong River this is a great town for you. The bars are great too you can find 2 for 1 drinks for 2. The local whisky tastes a bit strange but I still got plenty buzzed when I finished my 2 drinks. Beer Lao is quite good. Bars however shut down at 11PM. Many guesthouses shut down at http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-447974.html Vientiane is a like a small bangkok with some French influence. Only spent the night there before doing a a one day jungle tour between Vientiane and Vang Viene Nice thing is after the tour I went directly to Vang Viene on the last bus. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vientiane/blog-447968.html Vang Vienne is considered a stop over on the way to Luang Provang. Personally I think it is a destination especially for the budget minded traveler. Nowhere can you rent motorcycles stay in a decent hotel eat great food get a massage and go on an all day tour all for less than 50 US day. There is the popular inner tube scene which entails floating down a river in an inter tube and goin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-447961.html Day 10 Vang ViengI started the day with some bacon and eggs while watching Family Guy. I am not joking but Family Guy and Friends are seriously the only two shows playing everywhere in town.We did a half day caving tour today starting with Elephant cave. I have not been caving for many years so it was very interesting for me. It was a 25 min walk to Elephant cave from the drop off point with our http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-447836.html We've jumped the borderVang Vieng LaosI just wanted to let everyone know that we've made it to Laos after a few more days in Northern Vietnam. We don't have time to go into too many details but here's a very abbreviated rundown of our pitstops from the last update.After Sapa we took a 2 day overnight boat trip to Halong Bay on the coast of Vietnam.After returning to Hanoi we took thrilling http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-447647.html After a very long sleep i proceeded my Vientiane explorations and till early evening all main tourist attractions in the city were covered. For diner i went to kind of expensive restaurant that serve the food in localmusicanddancing sauce. In my opinion the dances look very much like in Thailand and Nepal....you think i am missing something very basic and important Btw i made today a stoc http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vientiane/blog-447528.html This year 2009 marks the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Peoplersquos Republic of China. This holiday is known as National Day and it is celebrated on October 1 each year. In addition to the elaborate banquets huge sales at appliance stores and countless Chinese flags to honor the day the government gives the people a holiday from work and school. This year it was a longer holiday t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-447284.html After about a week in Vientiane it was almost time to get back home to Luang Prabang. But first I thought Irsquod make a brief stop in SayabouriSayabouliXayabouriXayabouli a town Northwest of Vientiane with at least four commonly accepted spellings. Arriving at the bus terminal in Vientiane at 4 PM I learned the bus had been cancelled due to lack of customers but the next bus at 6 would http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/blog-447267.html Yesterday at the evening i got a train from Bangkok to Nong Khai small town on LaoThai border so today at 6 o'clock at the morning i checked out from Thailand and entered Laos. Probably due to the fact that i already had a valid visa the whole bureaucracy procedure lasted less than 10 minutes. Vientiane Laos capital city is half on hour far from the border so already at about 9 o'clock i was http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vientiane/blog-447249.html Heute mchte ich meinen Blog mal mit mehr Fotos als Text fllen. Hier also nur 23 kurze Bemerkungen zu den letzten Tagen wunderschne aber lange Fahrt nach Luang Prabang Bus hat einige Schwierigkeiten resp. der Fahrer hat keine Ahnung was es mit den Gngen auf sich hat hellip Bei einem Stopp werden 2 Passagiere vergessen und so wendet der riesige Bus inmitten der Berge auf einer kleinen St http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vientiane/blog-447188.html Day 9 Vang ViengToday we caught what felt like the worlds longest bus ride to Vang Vieng. We got the wrong bus it was not the express like we thought so we had to make a few stops on the way......... It ended up taking around 5 hours. It was jam packed and had no air conditioning. I was sweating like I had just run a marathon. We were both fortunate that our stomachs had recovered enough to mak http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-446993.html Day 8 VientianeWe checked out of our hotel at 415am and headed to the airport. Our taxi driver was running red lights like no other and when he missed a turn he simply reversed about 300 metres to make it. He was Malaysias version of SchumacherWe had a whole 2.5 hours sleep due to the early start so I had about 43 micro sleeps between KL and Vientiane. We landed in Vientiane around lunchtime. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vientiane/blog-446988.html October 12 Muang Ngoi LaosOctober 13 Muang Ngoi LaosOctober 14 Muang Ngoi Luang Prabang LaosOctober 15 Vang Vieng LaosOctober 16 Vang Vieng LaosOctober 17 Vang Vieng LaosOctober 18 Vientiane LaosOctober 19 Vientiane LaosOctober 20 Bangkok ThailandHey all Just a short ramble about the rest of my adventure in Laos before I catch an early night hopefully filled as much http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/blog-446684.html