A little of Laos - land of a million elephants
Trip Start
Sep 08, 2009
1
10
17
Trip End
Ongoing
Luang Prabang, Louangphabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Anyway, I won't bore you so I'll keep it short. :) Luang Prabang was really nice. Its all about the temples and monks there but to be honest we were so tired from Vietnam that we slept most of our time there. Niall got a bit of a cold too so it was a lazy lazy few days.
In saying that, Laos turned out to be a lazy lazy few weeks but what a great few weeks. After Luang Prabang we went to Vang Vieng - home of the tube. What deadly craic! Basically you hire a tube and go down the river getting off at various points to go to the pub
Eating at the night market in Luang Prabang
! Mental! Our day started quite enough but the longer we were out the more people caught up with us and we had great craic, flying off the massive water slides or the monkey swings into the water. We didnt escape without injury or bruises and we got back before dark but it was deadly!!After that we went to Vientaine - the capital (funny how that isnt even on google earth!) Its a nice quiet enough place with loads of places to see and eat in. The food in Laos is spectacular - the best yet I'd say and we ate our faces off! We went around more stupas (burial or commemorative stone) and temples and unfortunately lost one camera and broke another loosing all those pictures. So images of Vientiane has been committed to memory for the rest of our lives.
Savannahket was next and was the highlight. Here we got closer to the real Laos. This was a very small, very poor town with the best, most smiling people you are ever likely to meet. We hung around the town a bit (got a new camera), went to the best dinasour museum ever where were could pick up and TOUCH dinasour bones (!!!!!!!!) and took an over night trek out into the rural areas with a homestay for accommodation.
The trek was comical - brilliant, long but comical. Our ranger pionted out so many different things and inevitably stuck it in his mouth straight after. I'm not messing - ants, plants and all sorts! As well he kept chatting away for the whole 18 k on the first day but sure none of us had a clue what he was saying and he spoke way too fast for our english speaking guide to translate! Our home stay was an eye opener. Bucket showers, basic living (mattresses with a blanket and a mosquito net is all there is to the bedroom), more spectacular food and a 'baci' ceremony where the elders of the village came to welcome us to the village
Exploring the temples in Luang Prabang
. We felt really special. After some social time - the men smoked and the women chewed this red bark stuff to clean their teeth by dying the entire mouth red and scraping it off. I tried it - it was vile. We went to the temple the next morning to give alms to the monks, got blessed and generally went about life the way any Laos person does. Amazing.After some more trekking and a picnic by the lake the same (second) day it was back to town and for us, onto the next stop, a town called Pakse. I'm afraid we have absolutely nothing much to say about that cos its really just a transient town. But what it did mean was that we were closer to the 4000 Islands - where we went kayaking for 3 whole days! It meant we were ever closer to our last stop in Laos and the journey to the Laos-Cambodian border was almost done.
