Blogs from West, Laos, Asia - page 374

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng March 18th 2005

Happy Birthday Rich The ring. Laughs. Cake and Buckets. Whooping it up time. Today started out as an uneventful travel day. Nothing too spectacular happened on our three hour journey to Vang Vieng from Veintiane. Our arrival into Vang Vieng was about mid-afternoon after a morning drive from Tad fane to Pakse and then a flight out to Vientiane. After settling into our accommodations we all set our on a walk about town to get oriented and suss out the travel places for our next days activities. None of us were really keen on tubing down the river compared to the all day kayaking adventure. Not sure if the man describing the tour or his little three year old son did the better sell because the little guy was really cute and I see him being ... read more

back to Thailand

Asia » Laos » West » Vientiane March 9th 2005

Eva

Stayed in Vang Vieng for 5 days, at the farm doing absolutely nothing! The only thing there was to do was teaching English to the kids at the Community Centre in the evenings. Although very rewarding, I felt it was time to move on. Would love to come back and work there some other time, for a longer time perhaps! The kids are just sooo adorable, and so eager to learn! It's heartbreaking to see the poverty and lack of school materials for these children, and I wish I could give them a proper education! I think I can really get into this teaching thing, will have to look it up some more when I go back home! In Vientiane at the moment, I arrived earlier today and had a look around town. Not too impressed ... read more

Sunrise on the Mekong

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng March 8th 2005

Sunrise on the Mekong River

Eva

Just wanted to show some pictures I took at the guesthouse in Chiang Khong before departing for Laos. Sunrise and sunset on the Mekong River!!! Really beautiful!... read more

Let there be light!!!

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng March 6th 2005

The VIP bus

Eva

"The bus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng leaves in 10 minutes!" he exlaims as he tries to push me out of his office into the street to get into a tuktuk! This tiny Lao man who the day before had told me he loved me in Swedish (and had been very proud of his limited knowledge of the language!), was now looking like he did not like me at all! The minibus I booked with him was supposed to pick me up at my guesthouse at 9am, but apparently forgot about it! Typical my luck, I could really feel what it was going to be like to be on my own again! Hard work!! So eventually after a lot of hustle and bustle I got to the bus station! But the bus was not there! ... read more

living in lao

Asia » Laos » West » Vientiane March 6th 2005

Victory Monument

popslice

I'm deleting the text from my old travel blogs here, but leaving the pictures for posterity. Or something. ... read more

Where's Uncle Bob?

Asia » Laos » West » Luang Prabang March 2nd 2005

Eva

Since last time I wrote a lot has happened! I met a girl in Chiang Rai and she decided to join me in my travels to Laos. So then there were two of us! We headed to Chiang Khong on the border and got ourselves a 15 day visa for Laos. In Chiang Khong we took the tuktuk looking for a guesthouse called Uncle Bob's (mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide!), but the tuktuk driver didn't know where it was so he got lost. In the end we found it but it had been closed down and sealed up, so no wonder the driver couldn't find it, haha! On Monday morning we set off on our journey into Laos. We took the slowboat on the Mekong River, 2 days with a stop at Pakbeng in the ... read more

On the Road again - Vang Vieng to Southern Laos

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng February 10th 2005

Vang Vieng Organic Farm

Kate vP

We have had both a hectic and relaxing few days...and have been completely unable to get to any phones or internet. The organic farm in Vang Vieng www.laofarm.org was fantastic. The most amazing man "Mr T" runs it, primarily as a mulberry farm. They use the berries to make beautiful mulberry shakes, interesting wine and the leaves for mulberry tea and battered tempura style and served with honey. We helped out by putting a few systems into place for his emails, helping him with overseas tea orders and painting a large recycling sign (of course!!). We traveled from Vang Vieng to Vientiane by kayak which was pretty cool. Flat most of the way so we paddled quite a bit, with one huge rapid where we capsized! That we definitely a highlight, except Sarah lost her sunglasses. ... read more

Vang Vieng

Asia » Laos » West » Vang Vieng February 5th 2005

Kate vP

Arrived in Vang Vieng yesterday after basically spending two days traveling non-stop, first an 11 hour bus ride from up North - public bus full of hill tribe people in all their gear, bags of rice, babies weeing etc. The worst thing about it is they clear their throats constantly and hoiek, pretty disgusting. The sound almost makes you want to vomit. The women in front of us kept doing it, and also being sick, and the problem was we had to have the window open and it kept blowing back in. So we had to hold a blanket up to block it for pretty much the whole trip! We had one night back in Luang Prabang and then took a mini van here - it was supposed to be five hours but then our van ... read more

Thailand & Laos

Asia » Laos » West » Luang Prabang January 27th 2005

Ken at Grand Palace

Ken and Steven

In February 2005, Ken and I traveled to SE Asia to visit my home country - Luang Prabang, Laos. This was my first time back home since I left Laos in early 1981. Our trip started when we flew from San Diego to Bangkok via Narita, Japan. We stayed in Bangkok about 3 days where we visited the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, the River Market, Khaosan Road (Backpacker Heaven - Interesting place!) and a few other places around the city. We then flew from Bangkok to Luang Prabang, Laos. This was where I got very emotional since it was my first time back home after 24 years. The city is now a World Heritage Site. Luang Prabang is a former Royal city with many temples (called Wats) along the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers. We arrived ... read more

Back of Beyond!

Asia » Laos » West » Vientiane January 23rd 2005

Reclining Buddah, The Grand Palace

Choza and Roza

HI Guys! OK where did we leave you last? Oh yes, Chid was about to take me on a romantic evening to Thai boxing .... much to his dissapointment the place was closed .. much to my delight it was right next door to the night markets which were very much open!! We spent a couple of hours there until Chid could stand no more shopping and decided to venture to 'Pat Phong' (!?!) Our last site seeing stop was The Grand Palace and well worth it too even though most of it was shut off as the Singapore President was in town. (he was staying there ... lucky bloke!) A mixture of gold leafed Buddah's (more than you can imagine!) and impressive temples coated by hand in ornate glass and gemstones. I am already thinking ... read more

Brief history of Laos

Laos was under the control of Siam (Thailand) from the late 18th century until the late 19th century when it became part of French Indochina. The Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1907 defined the current Lao border with Thailand. In 1975, the Communist Pathe...more history

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