Blogs from Luang Prabang, West, Laos, Asia - page 16

13-19th Mar We got up at 5am to go and see monks. Anybody can go here and they can put food in the monks pots. The monks come in lines from different temples. Everybody has to be lower than the monks. They can't beg for their food, the food they get is for the day. Everybody who feeds the monks gets a blessing, they feed them sticky rice. These three men were eating more of the rice than giving it to the monks. We went on a bamboo bridge over the Nam Khan. It was freaky it felt like it was going to snap. In some parts I had to hold my breath because I was so worried. When I got to the end I could breathe. On the way back we saw some huge spiders, ... read more

Sabaidee from Luang Prabang! Apologies for the lack of blogging recently, Laos doesn't really do internet... So we left Thailand about 2 weeks ago, taking the slow boat along the Mekong from Houay Xay to Luang Prabang. The journey took 2 days, with a stopover in Pak Beng, where we had a rather surreal evening watching a Dutchman do some break dancing... The boat itself was pretty basic (although in comparison to later boats this was pure luxury), the seats had all been taken out of buses and someone had made a slight attempt to attach them to the boat (i.e no attempt at all). We passed the days by looking at the pretty scenery going past and playing ALOT of cards. We eventually made it to the beautiful city of Luang Prabang reasonably dry, with ... read more

Summary: White elephant tours - 2 day, 1 night home stay (trekking and kayaking) Luang Prabang sun set Utopia Horrible fever Read more...... read more

After six hours of standing and waiting in the sweltering heat to receive a stamp on our passports at Thai Immigration, we made it through the border at Aranyaprathet. We swiftly moved forward, hiring a tuk-tuk to take us to the bus station. Catching the last bus through to our next destination in the late afternoon, we arrived in Nakhon Ratchasima (locally known as Khorat) an hour shy of midnight. Another tuk-tuk, to a name pulled from our guide book, and we arrived at the Tokyo Mansion. The next day we decided to take a little side venture into the surrounding area of Northeastern Thailand. A 20 baht, hour-long, local bus ride later and we arrived in the meagre town of Phimai. Getting off in the town's centre, we came across a game of Sepak Tekraw ... read more

Feb 23rd , The Mekong Meander The first leg of the river journey lasted about 9 hours. Our boat was filled with close to 100 people from front to back but we were lucky enough to have gotten a seat towards the front and away from the motor that was very loud. We spent most of the day trying to nap or play cards but the amount of people crammed together in the boat made for less than ideal conditions. After dosing off for a moment I woke up to find that Jake wasn’t in his seat. I found him at the bow of the boat sitting with a local Lao man snacking on sticky rice and smoked buffalo skin. The skin was interesting, very chewy. We were later joined by Beckah and spent a good ... read more