Todd and Lisa's RTW trip

Really that just means ‘thank you very much’ in laos but we like the way its sounds!!

Where do we start with the entry in the beginning or most recent???? Its all been wonderful… maybe we’ll start with the mini-bus…. It sucked, but we got to the Chiang Khong (border in thailand) at a decent time to figure out what the story was for crossing into Laos. Just like everything else in Thailand, there were tons of agencies to ‘help’ us get our visas, ‘help’ us cross the border, etc. but Lisa was still so irritated that we went in the minivan… she refused any assistance. Turns out crossing the border is so simple. We hired a longtail boat got to the other side and waited for our visas on arrival.
Once on the other side and visas in hand, we found some slow, greasy food and bought tickets for the boat to Luang Prabang, appropriately named ‘the slow boat’. We got the feeling everything is sllllooowww in Laos. The s.b was a 2 day trip down the Mekong river. It was quite a trip!!! We all crammed on the big river boat and set sail down the river, it looked like the chocolate river in willy wonka (mmmm- chocolate!). We stopped for the night in a small town called pak beng. In the a.m. we reported back a 9 am and left by around 11 (the slooow boat). The ride down the river was spectacular. Laos is a gorgeous country. The mountains are huge with awesome limestone cliffs… any climbers best dream! That evening we arrived in Louang Probang.
L.P. is the second largest town in Laos… which isn’t saying much. It was occupied by the french until 195??. Because of this, the town is a beautiful mix of asian and french. Yes it is run down in places, but when you stop to look at the architecture, its totally french village. There are also a lot of french tourist… which means GOOD FOOD!!! We decided it would be a good place to late celebrate Lisa’s birthday at a french restuarant with Bordeux wine!! We headed north 2 days later, on a 4 hour bus ride and then another 1 hour boat ride, to a small village named Moung Nyoi. When we arrived in M. N. all we could talk about was how lucky we were to be in this tiny village on the river with no cars, no electricity, not so many people….. only in laos!! We chilled in the village, playing with kids and hiking to caves and other villages. We met some other people there who we got along very well with. When it was time to head back south, instead of cramming onto the daily riverboat, us 6 decided to ‘charter’ our own. We paid 1million kip for it (really)…. we never thought of ourselves as millionaires. The boat ride down was 6 hours of fun and beauty. These mountains are AMAZING!!
When we got back down to L.P. we decided that we now had to celebrate Todds late Birthday…mmm french food!! We spent the night and took the 12:30 bus to Vang Vieng. In laos, the 12:30 bus leaves at 3!! But we got here safe, sound and sick. Again, stuningly beautiful ride.
Vang Vieng is a cool little town on the Nam Xong river. It’s kind of hard to explain this place, but we’ll try. Its a poor little Laos village in an awesome location. Dollars are flowing quickly into the place, but its totally not developing… but it is. Guest houses and bars are being built, but still no real road. “If we build it, they will come” So hard to explain…… at first we were a little turned off, but then we started having fun!! Yesterday we rented rubber inner tubes (hehehe) and floated down the fresh water river (about 5kms). There were little bamboo platforms that you could pull up to and chill out and drink Beer laos on. Some of the bigger ones even had make shift rope swings. I know this could sound nauseating, but it was so much fun… and again the scenery is like no other. We had every intention of hating these pull up farang infested, culture ruining, fish killing bars but found ourselves jumping from the rope swings! We are so hypocritical.. but we blame it on the Beer Laos!!
Further down the river, you pass farms, women wading in the water collecting moss, men fishing, children bathing naked etc. really cool to see this all before we ruin it!! The culture in these little villages are still so intact and it is really special to see it. It is almost unbelievable to us. We had such a good time yesterday that today we decided to do it agian… this time on a kayak (the tube was a little slow and cold). We first went to a water cave. We strapped on head gear and floated through this huge cave.. very cool. Then we glided down the river taking in all the mountains. Even though we went down yesterday, it was still awesome today. So far Laos is treating us well. We had no idea what to expect, but are very glad that we detoured here!!!

These pics are totally out of order….
These are all from Moung Nyoi

How cute are Laos babies!

Apparently the whole village comes together to build their bamboo houses

This is our million kip boat

Our bungalow was the last one on the right…

The rest are vang vieng (just a little note about our headlamps–they actually had big battery packs attached, with spliced wiring. A bit sketchy when you are wading in water!!)

Tags: Travel

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