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89: Vang Vieng Hell

February 24th, 2006

In my book Vang Vieng is Hell!
It must be the worst place to go to in the entire country if no SE Asia 😉

I could not bare staying here more than one night (and that was a pain) but I did meet a local teacher who invited me to the local grammar school to talk to the kids..

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88: Phonsavan to Vang Vieng

February 24th, 2006

After one day and a bit in Phonsavan which was enough to see the Plain of Jars I’m moved on to Vang Vieng. Phonsavan is not worth hanging around since there is really nothing here other than the Plain of Jars, a few caves and hotsprings apparently.

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87: Plain of Jars

February 24th, 2006

There are many Plains of Jars near Phonsavan. The meaning of them is still unclear but it is likely they were some form or graveyards. If I remember correctly the Jars are about 700 years old and made of individual boulders..

The whole are of Phonsavan has been very heavily bombed by the Americans during the Vietnam/Laos War and it’s surprising to see so many jars still exist (many are damaged though)

There are three main sites accessible to tourists which I visited in order of Site 1, Site 3 and Site 2. Afterwards we went to the old capital which was not that interesting apart from talking to a monk and walking around some nearby villages.

Pictures are here.

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86: Luang Prabang to Phonsavan

February 24th, 2006

Arrived in Phonsavan yesterday by public bus from Luang Prabang.

Arrived at the bus station in Luang Prabang short before 8am and were pointed at a nice bus when asking someone which bus would go to Phonsavan. It looked rather new with nice comfy seats and no doubt aircon too. “Excellent” I though, that trip shouldnt be that bad after all:-) I asked the bus driver before getting on “Phonsavan?” but sadly he shook his head and pointed behind the bus. So I turned around and walked to the back of the bus to find a old crappy bus in a rather sad looking state 😉 Well.. backpack on top of the roof and into the bus..

I actually travelled with two people. I met Ella fro New Zealand during my trekking in Luang Prabang and since we both planned to got to Plain of Jars we decided to jump on the same bus… Ella also met Erez (a Israeli) during a trip to the Kuang Si Waterfall in Luang Prabang and he joined us.

The bus trip took 8 hours over very windy roads up and down hills. the route is only about 200 km (120? miles) so on average we drive about 25 km an hour – speedy! 🙂 (Ok we had a break inbetween)

Nevertheless the trip was enjoyable all the way because it was pretty exciting to see the coutryside.
There are many towns/villages along the route 13 and almosty all of them are of the bamboo/wooden hut type variety.

I am amazed to see this since I though only more isolated hill tribes do like in these basic houses. It seem however this is indeed the main type of property in the rural areas.
The bigger towns do of course have stone built houses but even they are mixed with wooden houses.

At the Junction of Route 13 and Route 7 we stopped for lunch (Street Restaurant served some soup noodles but there were also a few stalls that sold fruit etc..)

We arrived around 5pm and were greeted by guesthouse touts who offered transportation.
We picked on that took us to a bit shaby looking guest house with shared open air bathroom/toilet on the main road. It as $2/$3 per night.
We looked at 2 other, better places which seemed more like descent guesthouses but Ella and Erez were happy to stay at the cheap place so we dumped our bags there. I was going to share with Erez..

Later on I decided I would rather go for a nicer place with private bathroom etc and change to a guest house nearby for $6 inc breakfast which had just open a week ago so was spanking new – Nice!

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85:Luang Prabang Trekking

February 24th, 2006

Placeholder

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84: Boat Trip to Laos

February 23rd, 2006

Backlog Post

Placeholder.. poor old Sascha needs to fill this in asap or he will forget..

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83: Catching up or the struggle to do so…

February 23rd, 2006

Catching up with things uch as posting blogs and pictures is difficult since many things have happened since I last had time to properly blog and post picures in flickr.

My blogs are supposed to be my travel diary though find find more and more that I don’t have time or access to blog online and wonder if I should start a travel diary of the paper kind 😉

The flickr pictures are mostly just a kind-of minimalist backup in case I my picture store get lost or damaged during travels but I guess its also handy for folk to see what I have been up to without having to ready through my mostly little entertaining blogs (hey they exist so I can remember later what I was up to not to you guys entertained;-)

Anyway whilst in Bangkok I will try to make use of the decent internet access and spend a few days doing only online stuff to catch up with blogs and pics..

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82: Could have been worse..

February 23rd, 2006

I took the night train fro vientiane (Laos) to Bangkok (Thailand) which is a 12h trip by train plus another 2h prior to the train to get and cross the border from Vientiane.

The trip was interesting in it’s own way and although I was glad to finally arrive in Bangkok I would do it again if needed. It could have been a worse exerience …
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81: Leaving Laos

February 20th, 2006

Greatly disappointed by the lack of trekking tours in Vang Vieng and Vientiane I decided to leave Laos and head to Cambodia. Sadly, I cannot. There are no flights to Siem Reap for another week (Laos Airlines only fly 3-4 times a week and all flights are full) to all that’s left is for me to cross the border to Thailand and take the overnight train to Bangkok.

Once there I will decide if I will go straight to Cambodia or (more likely) head down south to the Islands for some Diving before travelling to Cambodia.

So for now it’s back to Thailand..

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80: Quick update

February 14th, 2006

You would think I had plenty of time but I am pretty rushed at the momoment.

Just came back from trekking in Luang Prabang Province in Laos.
Trip was quite good with some nice scenery but overall I prefered the trekking in Chiang Mai since the forests were more exciting. I need to blog properly on this one but I am moving on tomorrow morning to Phonsavan to see the Plain of Jars and need to get ready for the long bus trip tomorrow (7h by public bus which is non-aircon *yikes*).

After Plain of Jars I have a good idea what’s next as I need to move on to Cambodia fairly swiftly now if I still want to be able to do some diving in Thailand before flying out to Hong Kong and Japan (I fly to HKG from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) which means a Thailand to Vietnam trip as well. Looks like I won’t have time to travel much in Vietnam though.

Not sure how much time I will have to blog over the next week but y pictures are piling up already as I have not had time to upload any pictures since I arrived in Luang Prabang. Shows you how busy I am (or how early the internet shops close in Luang Prabang;-)

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