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Published: September 1st 2008
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With the arrival of Fle fresh from building horse jumps in Hong Kong for the Olympics, we all had a couple of hectic and then pampering days in Bangkok before lovely Laura flew home. (Thank you for the best three weeks!) We all had amazing seaweed and cucumber facials.. yep including mister Fle... and Thai massages in which my body was violently twisted into shapes I did not know I could pull. I did feel like I was floating afterwards though so it must have been good for me!
Laura kindly shipped a load of new dresses and gifts back with her, (which now means I can almost carry my backpack instead of dragging it along behind me) and after sad farewells, me and Fle got the bus to Laos. A load of faffing later we got our visas at the border and headed to Vientiane where we met Emma a friend from my uni course, and her friend Helen. We got a 55,000 kip (2 pound) room which is perfect as it has all the things we need, a window, a fan, a mirror and a bed, plus friendly people everywhere! It also has a lovely shared balcony to
Arc d'Triumph
Laos version of the French monument play cards and read at if the rooms get to stuffy. After a nap we went into the small, peaceful city to be shown around by a monk that Emma and Helen had met on the train here.
He was called Pohn, was 17 years old and was very friendly and kind, and not at all intimidating like I thought he might be. I didn't realise you could not speak to a monk without being spoken to or that you could not touch them, so I am glad we got to meet a monk properly! And so we were shown the sights and Pon brushed up on his english. Laos was until recently occupied by the French, and there are leftovers of this long reign everywhere if you look closely, from the food to the buildings.
We walked up Vientiane's Arc d'Triumph replica, Victory Gate to get beautiful views of the city. It is amazing how quiet the capital is, even free of the hordes of tourists I had expected. The arch is considered by many to be quite ugly and overbearing as it was never really finished and so is many concrete coloured, but I think it
has a gothic charm and does indeed look quite victorious in the middle of the main road.
We also looked through the city's Phra That Luang, That Sisaket and looked at the remaining Buddas, still marvellous in gold leafs and many replicas.
The weather is extremely hot considering the monsoon season, although we do get half an hour of rain on our river front meal (which cost under one pound) in the evening. Every evening in Laos it remains hot but the sky is lit up with lightning even though there is no rain or thunder. Tis quite curious!
The river is the Mekong which runs through almost every country in South East Asia, and you can see Thailand as if it is the same country it is so close, over the river.
The next day we went into a jungley area with some rustic huts where we had a traditional Laos herbal steam room and massage. It was nice once you got used to the heat and even nicer once you cooled down. The massage was similar to a Thai one, with lots of cracking fingers and spines, but because it was a man this
time I could not completely relax. Feeling floaty we rushed to the bus station to head to Luang Prabang overnight.
Amongst lush green mountains lies this even more laid back city, Luang Prabang which was once the Royal capital and is filled with monks in training, night markets and cheerful faces. After looking around for a while and trying local dishes we had a snoop at some of the amazing Wats and spied a few monks sweeping up and hanging around their homes in the temples. They are all so young, it is so inspiring to see.
Monday we went on a lovely elephant trek through the jungle along the Mekong river. This was a much more environmentally friendly and sustainable company to ride elephants with (XL - Tiger Trail), and I felt the elephants were well looked after and happy. They retire at 60, ours was 58 and had been saved from logging and had worked here for 5 years. He was very wrinkly, and when I was able to ride on his neck bare back his skin was so soft and his ears flapped against my legs making me feel like I would not fall!
Then we went to some amazing waterfalls. The place was so beautiful, and once I had got videos of Peter Andre out of my head, I realised how lucky I was to be in this part of paradise where hardly any other tourists came, and we could splash about like monkeys.
Tomorrow we will read stories to local children and older people and monks who wish to improve their English and then bike around the city and beyond to explore some more, before heading south.
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