Advertisement
Published: June 20th 2007
We thought that the PDR in Laos PDR stood for "Peoples Democratic Republic", but after our time there we think it's more likely to stand for "Please Don't Rush". After Vietnam our arrival in Vientiene was like a breath of fresh air mixed with a sigh of relief! Even the taxi drivers couldn't be bothered to ask if we wanted a taxi - sweet! We met up with Alex and Sam who we met previously in Cambodia and climbed into a rust bucket of a car which must have been about 40 years old - it took down the mud roads into town where we spent a relaxing afternoon on the banks of the Mekong drinking Beer Laos and enjoying the peace and tranquility of this village-like capital city. We also spent some time wandering around the huge market where we were once again able to browse in peace rather than having our arms twisted whilst being yelled at.
We took the VIP bus to Luang Prabang. The highlight of this 10 hour trip was the scenery and the very tasty unexpected free lunch and biscuits which were provided as part of the VIP treatment. The main lowlight was
Vientiene
On the banks of the Mekong drinking Beer Laos and no hassle - bliss!the 2 guards sitting behind us with fully loaded AK-47s - we found it rather difficult to have a nap when you can see the nozzle of the gun poking out from the seat behind......... Thankfully there was no need to use them and we arrived in Luang Prabang. As always seems to happen, that evening we bumped into the girls we met in Halong Bay and went out for dinner and a wander around the night markets.
The following day we went to the waterfalls at Tat Kuang Si. After walking past the resident tiger and bears we came to a multi-level waterfall tumbling down a steep cliff. After a walk to the top, we cooled off by swinging off rope swings into the icy cold, clear blue pools. Gareth still has a sore finger from the rope swing!
We decided we hadn't had enough excersise (and we'd eaten too many banana chocolate pancakes!) so we took a 33km round trip on mountain bikes to an elephant sanctury. This didn't seem like such a good idea at 2pm when the sun was beating down on us as we tried to peddle up a killer of a mountain.
Tat Kuang Si
The waterfalls The visit to the elephant sanctury however was great: the 3 year old baby was the highlight - he eats 15 bunches of bananas a day along with loads of sugar cane! The slow treck of the elephants through the jungle was fun and we took the chance to sit on the elephant's neck and have a go at driving it: this was quite difficult as our elephant was intent on stopping for snacks along the way. Because we hadn't passed out with exhaustion after the cycling, we decided a pre dinner walk was in order. We walked up Phu Si hill to sit by the temples and watch the sun set.
The next day we embarked on our mamoth journey to Thailand. Day 1 was a 10 hour boat/barge journey up the Mekong. Thankfully we managed to secure a comfortable-ish seat(transplanted from a car) rather than a wooden bench. We stopped for the night in Pak Beng and had dinner at a restaurant that had only been open for 11 days. We chatted to the owner - a very friendly, quite drunk, former monk from Vientiene. Day 2 was another 10 hours on a similar boat to the
Tat Kuang Si
Waterwheel used to remove husks from rice grains busy border town of Huay Xai. We arrived in Huay Xai and found a guest house and a popular restaurant rammed with tourists. The following morning we got up early to cross the border (river) into Thailand.
The week we spent in Laos was the perfect cure to Vietnam! The people are lovely making the slow (often absent) service in restaurants easily forgiven. It's a great place to spend time relaxing and doing nothing and we hope it doesn't change! Oh, and did we mention that Beer Laos is excellent?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.07s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.037s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Carolyn
non-member comment
Finally got round to checking out more of your photos and they're amazing! Hope all is going well with you both : - )