Blogs from Luang Prabang, West, Laos, Asia - page 158

Luang Prabang - Laos' second biggest city, home to some of its holiest Buddhist Temples, a UNESCO world heritage site. It was the heart of the ancient kingdom of Lane Xang Hom Kao - the Land of a Million White Elephants and the White Parasol - founded by the legendary Lao warrior Fa Ngum. Although it has its own share of tourists (most travellers who visit Laos skip the capital and head straight to Luang Prabang), and the city center's a chockablock of cafes, travel agencies, guesthouses and money changers, Luang Prabang managed to retain its mystical vibe. Surrounded by forested mountains and the mighty Mekong river, Luang Prabang's landscape's dominated by stupas, its spires soaring to the skies, as if communing with heaven. Novices with their shaved heads, orange robes and black umbrellas stroll ... read more

On our way to Luang Prabang, we had two brief stop overs. First was in an Hmong hill village, where curious kids follow us around as they love posing for our digicams. Me, with my pair of flat feet struggled to climb the muddy hill. Fhan had to hold my hand all the time as I was really struggling. The next stop was at Pak Ou Buddha caves where Fhan gave a brief lucture on what the different Buddha poses mean. The caves are a repository of old Buddha image. The Lao people are mostly Buddhists, and practices Theravada Buddhism. *** "Ahh civilization! " Jennifer exclaimed upon setting foot in our airconditioned hotel in Luang Prabang. Rama Hotel's comfy, although it's not exactly a lap of luxury. But after roughing out for the past two ... read more

After two days of sitting on my arse on the slow boat to Luang Prabang I am strangely exhausted. Strange because there was bugger all to do for 8 hours at a time, and nowhere to go past about a 30cm radius. At one stage a few of us got on the roof, but were promptly told to get off by powers that be. Good thing, though as it started raining and didn't stop for 48 hours. About an hour before Luang Prabang we hit some rapids (thats right, in a boat full of about 60 people) and a massive tsunami-style wave came blasting over the side soaking everybody and everything. Pandamonium ensued and it was lucky that the we didn't capsize after that, as everybody ran to the drier side of the boat! Laos doesn't ... read more

So I lied, here's another one: So today was a fairly eventful day for Kalyna and Natalie. We opened our morning by bitching at each other loudly and harrassing our neighbours. Then we hoped on our dainty, girly bikes and went for a ride around the city. Untill my stomach started eating itself and we stopped to eat. We ate at this Indian restaurant called Nazim. It served oversized portions of unedible food. We ate nothing, (as it was unedible) and went on our way. We stopped at several Vats (temples). In front of the largest in town we were acosted by several tuk-tuk drivers who wanted to know our boyfriend situation. I was told that my lack of boyfriend could be remidied for one night. Hint, hint! In front of a temple!!!! No shame. Then ... read more

I havent written this in ages as we have had a crazy week in vang vieng especially with andys birthday and all. We were due to leave on the saturday but then we bumped into Roger and Zoe who we had met in vietnam loads and ended up getting very drunk after a few too many buckets so decided to change the date of our bus and stay til Tuesday so we could celebrate andys birthday and have a couple of days to recover!! And it turned out we made the right decision because on the saturday whne we were all sat watching films and recovering Jack turned up ( who was part of the group we met in vitnam all those times) so it was like a mini reunion!! We spent Andys birthday tubing again, ... read more