Advertisement
Published: September 24th 2006
Well, I have to start by saying that Laos is an absolutely amazing place! We love it here and it feels like such an adventure!
We arrived here by night train from Bangkok which was an excellent way to travel, and got through the time consuming border crossing. Our British approach to queuing meant that we ended up constantly at the back! Anyway, we traveled to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and the difference between here and Thailand was immediately apparent. There are only a few sealed roads through the whole country and the countryside is just vast. Vientiane was not particularly impressive but the food certainly was! Laos has had a history of French occupancy and this has led to a strange contrast between the basic living of the Lao people and top end French restaurants and French architecture. We have decided that every Thursday we will treat ourselves to a nice meal (commonly known as ‘Tuck in Thursday’) and every person we’ve met traveling has also adopted this policy! Anyway we went to an incredible French restaurant and after eating for about $4 a day we spent about 20pounds and had a 3 course meal each with two
Lao sales techniques
The girl on the right is a hard business woman! I'm afraid she completely sucked me in - Lucy, a bracelet's heading your way! bottles of wine! We have been obsessed with eating cheese and so these French restaurants are a revelation!
From Vientiane we caught the bus up to Vang Vieng which is a small town created for backpackers! This was a bit strange as every bar was showing series of ‘Friends’ over and over! We got involved with some Mekong River based activities and drank lots of Lao Beer. One day was spent floating leisurely down the river inside an inflated tractor inner tube which was absolutely brilliant! You can paddle into riverside bars on the way down, sip on a BeerLao, swing from trees then collapse back into your tube and float on to the next bar! Unsurprisingly this is a popular way to while away a few hours and we saw many drunken tubers staggering back in the dark! We also spent a day exploring caves and kayaking. One cave involved lounging in a tube with a torch on your head and pulling yourself along in the dark - fantastic - I giggled the whole time!
We are finding that all the travelers here are taking similar routes so we are bumping into the same people in every
place which is quite comforting. From Vang Vieng we took the bus up to Luang Prabang. This was a horrible journey up and down winding mountains with sheer drops. Neil, of course, had seen worse but I was terrified! We have decided to travel by boat and planes when possible! Though I’m not sure Laos Airlines has the best reputation…
Luang Prabang is a truly captivating city. It is nestled among lush green mountains, rice paddies and tiny village communities. Since we have arrived we have kept extending our stay here though we will definitely leave on Monday! It is a really relaxed city with no aggressive tourism and there is a fantasic range of food. We have met loads of interesting people doing interesting things! We went elephant riding which I'm afraid I've had to file next to buses as a last resort form of transport! They're really high and our elephant was a bit unpredictable and kept stopping and growling. I was convinced the whole time that is was going to suddenly roll, stampede, rear up, charge into the jungle or just bash me into a tree! However I did feel a bit of a wimp as
children rode happily past! We also explored some stunning waterfalls (though Neil got a leech on him which was like an amusing worm with suckers!).
As a couple our nights have generally been relaxed; a few beers, nice meal and card games, but we've been a but more adventurous here and ended up in a bizarre and seedy bar called Vietnam (you could buy ANYthing here!) chatting to drunk travelers at 4am.
We have got another 2 weeks left in Laos and I hope they are just as exciting!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.067s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0431s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Stevo
non-member comment
panuk
loving the photos