Advertisement
Published: November 2nd 2006
From Hanoi we had the choice of taking a 20 hour bus ride into Laos. First it would have taken us south (back towards where we came from) because that's the only border foreigners are allowed crossing, then we would have spent 2 hours at the border before it finally made it's way north to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. The only benefit was the low cost of $16. It was a tough decision, but we opted for the 1 hour, $110 flight! We only read in our guide books after that Laos airlines aren't quite up to the safety standards we enjoy in Canada. While getting our visas, we discovered that Canadians pay the highest amount for a Laos visa. How weird is that. Even the US, who bombed the shit out of the country for almost a decade pay less than us! and it's not the most by $1, we pay $42, while the next highest is $35. We need to do something about that!
Considering I had never heard of Laos before deciding to come to Asia, I was quite shocked to find out that it is the most bombed country in the world. Apparently, the US
used it as a base during the Vietnam war and for some raeson bombed it about every 8 minutes for 9 years!! How crazy is that??!!! Yet you can use US currency for everything there.
Anyways, after landing, we hopped straight on a short (3 hour) bus to Vang Vieng, with the German guy who decided he was tagging along with us. Vang vieng is the greatest place on earth. I could have stayed there forever. It was a tiny town, one main street and one other one running off of it. and then everyone who lived there (couldn't have been too many people) lived in little huts around the town. It was more how I pictured Asia to be than any other country I've been to. It was very similar to up north. Only the main streets were paved, everything else was narrow dirt roads. There were no street lights, the only light came from the neon signs of the restaurants. Very few mopeds and even fewer cars. The main attraction was the river. You could float down it on a tube for $3.50. It took all day because along the way there were 6 bars to stop at. The people working at them would throw you a rope to pull you in. If you bought a beer, or anything really, you could take advantage of the activities. Each bar had a different one, the later ones being more and more extreme. The first one was a small zip line, after which you landed in the water. The next was a rope to swing from into the water and by the last it was a pretty high trapeze. You could either swing once and let go at the very highest point, probably 30 feet, or you could keep swinging and let go whenever you wanted....which is what we did, we're not THAT crazy. (I'm the little blob in the pic all the way on the left).
Vang Vieng is full of backpackers. It was like being at camp. We'd meet people tubing and then see them at dinner or vice versa. And there was only one bar open late so everyone was there every night too. We kept running into to girls from Ireland who were actually jappier than us! And there wre tons of Israelis there, so they had fun trying to see how much hebrew we understood. We really like some of them and secured some places to stay for our next trip to Israel!!
Every restaurant had a tv, and since they all basically had the same food we decided which one to eat at based on what was playing. One had Family Guy running 24/7, another Friends, another Simpsons and the rest had ramdom movies. If you were the only one there you could choose iot yourself, unless you had enough energy to get everyone on board with the movie you wanted!! we spent most of our time at the Friends restuarant....as did many other people!
The locals in Laos are great. They seem to have no cares in the world. They are poor and that's ok. Its just how they live. they work on farms and bathe in the river. and the kids play happily in the streets. Iwent over to a group of kids who looked like they were about to do the limbo. It turned out they were doing cartwheels over the rope. so I showed them the limbo. But not many of them stayed aroun long enough to watch...they ran off and giggled instead! Very few people even noticed the tourists and they most definately didn't hound us to give them money so that they could eat, which was so refreshing after being in Vietnam.
One night Marissa and I were in our room, at the very end of the hall on the third floor and the lights went out. instead of going down the 3 long flights of stairs we decided to wait it out in the dark...especially because neither of us was dressed! After a while we thought we smelled smoke and realized it was probably smarter not to be there anymore! So we went outside and it turned out just to be a temporary blackout and the smoke was just in our heads! It was weird cuz with the exception of two restaurants that had generators, the whole town was black. It was pretty cool! The sun goes down and it gets completely dark at about 6 pm here, so that didn't help either.
Because we had spent money on transportation last time and let's face it, because the airport was 7 hours away, we took a 20 hour bus to our next destination...Chiang Mai, which is in the north of Thailand. We finally made it to Thailand. (but this blog is long enough already, so you'll have to wait till next time to hear about how great it has been so far!!)
It's amazing how my concept of travel has changed. a 3 hour bus ride is nothing, a 10 hour one is slightly tiring and only the 24 hour ones are close to unbearble, buit still doable! A few months ago I would have dreaded taking a 5 hour tirp to Toronto! Wonder if I'l do it more often now! We took a 20 hour bus ride (well, first a 4 hour bus ride, then a Tuk Tuk, then another bus ride, then a Tuk Tuk, then another bus that got us to Chiang Mia. At which point we took a tuk tuk to our guesthouse! At least we bought a package so this was all arranged for us. After we got off a bus a tuk tuk driver would yell at us to come with him. since no one told us till later that it was part of the package, we weren't sure about getting into his tuk tuk. it's good we did!)
Back to Vietnam for a sec, on our boat tour in Halong Bay (think I mentioned it, who can remember anymore!) we stopped at a cave, cuz that seems to be the thing to see here. I couldn't take the sweat dripping down my back, soaking mt tank top (I think i've produced more sweat glanda since I've been here), so I lifted my shirt about 5 inches. You would not believe the commotion I caused. In all directions, other Asian tourists were taking pictures of me with cameras and cell phones. I was a bigger tourist attraction than the cave! I bet they went home, flipped right past their pics of the cave and said 'honey, look what I saw today, a western girl's belly button!!!' I think the dimples on my back might have freaked them out too. Crazy Asians!
People in South East Asia speak pretty good English, enough to get by. But I find myself speaking in broken English when I talk to them, to make sure they understand what I'm saying. So I'll say 'No key, Key in room' instead of 'I left my key in my room, please open the door for me.' I realized later that I'm not helping them learn English better by speaking to them like their 5 year olds!
So has anything changed in Montreal. Cuz to me, everything has stood still while I've been gone. I can't imagine that anything is different, except for the weather, which I've been hearing too much about. It's about 35 degrees here....just to rub it in a bit!!
That's it for Laos, I would highly recommend everyone going there. We're getting close to the end of our trip now. After Thailand we're going to Cambodia, then back to Bangkok to come home. I guess we could have chosen a route that didn't take us back and forth, but what can you do, being on a budget doesn't always provide you with the most convenient travel options!
Stay warm!
Trish
Advertisement
Tot: 0.078s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 42; dbt: 0.0438s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
mom
non-member comment
I think that this was the best blog yet. You are really funny and i can not believe all the things that i did not know that you have done, despite speaking to you so often lately. I was not even upset about the things you did this time. that part about the pics taken of you was a riot and i think you might be the new paris hilton of laos. love ya, keep up the good stories. it sounds like a great place to be when you are your age. i do live vicariously..... love mom