Blogs from Luang Prabang, West, Laos, Asia - page 18

Change of plan, after some thought last night I get up early and head to the bus station to ask about buses to Luang Probang, thinking of heading back there and getting straight off back to Thailand on the slow boat. At 7.30am I walk down to the bus station fully loaded, the bus is waiting, this time its a very comfortable looking mini bus, not bad. While waiting for the bus to fill I head to a street food stand and the lady is selling waffels, haven't had any breakfast so I get one, wow are these good, the taste like they had about of coconut milk in them and maybe rice flour,that good they warrant a second taste, Lea the girl I've been speaking to from Holland follows my lead and then a guy ... read more

Geo: 19.8841, 102.142DAY SEVENTEEN (1/19/13) — Luang Prabang, LaosMONKy See, MONKy DoAirline flight schedules have changed; so have our plans. Our flights are now mid-afternoon so we have an impromptu tour to a small temple.On our drive through the Cambodian countryside, our guide talks about Cambodian culture. There are still many arranged marriages … 50% in the cities, perhaps as many as 80% in the countryside. The man's family pays the dowry; the girl leaves home and lives with the man's family.We pass many thatched homes built on stilts that are without utilities. The homes are built for natural "air conditioning". This is an area where there are still many landmines remaining from the 1970s … a project Princess Diana took on. They believe they have located and deactivated 70+% of 10 million originally buried here. ... read more

Bit tired this morning thanks to some lovely people in the next room, I don't understand if there's a curfew of 11.30 that people can come banging in at 3am and then continue to shout to each other along the corridor, beats me! A sligh bang on their door as I head out for my very early run makes me feel slightly more better ; ). Run up the steps today, wow thought I was going to throw up, but you have to compose yourself when the japenese tourists are saving and clapping you on!!! Yes really! We head for breakfast at the book and tea place this morning, I had spotted museli on the menu and it was screaming my name... Oh and they had peppermint tea, Heaven! Setting out today to look about more ... read more

Days 119-120 (Thurs 3rd – Fri 4thJan) Recently has been pretty good going so I have not moaned in a while. Today is the day for a whinge. Myself and Megan endured the 2 day slow boat from Houay Xai to Luang Prabang. I have no problems with boats and am very familiar with them but I absolutely hated it. We spend 9 hours each day on this canal barge basically going down the Mekong. The boats were ok and only once did I feel like it nearly tipped over but the journey was thoroughly boring. The scenery is quite nice but very samey all the way down. It was a bit like a Scooby doo chase scene, hills, rocks, sand, water buffalo and repeat for 9 plus hours. The first day was slightly more enjoyable ... read more

Started the day feeding the munks... an interesting experience, but now so commercialised I'd never do it again. The morning started by getting ripped off by a street vendor selling rice balls and plastic wrapped crackers (Agreed once price, she acted dumb and demanded more... in the grand scheme of things it was $1 and it was pitch black 4:30am in the morning so let it go, but started the day off bad). The monks in orange start making their way through town and eventually got to my mat. I got through my rations after about 10 minutes and watched for another 10 or so. I noted that eventually the monks, who I later learned wouldn't eat theplastic wrapped crackers, gave the wrapped crackers to poor looking street kids. Where did the street kids go... right ... read more