Blogs from Laos, Asia - page 579

Don Khong to Tad Fane Two ferry crossings. One wat. Boom! We have a flat! Another transportation day with a little bit of sightseeing too. First we drove about three hours and stopped of at Wat Phou. It was pretty hot that day. It was built in the pre-Angkor time and well worth the stop and climb up the hill to the different terraces of this Wat. Our home for the next couple of nights would be at the Tad Fane Resort. We were almost at our final destination when Boom! the tire on our mini-bus blows. We don't have the correct tools...Penny, why didn't you bring your socket set? haha Luckily though a passing truck came to our rescue. We got the tire changed and were on our way. But not before an ice cream ... read more

Bumpy Bumpy roads Dirt infiltration all round Laundry day is here! Started of the day having to listen to Maria tell us repeatedly how she does not like bananas..."it's more of a texture thing...but I do like the little lady finger bananas..." I didn't say anything at the breakfast table but later back in our room Penny and I couldn't help but bring up the topic of bananas and how a certain somebody is not a fan of the banana. I know this is probably not good for my karma but I can't help but appreciate how much entertainment Maria and her husband Rohan have been providing me the last couple of weeks. After an early breakfast we headed out in two trucks onto the really bumpy, dusty roads north towards Strung Tung. We were about ... read more

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

"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

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