Blogs from Ban Houayxay, West, Laos, Asia - page 2

Alors pour une fois, je suis à l’ heure (et beh oui, je vais parler à la première personne pendant trois semaines... snif). Je vous livre du tout chaud car je viens de finir mes deux jours de trajet en bateau sur le Mékong. Pour une fois que je trouve un café Internet qui marche bien et rapide, j’en profite car cela faisait longtemps... Je crois que c’ est sans doute un des plus beaux trajets de transport entre deux points que j ai eu à faire pendant ces deux jours à voguer sur le Mékong. C est très très beau, très sauvage et très loin de la civilisation ( si je peux m’ exprimer ainsi...). Seules mes fesses ont mal supporté le trajet sur les petits bancs en bois de 10 centimètres de large.... Les ... read more

When I think back at all the places and things I've seen my head begins to swirl. It’s gotten to the point where when people ask me the question "when did you get into X city" I actually have to stop and think about it...especially how I traveled to it. But its funny how much you learn about your own body and psyche traveling for a long duration. You quickly learn the physical limits of your body from food poisoning, dehydration, sprained body parts (various places I didn't even know you could sprain making you think, when and where did I do that?), and full muscle failing body exhaustion. You learn when you're reaching your max and need to chill and tone it down and when you can push through it. Even mentally, there's ups and ... read more

We caught a bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong and had a relatively painless crossing into Laos! We stayed one night in the border town of Huayxai which only consists of one main street. It has a temple on the top of the hill which has great views out over the Mekong and to Thailand. Once climbing the many stairs to the top we were approached by 2 youths!! At first we made sure to have a tight grip on our valuables but we've been living in London too long as these boys just wanted to practice their English!! They had some scraps of paper with 'typical' questions on like 'How many people in your family?' Are you married?' 'What is your profession?' It was quite funny as the list kept on going but they ... read more

Up early and down to the landing - tickets purchased 220,000 kip ($25.20) each. Time for some breakfast and purchase some sandwiches for the boat (was not necessary as food was available on the boat - but at a premium). With the boat due to leave at 10am but finally getting away at 11.30am. Never trust a timetable here - things just happen when they happen. A very slow day just sitting watching the river go past, arriving in Pak Beng just on dusk, 5:30pm.... read more

:As with the previous post, this was typed a few days ago, apologies about the delay in getting it uploaded: We are in Laos! Now before I go on I feel obligied to reel off the spiel about the second nation of our trip. Laos is one of the few remaining communist countries in the world. However like all the others, there is a sense of creeping capitalism as the (single party) government begins to tolerate more and more private enterprise. (I promise this is not copied from wikipedia, its all copywriteable Hingley gold). Furthermore Laos is one of the poorest nations on earth, especially in terms of GDP per capita. Although one gets the sense that this owes more to the subsistence lifestyle of much of its population than sheer poverty. If I hadn't already ... read more