Hoxieng Guesthouse Luang Prabang

... Turns out, that asking someone from pretty much any asian country what the SEA Games are, is like asking westerners what McDonalds is, or what the Olympic Games are. Skipping ahead once again to the good bit (you can google SEA Games for more info) we landed, went through security and saw a city in absolute hype and desperate to impress. Police stading almost one every ten metres aound the city just making sure tourists are safe wasnt really our idea of a good time, and after 2 hours ...

... forgot about this: one day, strolling down the main road we spotted a photo shooting outside a wine bar. Since Matt is that much into photography we stood there, watching the action. All of a sudden somebody from the team approached us and asked us if we'd mind to be in the shooting. Of course we didn't! We had a lovely chat with all the guys involved and figured out, that the Californian photographer was a friend of the owner of the wine bar but generally works ...

We were picked up from Mandala House half an hour late by a minibus filled with loud-mouth Americans who made the long journey a little less peaceful... After a windy ride through the country of Northern Thailand we ended up in a quaint little resort near the Laos border where we got some kip and both finished our first books!

It was an early start but the sun was shining and we were heading off to the second and unexpected country of our travels: Laos ...

... organizing our things, we took a walk around the city. Luang Prabang's stylish city center strikes a stark contrast to the backpacker slum of Vang Vieng. The main tourist avenue is dotted with classy shops selling wood carved souvenirs and silver jewelery rather than shops selling beach gear and the infamous "In the Tubing Vang Vieng" tank tops and t-shirts which can be seen on backpackers throughout Southeast Asia (of course Whitney and I bought one). At night, the main drag of the Luang ...

... first up and the obvious winners one clearly with me as top scorer, god knows how i'm **** at skittles. The losing team had to do a shot of this lao lao rocket fuel whiskey. Next up we miexed the teams up and battled it out again, this time i was 3rd and had to do a shot which finished me off ! We all grabbed a tuk tuk home and called it a night.

... br>


Being
out in the forest today we realized we hadn't discussed one important
aspect of traveling in SE Asia on our blog – the squat toilet. The
first time we encountered it was in Bali, Indonesia and we've been
using them ever since. Most of the time the squat toilets are
located in a dark hut in the back of the house/building etc. There
is a porcelain urinal and lines on the side of the urinal indicating
Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep carlaandmike

... probably 90 percent incomplete which meant that about 13 hours of the 14 was very bumpy. When stopping for toilet breaks we had to just go at the side of the road, alright for the men, us girls all had to scurry off and try to find a little bush or something to give us some privicy. On one toilet break in the pitch black of the night, i didn't want to go in the headlights of the bus where everyone was watching so i went behind a hut, all of a sudden a bright ...

... to the first temple, the oldest kid (13years old, though the size of a 9 year old in England) whips out the tickets for the temple. The children were running the temples! They took us up to see the temple and its spectacular view. They started tidying up the temple and offered to dance and sing for us. We politely declined, knowing it would cost us and went onto a temple 20m in a limestone cave. The children continued to follow us and a few boys grabbed torches and ...

... most of the country's domestic elephants. The goal of the festival is to raise awareness of the need for action to protect the Asian elephant as part of Lao’s cultural and natural heritage.

The following information was obtained from ElefantAsia’s web site: http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?art icle1〈=en

Lao, formerly known as the "land of a million elephants" is now home to only ...

... 1499;ן יצאנו מהמער 89;ות בשחיה מאומצ 14;. צפים על הרפסו 91;ה המאול 14;רת בנהר. גם קנטקי הצטרפ 92; לרפס ...