Laid back Laos

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Laos

Once we had recovered from our trek (by lazing around the pool at our guesthouse) we continued our journey north to the Thai boarder town of Chiang Khong on the banks of the Mekong river. This is a quiet one street town but even so Andy was pleased to spend his evening watching Man U beat Liverpool and Arsenal beat Chelsea. It is amazing how popular Premiership football is here each person we meet is either a Man U or Liverpool fan. As we crossed the river boarder the next day we were waved through by Andy’s fellow football fans from the night before!

A very short boat journey across the river and we were in the boarder town of Hauy Xai - Laos. This is another quiet town but where, like the Thais’s, the people were all so friendly and welcoming. From here we followed the recommendations of Vicki, Alex and Jo and took the slow boat (rather than the more dangerous fast boat) to Luang Prabeng, via Pak Beng. We spent 2 days in a long tail boat chugging down the Mekong river. The landscape appears to be untouched and uninhabited, the river is surrounded by green hills and vegetation. But as we looked more closely and continued our journey down the river we began to see signs of life. A little wooden hut on a hill, a man tying his boat up to a rock, children playing and washing in the river, buffalo cooling off in the muddy water and the occasional other boats going past. It was a very peaceful and relaxing way to spend a couple of days.

We then arrived at Luang Prabeng. We spent a couple of days here and enjoyed walking around the quiet streets, seeing young Buddist monks as they went about their business, visiting ornate temples, we even saw Budda’s footprint high up on a hill over looking the town!

Although it is an obviously Asian town it still retains some of the French influences, in the buildings, the outdoor cafe culture, little patisseries selling croissants and baguettes and even some quite heated games of petanque.

Whilst we were here we had to try and get used to the money, they accept 3 different types of currency the US dollar, Thai Bhat, and Laos kip. This makes transactions a little confusing as we paid in one currency and would get change back in another. Although Andy enjoyed being a millionaire as he withdraw 3 million kip to pay for our flights to Vietnam.

We have now arrived in Hanoi - Vietnam, we are heading out on a boat to Halong Bay and will be staying on the bay over Christmas eve and Christmas day. It looks amazing and we will let you know all about it in the new year.

We have had limited internet access over this part of the trip but we wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hope you have a fantastic festive time and we look forward to hearing all your news.

Sorry - still no photos we will add them in at a later date.

Love
Sarah and Andy

P.S For those of you who did have a copy of our itinerary, we have changed our plans slightly and will be staying on in Asia until the middle of Jan before heading off to Singapore and then Perth as planned.

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