Blogs from Luang Prabang, West, Laos, Asia - page 160

Day 4 in Laos We made it! We arrived in Luang Prabang after an 8 hour bus ride on route 13, the bandit route, and we are safe!!! First of all, we were lucky that it is low tourist season here... the mini van that drove us here can, according to us, only take 7 passengers + the driver + all the backpacks. But apparently, during the high season they squeeze up to 10 passengers in it! That's how you make lonesome business in this country! ;) The route to Luang Prabang is quite something... No need for directions to find it, it is an 8-hour winding drive through the mountains with no possibility whatsoever of taking a left or right, since there are no exits... To read more, please see our new travel page - ... read more

After a few days of the New Year’s celebration I was kind of done with! I mean....it was really fun at first...but when a country is having a holiday like that you really cannot do anything else! So I decided to head into Laos.....by the "Slow Boat". And it was AMAZING. There are times on my trip when I really feel like I am doing something amazing...times when I'm like "hey I am on the other side of the world", and this boat trip was one of those times. It took two days to get from the Thai - Laos border into Luang Prabang, and just about the whole time was spent on this boat. But it was really enjoyable (and I finished all 3 books I had been carrying around). I was even able to ... read more

Pak Ou and Luang Prabang Rami, Donna, Lisa and I rose before six and walked up to Sisavangvong to watch a ritual that has probably been going on for 700 years. As dawn breaks, several hundred monks emerge from Wat Sene and other monasteries along the northern end of the street. In their orange robes, they gather against the grey walls of the wats before starting a procession towards the city centre. Every monk carries a baat, a black alms container in a basket, and along the way kneeling alms-givers place food into each baat. A ball of sticky rice here, a piece of fruit there, a biscuit, or perhaps a sweet. It is a moving ceremony, serene and harmonious, and conducted in total silence - apart from, if you listen really carefully, the soft padding ... read more

Singapore - Bangkok - Luang Prabang Since no airline yet flies from Singapore direct to Luang Prabang, where we were to start our journey, and the morning flight out of Bangkok was too early for a connection, we caught the late evening Singapore Airlines flight to Bangkok and checked into the Quality Suites, a ten-minute drive from the airport. I had booked this hotel on the web, and my success rate on selecting hotels this way is pretty good: but this time my instincts failed me. It had looked acceptable on the page, but perhaps I was seduced by the price, since we were just sleeping in the place - 2,190 Baht (then US$55) for a large suite, including airport transfers, breakfast, tax, etc. But it was, to be generous, rather tired and seedy. Our great ... read more

Our flight on Lao Airlines was delayed, but only for 40 minutes which is to be expected I guess as the two major Thai airlines run the airports. The Chiang Mai airport is actually much nicer in my opinion than the airport in Bangkok. Clayton almost got us sent home trying to bring contraband onto the airplane in his carry on bag. He seems to think that we are going to need his leatherman knife in Laos (I don't plan on hacking my way through the jungle!). You never know with Clayton, we might end up in the jungle yet. It turns out he had to go back through and check his bag which really wasn't so bad because our flight was the only one into Luang Phrabang and by the time we got through the ... read more