Patricia and Andre’s RTW Adventure

So here we are in Luang Prabang, smack dab in the middle of northern Laos…….After our fun on New Years with our Laos friends, we entered the slow pace that Laos is known for…..Unfortunately,that means that travel is REALLY slow and getting in and out of certain areas just makes us want to pack up and get out! Our bus ride from the capital took 10 hours to arrive here in Luang Prabang which is why, in my earlier posts I mentioned how we broke up the trip in Vang Vieng along the way. Those 10 hours are spent driving only 300km! How could this be possible?! Well, the road is extremely twisty-turny, like being on a roller coaster at times since Andre had to hold himself into his seat and I think I have a permanent bruise on my arm from being pushed into the window rail……..average speed according to our GPS was 35km/h……yes, GPS….What else are we supposed to do to entertain ourselves on such an extreme ride?! And although we were fine and had no problems with motion sickness, 2 kids in the back of the bus barfed on their parents, the bus pulled over and they changed clothes….then the local women sitting in front of us started spitting and heaving into her bag and then the mom and daughter sitting across the isle from us shared the same barf bag all the while we’re trying to ignore our surroundings!!! Andre, of course, has entered into the realm of “Isn’t it peculiar the way that the eyes and the brain just don’t connect on certain levels and send mixed singles….it’s very illogical”…..I’m just trying not to smell all the barf around me……
So when we finally arrive here…….we find out that there’s only one way back out of here – the exact way we came in!!!!!!!!! I CANNOT do this, not with barfers all around! I mean, close your eyes, don’t eat so much food when we stop at the breaks – TAKE GRAVOL!!! AHHHHhhhhhhhh

The first night here we ate at the Mekong river’s edge…….and got a really bad bug from it. Sat us in our place for 3 days…..we don’t want to get on a 10 hours bus ride not feeling well….and when Immodium won’t do the trick, we found a big block of Gouda – good old fashioned way! Yes, the cheese is fine here, imported from places in Europe. The french influence can be seen everywhere especially in the hundreds of baguettes being sold at the night market and a great french red wine selection everywhere. Anyhow, that’s a HUGE aside…

Another little peave is even though we had brought US dollars and Thai Baht with us thanks to suggestions from Mary and Dan, it’s was hard to guage how much, and would everywhere accept this currency instead of their own??….we weren’t sure. We had counted on being able to get out some US dollars from the Exchange counters here but they only want to give you kip (Laos currency)……to clarify, the largest Kip note is 20,000 = $2 …..so to withdraw $400 would mean getting 400 million kip! The wads of cash are enormous and Andre has a lot of fun trying to knock me out with them….it just gets a bit frustrating feeling like you may run out of money only because you cannot access it without taking out millions (a usable amount for travelling the country but a wad that will draw attention from miles around), and there’s only 2 other places where we can get it in the country. One of them we’ll be passing through in the night, so its not an option. The money issue will also become important when we cross the border into Cambodia from Laos. There is supposedly a “processing fee” for the border patrol guys…something like $1-5US…and we didn’t have any small denominations! And then a $40 boat down the Mekon to get us to Phenom Phen……But now we’re cool as we finally found a bank that will give us US dollars – although we had to agree to take 50% of the money in kip, of course!

Tomorrow we’re going to Phonsovan to see the Plain of Jars……another 10 hour bus ride but we’ve decided to grin and bare it!! Then another bus ride out – all kinds of back tracking……then south on another 9 hour bus ride where hopefully we will complete the travels by bus in Laos and end it with a boat down the Mekong! I have packed a lot of gum, gravol, fisherman friends, whatever I can get to remove any barf smell from the air. I realize that I should have brought Vicks vapo rub….I could have shoved it up my nose…….

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2006 at 7:36 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.