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Hello, welcome to another blog update. I am currently residing in Cambodia but i'll recap in a briefish way the last two weeks that were spent travelling throughout Laos.
Laos, so I had been told, is how Thailand must have been 15 years ago. After a couple of weeks there I would say that's a fair comment.
We spent the first couple of days on a crowded yet relaxing boat ride from the Thai Laos border into Luang Prabang. The scenery was beautiful, hardly any human interruption to the landscape. Simple wooded huts along the river banks at lengthy intervals and bathing Laos families of a sunset were the only signs of life until we reached our stop for the night at Pak Beng. There the night consisted of Laos Laos home made whisky, a camp fire and a stary sky.
The following day Tom and I were still "Laos Laod" and for some reason thought it was a reasonable suggestion to be given a make over by Becky, after an hour we both looked very pretty, a number of other travellers strangely wanted pictures during our makeovers and we posed for photos after so there may be a few floating around on Facebook somewhere.
We arrived in Luang Prabang later the same day, mascara, eye shadow, lip gloss and the rest, much to the locals delight. I was surprised how tourist friendly it was. It was more geared to the package holiday clientele as opposed to us scummy backpackers with many fancy guesthouses and restaurants. It was a bit of a shame because it seemed as though the tourists had been totally segregated from the locals in this purpose built town. We visited the Kuang Si waterfalls whilst we were there and they were pretty amazing, certainly up there with the most impressive natural wonders I have visited (Facebook photos).
The nights consisted of drunken bowling as the bowling alley was the only place open past the 11.30pm curfew in the town. There was a good crowd there and I beat Tom on every game which made me happy, unfortunately Tom refused to share in this happiness.
After a few days we moved on to Vang Vieng, I heard about the "Tubing" that goes on there as well as the consumption of happy shakes, pizzas and the like whilst tuning in to looped friends, family guy or simpsons episodes at the various TV bars. Tubing was slightly ridiculous but extremely fun. You float down the river on rubber rings stopping at bars for a drink or swing and zip line into the river, wrestle around in mud baths and physically abuse your body in general. Many people carried a 'Vang Vieng' injury (now including Tom). We also did a little bit of kayaking /caving whilst there which was fun.The other 3 days we spent there were mainly spent being happy down by the riverside on floating bamboo rafts.
After a couple of really touristy places we were keen to explore a truer side to Laos and spent the last 4 days around the 4000 islands (Don Khong & Don Det). Here we rented scooters and push bikes to explore for the most of it 'untouristified' (new word) areas. Here I witnessed some of the most simplistic lifestyles from all my travels, living off the land there was a strong farming culture and that was their world. We were joined on the road by child motorcyclists, I think the youngest must have been around 8 and they were designated driver for their younger siblings. On passing the odd cluster of shabby wooden huts the smiling faces and heckling returned which is always pleasing. Don Det did have a 'tourist area' but it was restricted, hopefully these islands will retain their current identity for at least a few more years.
After there we crossed into Cambodia which will be covered in the next update.....
I hope all is well with all those reading this....for now its bye, ciao, tchau, au revoir, shalom, aufweidersehn......
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