Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We crossed the border with Laos on the 19th of December by boat, and what a difference it was from on eside to the other! Laos is not as developed as Thailand - it takes much more time to travel, food is less extensive in choice and plainer, people speak less English and everything looks much less developed. We went up north first, and stayed a few days in the hills near the Chinese border. Quite cold at night, and foggy in the morning but when the sun comes out by 10 or 11 am it is like summer in the south of Europe! In one village we hired a bike and visited lots of villages where people live in small bamboo huts and lack all luxuries but 1 or 2 - a big satellite dish and tv, and possibly a motor bike.... If not for that you would consider yourself in the middle ages! In another village we walked around the area all day to visit villages with different ethnic tribes - the women still wear traditional clothes most of the time, very nice to see. On our way down we tried to download our pictures on our memory stick when all of a sudden a month's worth of pictures was lost on the computer and on the memory stick ..... I guess we just have to hold the pictures in our mind but it woudl have been nice to share and have them as a memory... On Christmas day we arrived after a day and a half in the bus in Nong Kiauw, a beautiful village on the River Ou, with lots of steep hills, and not much else. We hired together with a Dutch couple a guide on boxing day to walk in the vicinity. At the end of the day we went back by boat on the river, really amazing scenery especially when the sun is setting!!!! We left the 28th for Luang Prabang, a French colonial town. Apparently THE place to be for New Year's because we had difficulty getting a room from the 30th onwards... But after 3 hours searching we finally managed to find something. Lots of tourists here, not just westerners but loads of Lao people from Vientiane (capital) as well. It is nice to eat bread with cheese again and to have more choice than 2 restaurants, so all those people we just have to accept in return for a bit of luxury. We try to use this place to chill a bit, before we go to Vientiane and then to the south of Laos. We have been here almost 2 weeks and our visa lasts another 2, so hopefully we do not have to rush getting to Cambodia! Laos is really very relaxed and we enjoy it, so we are not keen to leave yet...
- comments