Blogs from Muang Xai, West, Laos, Asia - page 2

greetings all......the following entry began on june 14....this is what i was referring to in the last entry when i wrote i had recently began a text however felt it was more important to get photos published thus the effort and sunsequent note stating there was a glitch and couldnt publish pictures. well, now that i am in africa, it may even be more difficult. put aside this whole day to do blogging and havent gotten anywhere. a tortoise will win the race. so, i must report there is a possibility you will have to wait until i return to the states to view more photos. i am leaving all my discs here at my friends house in nairobi. if the connection changes as i travel perhaps i wil be able to publish the most recent ... read more

My journey, or perhaps ordeal is a better term, to Laos began with a ten hour bus ride to the provincial city of Jinghong in southern Yunnan. Much of this first leg was on brand-new Chinese superhighways. Eventually, however, we reached the end of the finished freeway and were forced onto a two-lane highway that alternated between tarmac and dirt. Often I could see the under-construction freeway nearby. It looks like they'll have this freeway all the way to Laos in the very near future. It's amazing how they don't bother to thread the road around the topography. In this mountainous region of southern Yunnan, the Chinese are simply blasting through hillsides, bridging valleys and tunneling through anything that seems too big to blast. It must cost a fortune, but the result is a straight, level ... read more

The last update came from Luang Nam Tha, where I spent a lazy 24 hours, doing very little. I returned to the same guesthouse I had stayed at a few days earlier, for the sheer joy of the hot shower. I had earned it after the bus ride back. As Karl and I were running late, we stomped into the bus station only to see our bus driving off! A quick shout from someone packing another jumbo, and it stopped on the street for us to run and catch up. Alas the only free seats were reserved with bags and water bottles, so it was a seat on bamboo stool in the aisle for each of us. I was sitting next to a lovely australian pair, and about half way into the 2 hour trip, I ... read more

The following morning I got to the bus station at 7:50 to find that their were no seats on the bus and even the plastic stools in the isle had been sold out. Being a once daily service, this meant a day in Udomxai, which even the guide book, usually pretty positive, described in less than glowing terms. I wandered up the main street (actually, the only street) and found myself agreeing with the guidebook. On a more positive note, I found the best hotel in town and booked myself in for a $15 night of comfort, aircon, room service, and free breakfast. This crap little town is surrounded by idyllic mountains that would be great for trekking if that was what I wanted to do there, but all I wanted to do was get out ... read more

The two-day boat trip down the Mekong river from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang has been billed as one of the most worthwhile journeys to take in Laos. It certainly introduced me to the natural beauty of Laos, and to the great people here. It also gave me a front row seat to witness the damage that tourism and outside influences can do to a peaceful, agrarian culture. I took a lot of pictures on the trip, and many of them were quite beautiful. However, many of them were also crap, and a lot of the landscape shots seemed redundant. So, I've edited the pics down to the 30 you see here, and given some commentary. Enjoy. My Top Four Photos The first four photos here are really my favorites of the whole bunch, reminding me ... read more