Mar 1, 2005 - Luang Prabang

In case you haven't looked back, I posted pictures as far back as Nha Trang, and added in blurbs for every entry... After avoiding the 24 hour bus ride from Vietnam, I arrived in Laos fresh and ready to see a new country. I only stayed in Vientiane for a night- due to time limitations, I'm going to come back and fly to Cambodia from here... I'll see the city then. I jumped on the ten hour bus to Luang Phabang first thing in the morning, and made my way through the Lao countryside. I've been very impressed by one of the most instantly...

Feb 26, 2005 - Luang Prabang de nouveau!

Apres 10 heures de bus... horrible... (pas assez de place pour tout le monde donc les derniers s assoient sur les sacs de riz poses au milieu...200 kms en 10 heures)nous arrivons enfin a Luang Prabang... et l Israelienne qui repetait sans cesse aux Laos qui la regardaient ebahis:" chez nous 200 kms+2 heures" On decide finalement de glander un peu ici et a Ventiane et de ne plus partir vers le sud... enfin de glander un peu car nous avons encore eu aujourd hui une journee bien chargee. A vouloir faire du velo un peu trop loin, on etait mort...

Feb 22, 2005 - Off to Laos

We were up early and took a few pictures of some of the local traffic in the center of New Sukhothai while waiting for the bus to take us to the airport. The Sukhothai Airport (the same one we missed our flight from a few days ago) is beautiful! Unlike any we have ever seen. Now that we're in Laos 3 days late, we can't get a flight down to Koh Chang (Elephant Island). Koh Chang is near the city of Trat, on the southeast side of the Gulf of Thailand near the Cambodian boarder. Instead we'll work our way down through Laos and into Thailand...

Feb 22, 2005 - Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is amazing and it's not surprising Unesco has protected the town, it has a wonderful mix of Buddhist and French colonial archictecture and was a great place to relax under the palm trees after our 2 day trip down the Mekong! We spent most of our time sampling the various banana smoothies on offer and soaking up the atmosphere as lots of monks and mini monks wandered by. We also managed to fit in a trip to the 5 tier Kuang Si waterfalls and Craig was dragged around a few temples too!

Feb 17, 2005 - Luang Prabang

Ah la voila cette ville dont on nous a tant parle!!!!! AU debut un peu decu car finalemet on avait pense que le Laos etait moins touristique et plus sauvage...mais en prenant le temps de se promener, on est d accord pour la trouver charmante cette ville. On y retrouve Marielle et Romain (rencontres a Ventiane et a Vang Vieng)avec qui nous faisons la visite des temples. et oui encore des temples... on en profite egalement pour se promener sur le mekong en barque a la decouverte d une nouvelle grotte... et oui encore une grotte... mais...

Feb 16, 2005 - LAOS - Luang Prabang

Upon our descent into Luang Prabang it felt as if we would be landing in Jurassic Park (I know, second reference!) - it was so green, misty and empty of houses - and once we saw the Mekong River I thought the next site would be a T-Rex! LP's airport was by far the smallest that we had been to - so we jumped into a tuk-tuk and made our way for a guesthouse we found in the THE BOOK... Nothing could have prepared me for what we saw - talk about a difference between reality and expectation - I felt like we were in a provincial town in France...

Feb 16, 2005 - Luang Prabang. Relax.

Dawn here! Day 73, Feb 16, and its off to Luang Prabang. And what a beautiful spot. It has over 32 Wats in the old town. Some spectacular, some not so. All wonderful. The town itself is delighfull and as Laos was under French protection for some time, the french influence is evident in the architecture and in the restuarants and cafes. Banana and chocolate crepes are widely available. Yummm........And one of the most noticable things is that the traffic is almost non existent. And no open sewerage! Which has been a very pleasant change. Not...

Feb 13, 2005 - Mekong River - day 2 - Pak Beng to Luang Prabang

Ellen: Getting into Pak Beng was rather unpleasant. We had heard that there were only just enough rooms for all the people arriving on the boats, and we saw many pass us throughout the day so we knew we were arriving late. Never fear, though, because Sarita and I came up with a plan - the guys would get the bags off the boat while we went ahead to scout out our first couple of choices. Things turned a little competitive, however, when as soon as we pulled up to shore people jumped through the windows of our boat onto the next boat and from...

Feb 13, 2005 - Old capital of Laos, Luang Prabang

Today is another day of boating down the Mekong. I think about what it could have been like 30 years ago when the Vietnam war was in full swing. Full of intrigue no doubt but also of death and despair. Pol Pot would have been busy killing off his people down in Cambodia as well. Incredible that communism was so destructive to what I would normally consider to be a peaceful Buddhist society, very sad and worth further consideration as it says a lot about societies in general. The book I'm reading "Lila", by Robert Pirsig, discusses the...

Feb 12, 2005 - laos-entrada a laos

Relajense y disfruten de un nuevo episodio de desde asaia sin estres... despues de dormir en una guest house en chiang khon,ciudad thai ke hace frontera con laos, y conocer a sabina y a ingo, dos suizos muy majos, cruzamos a laos sin problemas con ganas de experimentar la sensacion del "speed boat" por el mekong y con una duracion de 6 horas con llegada a luang praban. el viaje no se hizo muy duro aunke la postura fuese un poco retorcida pudimos disfrutar del paisaje ke era una pasada, playas de arena blanca entre rocas con formas...

Feb 11, 2005 - Luang Prabang, Laos

Wed 9/2 Hot Lay in till 8.45am - LUXURY! Very chilled day, wandered round town, after having stunning brekky in a French cafe - lovely Laos baguettes and croissants, home made jam, bacon andf eggs, cappuchino, fresh orange juice - stuffed!! We can't do anything about our Vietnam visa till next week because of Chinese New Year (Tet to the Vietnamese) which is today - hoorah!! Sorted out some kip - big wads of dosh!! Chatted to a man with large jars of Lao Lao (whisky) filled with snakes, geckos, scorpians, and other grizzly things... he...

Feb 5, 2005 - Luang Prabong

Hello!! We have to let you know that we only came into the internet cafe' to get out of the rain.................there's thunder, lightening, heavy winds and lots of things flying down the street. Everyone is just watching and laughing at all of the things going on around them. We've actually been seeing this for the last couple of days since we got here at it's really COOL!!! The town of Luang Prabong, itself, is a real tourist area and we see the signs of things to come in the next few years. The locals have got this idea that tourists...