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Published: October 30th 2006
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Hello everybody,
I've now been in Laos for over 2 weeks and decided I better get writing! Crossed the border at Chang Kong into Huay Xai in the Northern part of Laos. Mick and I were pushing the visas again... left on the day they expired. We had to take a boat across the Mekong into Laos... the river was so hi that the Thailand Customs office was under water. Note for anyone going into Laos, you can buy your 30 day visas at the border. Got a room in a nice guest house and then went exploring the town... that took all of five minutes! We bought tickets for the slow boat to Luang Probang... two 8 hour days on a boat. The first day on the boat was pretty fun... met two Canadian guys named Jay and Mark and got drunk on a one dollar bottle of Whiskey I bought before getting on the boat. We stopped at Pak Ban for the night... had 8 year old tried to us Opium. The second day on the boat was a little longer but we got airline style seat so it was comfy! Stayed in Luang Probang for about five days...
The boat
The nice boat to Luang Probang nice place expect for the twelve o'clock curfew! Found a bar called Vietnam which was someones house but it served alcohol until 3am. There are two very nice waterfalls… arguably better then the falls in Thailand. Went on a bike and kayak trip... it was really fun... I fell hard off the bike... I was follow this too close to this girl and didn't see the huge rut! I slide hard on the gravel... got some nice cuts and bruises! Stayed at a really cool Lao village... played soccer with the local... really fun! Next day we went Kayaking down the river... pretty fun rapids! Had a pretty good night out when we got back. Next morning Jay and I took the boat up to Nong Kiaw... had to say bye to Mick and Conor who I had been traveling with for about two months. The boat journey up to Nong Kiaw was beautiful... the Nam Ou river goes right through the mountains. Also there were only three of us on the boat so it was very easy for me to get some much needed sleep! Not much in Nong Kiaw... spent two nights there... met some cool travelers and
View from the boat
This was the view from the boat to Nong Khaw for about Seven hours... not bad some funny local kids. Went up the river another hour to a place called Mong Ngoi... you can only get to this place by boat. Spent two nights there... went on a fishing trip with a local guy... caught two of the smallest fish I've ever seen... which we kept and ate! We also went to a sweet waterfall! We headed back to Nong Kiaw to get a bus that was heading towards Phonsavan. It's probably about 350km...it took us three days to get there... the area it's very populated and it high in the mountains. We met a Swiss guy named Matthew on the truck that joined up with us. The first day we made it 60km to Vieng Khaw... the next bus wasn't until 1am so we where kind of stuck. We ended up drinking and playing "patong"(like bocce ball) with the locals... it was lots of fun. Took a very cold and uncomfortable night bus to Vieng Tong... about 100km which took 4 hours. Got stuck in Vieng Tong for a whole day because there were no buses on Wednesday. There was a group of 70 Thai mountains bikes that arrive in town that day... the whole
Me and the bombs
This was at a village outside Phonsavan. They have collected all the sluster bombs and used them to build a fence! They used them to support builds. town came out to welcome them. The next day was the longest day of travel... we went the 180km to Phonsavan which took about 8 hours. The first part of the journey was on the back of a 5 ton truck through the high mountain roads... we climbed the longest hills! The view was very impressive and it was pretty cold in the back of the truck. It took 3 hours to go 50km... we switch into a smaller truck once we got to paved road and then we started to go a little faster... we were pretty happy to get to Phonsavan. We spent one night in Phonsavan... went to the plain of Jars and went to see all the bombs the USA dropped on Lao during the Vietnam war. Next stop was Vang Vieng which is where I'm right now. Went tubing down the river yesterday... it was one of the best things I've done! Basically you float down the river on a tube and drink beer... you stop at bar along the river and most have a big rope swing. Not sure where to after Vang Vieng... think I'll stay here for a bit. Cheers... hope it's
not too cold at home!
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margo
non-member comment
new email address
Hi Ian, keep those stories coming, love reading them and so glad you are having so many adventures, some of them I'd love to do, but, not all!! Ha, ha!! Here is my new email address mramstad@shaw.ca , looking forward to more stories.....margo