Laos

- November 18th, 2008

I've been a bad blogger and haven't written any updates the whole time we've been here. Since we're flying to Hanoi today, I guess this will be the only entry from Laos.

First of all, is it Laos, or Lao? Apparently it's actually called Lao, but due to French colonization, it became known as Laos in English. However, adjectives to describe it are just Lao. Hopefully I'll get that right through the rest of this...

We first flew into Luang Prabang in northern Laos 10 days ago. Our plane from Chiang Mai was really delayed, so we didn't arrive until about 11 PM. The first thing I noticed was how different the climate is. Even though nighttime, it was much cooler than Chiang Mai and a lot less humid as well. A good start that was short-lived...

Our first problem is that you need cash to pay the immigration officers for a visa to get into the country, which we didn't have. At the time in Chiang Mai, it seemed like a good idea to spend all our money on Chang beer since the plane was delayed, but that left us with only pennies to give to immigration. The other travelers in the line said there are only 3 ATM's in the whole country, so we were screwed. Fortunately, they were wrong as there was one right outside immigration, which the officer let me go use.

After forking over 650,000 Kip (about $84) for our visa, we were on our way to town in the back of another modified pickup truck. We arrived in the middle of Luang Prabang, a town of only about 30,000, when everything was closing so we searched quickly and found a decent place for the night.

The next day we were looking for a better place to stay for a few nights, which we eventually found. Unfortunately, Chelsea wasn't feeling good at all and ended up throwing up that afternoon. She started getting better the next day. But the evening of the next day is when I started feeling bad and ended up throwing up as well. It happened for me again that night and the next day after trying to eat lunch too. So far, we were having a rough time in Laos.

Since I couldn't keep any food down, we were concerned that I may need to get to a hospital and being that Luang Prabang is in the middle of nowhere, Lonely Planet suggests finding medical care elsewhere. Being cautious, we decided to try to get on a flight to Vientiane, the capital, that night, which we were able to do. Fortunately I started feeling better and keeping food down the next day, so a trip to the hospital wasn't necessary.

Although it sounds like we spent most of our time in Luang Prabang in the bathroom, we did manage to get out a bit. Here's a few pictures:

A street in LP:

Two women selling some lemons on the banks of the Mekong:

The stairs on the climb up a hill in the center of town:

The view from the top of the hill:

Once in Vientiane and feeling better, we went to the Budda Park at the edge of town. I didn't really know what it was all about, so I didn't expect much. It turns out to be a bunch of really cool Buddas in different poses, doing different things. I didn't understand any of the symbology of the statues, but it was really neat nonetheless. One of the structures you could climb inside and out to the top. The light that day was really good, so here are some of the better pictures that I took.

After the Budda Park we went to the golden temple (I don't know it's proper name) in Vientiane where I captured this sweet photo:

Another thing we did in Vientiane...my birthday! It was time to celebrate the big 2-8, so Chelsea put together a special surprise for me. She managed to fashion together a birthday card and bought and wrapped a totally sweet elephant tie. Plus, we went out to dinner where she had previously arranged for them to deliver a cake (my favorite kind no less) to our table with candles and writing that said "Happy Birthday Justin!" It was really cool. I don't have any pictures of the celebration, but check out her blog for them.

We left Vientiane for a 2 day excursion to Vang Vieng, which we had intended to come through on the way down from Luang Prabang. We took a kayaking tour on the way up, which made it a nice way to break up the 3 hour drive. I'm not sure what river we were on, but we hit some nice rapids, ate a tasty BBQ lunch along the banks, and jumped off a cliff into the water (some of us anyway).

They put 8 kayaks and 7 people (including us) in that little truck you see behind Chelsea. It got us from the take-out point to Vang Vieng.

Arriving in Vang Vieng, we checked into our hotel that sat alongside what I think is the same river that we kayaked down (picture below). That night we went to dinner at one of the local places that server pizza and endless reruns of the show Friends, which we read about in Lonely Planet.

Vang Vieng is a strange place that is overrun with backpackers that just want to party. We went tubing down the river (another popular thing to do) where they have these bars setup along it. They all blast out the music and have rope swings, zip lines, and waterslides to play on while you get crazy drunk. Even if that's not your scene, it's definitely an experience not to be missed.

We got back to Vientiane last night and fly outta here in about 4 hours on the way to Hanoi. Hopefully it won't be so long before I have an update from Vietnam.