Blogs from Vang Vieng, West, Laos, Asia - page 21

Advertisement

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng August 12th 2010

And now for a long overdue completion of blog entries for my winter break trip to Laos. I still haven’t gotten that stupid disposable camera developed, so there won’t be any water pictures. But I suppose there’s no guarantee that any of those pictures are any good. So here we go… Saturday, 01/30/10 It was time to get on the road again. We got up early and ate at the cleverly named Craters which was decorated with bomb shells and various other weapons. Then we boarded a van for Vang Vieng. This van wasn’t as plush as the last, but Kim managed to snap up the coveted front seat and I jumped into the very back. It was slightly better than the completely restless trip from Luang Prabang to Phonsovan, but it was still very uncomfortable. ... read more
No S curves here
Rice paddies
Don't eat here!

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng August 5th 2010

From Chiang Mai we travelled over to Laos into Luang Prabang. The bus ride which was meant to take 10hrs ended up taking 18hrs as we broke down for a while but luckily this meant we didn't have to pay for accomodation for the night :) Once in Luang Prabang we only had a day to explore so we went to the waterfall. The best waterfall we had seen so far is in Luang Prabang, there was a rope swing at the bottom and an amazing view from the top. It had everything. Next we travelled to Vang Vieng for Tubing where we travelled down the river on a rubber ring stopping parts of the way down to play on trapize type swings, these were scary but really fun :) We only stayed for two days ... read more

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng July 27th 2010

Since finally making my way from Hanoi to Laos, I have been to a couple places. Luang Prabang: When I landed the ATM machine wasn't working, so I kept trying and reporting to the visa guys that it was broken. Finally, after going back and forth about 4 or 5 times, I was able to get my passport back, complete with a visa stamp. Luang Prabang was really nice. After I landed, I spent the day riding around town on a bike and exploring. I've decided to pass on the temples at this point, already having seen the most impressive in Southeast Asia (Angkor Wat). The next day I joined up with a few people I'd met and took a tour of the nearby waterfall. This was really cool, especially because I had a chance to ... read more

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng July 15th 2010

Yowza. Currently in Vang Vieng after an atrocious 5 hour bus ride from Luang Prabang. Vang Vieng... what to say about this place... I can see why this place has a love/hate relationship with visitors. Beautiful place... but I can see bad bad things happening here if stayed in for too long. Are there rules here? Nope. Now we read in our Lonely Planet tour books that this is a "If ordering opium shakes at the local bar and watching reruns of Friends is your thing, Vang Vieng is the place to be." They were not kidding. Every restraunt here has a lounge area, and they are in fact watching reruns of Friends in almost every single one of them. Or Family Guy. We got here and the first day thought to ourselves... 'nahhh' although this ... read more
Friendly Cows, Friendly Kayla
Not a bad place to lounge
Kayaking

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng July 5th 2010

So after travelling from luang prabang on a so-called v.i.p bus for 6 hrs we arrived in vang vieng... home of tubing...... party central!!! we stayed here for about a week. Our days consisted of tubing aka floating down the dam song river on a rubber tractor inner tube, being pulled into various bars/clubs along the way where the main objective was to listen to dirty house music an drink buckets full of whiskey to our heart content.... not to mention swinging from dangerously assembled rope swings and zip lines!!!! The nights were danced away at the local watering holes known as q bar an bucket bar... ah good times, devastating hangovers...... thank god 4 resolve an hair of the dog!!!! Our more sober days were spent kayaking, rafting, tubing in caves an watchin friends in ... read more
CIMG0935
CIMG0936
CIMG0938

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng July 4th 2010

This is where all the young travelers come to get their ‘captain-messy-pants’ on. Interestingly, as we drove into town we noticed everyone seemed to have some sort of injury or other; numerous girls with exhaust burns on their legs, several people with their feet bandaged up, one guys in crutches and even a girl with an eye patch. What is with this town? When we arrived dark clouds gathered above us and left me with an ominous feeling. Moments later, Dana realized he left his backpack with all our valuables in the back of our tuk-tuk (camera, computer, our photos backups, passports, money, etc). He noticed right away and sprinted after it, leaving his flip flops behind. Fortunately, he caught up to the driver just as he was taking the ‘prize’ out to show his buddies. ... read more
Photo 5
Photo 6
Photo 7

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng July 1st 2010

Vang Vieng, 7th - 9th May 2010 The bus to Vang Vien took around 4 hours and wasn’t too bad apart from half way through the journey blood from all the packages of raw meat the bus was carrying started to leak through onto the floor and then onto our flip flops making the bus smell like a butchers. Vang Vien was a very touristy area with the main attraction being tubing down the river. We shared a tuk tuk with an Aussie couple to the town centre. We had a fruit shake and then Doddy went on a rekey to find a hotel room whilst I waited with the bags. Five minutes later he had returned and we checked into our guest house. We ate at a local restaurant where I thought I would try ... read more
Baskets full of raw meat on the bus
The blue lagoon
Carrying water

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng June 12th 2010

Chris's Section The city of Luang Prabang is a Unesco World Heritage site, and with good reason. It's bloody gorgeous. Spotless streets, lined with trees, flowers and French colonial architecture make this a tourist mecca. It's like no where else we've been so far in Asia. Although a city, it's more like a town in size and feel. The first night wasn't so great. We went to a guesthouse recommended by the Lonely Plant guide (or the lying planet as many call it) called the Pathoumphone guesthouse. It was a bit of a dump, but we'd heard Luang Prabang was pricey and thought this was all we could afford. It was 70,000 kip a night (about £6) so we thought it was a bit of a bargain. Turns out it wasn't. The next day we ... read more
Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng June 7th 2010

May 30 Vang Vieng must be owned by Beerlao. Everywhere you look there are Beerlao umbrellas, tablecloths and illuminated guesthouse signs all nicely printed with a beer bottle on them. Consuming alcohol seems to be big business here, at least it's a major attraction for idiotic 18-year-olds whose idea of travelling is 'getting wasted' and then lying around in a bar watching Friends on TV and possibly ordering something off the 'happy menu'. Vang Vieng is described as a town that has 'lost its soul'. I think it's been marinated or possibly pickled. But it does have dramatically beautiful scenery: a drowsy river, karsts, caves and jewel-bright jungle. Then there are the freaks. No, I shouldn't call them that, they're just people who have downed too much of something or other and lost control. For example: ... read more




Tot: 0.144s; Tpl: 0.008s; cc: 6; qc: 88; dbt: 0.0878s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb