Laos

This is really going to be a tourist blog, but I can’t resist. Laos has been spectacular. We started in Vientiane, which is a very nice capitol city. Most of the time we spent sightseeing, since we only had a few nights there.

The contrast of Laos with Nepal is amazing. Everything is clean and the people seem to keep themselves clean in Laos, although more people speak English in Nepal than Laos. I am not sure which country has more spectacular landscape; the Himalayans or the Jagged Mountains. The people are just as friendly in Laos as Nepal and the food is very similar. The religious fervor of Nepal is not as noticeable in Laos.

The first day we arrived, we went to a carnival. The carnival had balloon darts, kids car rides, food booths, etc. It reminded me of the festivals we used to have when I was growing up; our church had a festival every year. We ate off the street and really enjoyed the food, including an avocado frozen juice. I am definitely making them when I get home.

We took one day to see a National Forest, which I think was the wrong forest and there wasn’t much to see other than swimming at the falls and beautiful butterflies.

The next day we zip lined down the mountains of the National Forest outside of Vang Vieng. It was spectacular. Ironic, but all the other people that signed up (5 people) were from California. We had seen few Americans and now we have a car full. After zip lining, we took a truck with another group from California… weird… and headed for Vang Vieng.

Van Vieng is a village with jagged mountains and spectacular caves. We spent the day on a Motor Scooter and toured the caves. One cave was over 1km inside and at the end we could swim in the dark; a little scary, but really wonderful water. To get to the end many times you had to crawl on your hands and knees and it was very slippery.

After the caving we headed south to eat and came upon a local party area where they had tables in the river and the restaurants would walk through the water to deliver the food. We sat there for a long time and watched the tourists go by on their inner tubes. Of course, Eric was throwing water at them.

I will say that the place we stayed at in Vang Vieng was our least favorite. The owner Joe, who was suppose to be this expert on caving, was really obnoxious. He talked to us for 15 minutes and for 10 minutes was criticizing the US. A real loser from Australia (although he is from the UK and Irish heritage), who dropped out 11 years ago and married a Lao women, and does nothing. His wife does all the work. He doesn’t even speak the language yet. I think this may be my first trip advisor poor rating.

We had the minivan from hell ride from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang. It was six hours of windy, bumpy road and NO air conditioning. The van over heated once and the driver stopped to buy watermelon, pick up his wife and baby, and have a cigarette. You can imagine how tired we were when we arrived.

Well we woke up fast. It was the first of three days of New Year and Luang Prabang celebrates this holiday with tossing water on everyone. I mean buckets of water. The Tuk Tuk, which is an open truck, took us from the minibus station to our hotel. By the time we arrived, everyone was completely soaked, including our purses and hand baggage. Thank goodness our big luggage was on top of the truck. Since we were soaked already, we went out and partied with the locals and tourists throwing water.

The New Year is a three day celebration with water throwing every day. Today and tomorrow are parades. Although it is really fun, we are trying to miss the colored water and the black tar that they put on you. I am currently sitting in my room and enjoying the AC and taking a break from the commotion of the water tossing.

Namaste