....I took the one less traveled by: January 2007

Hey everyone,

Ive had to speed up my trip slightly, dropping southern Laos off completely. I need to enter Thailand before March 4th or my 6 month visa will expire.

Im off to Hanoi, Vietnam tommorow morning via Vientiene. From Hanoi I will head through Vietnam touring all the major sights like Halong Bay, Ho Chi Ming trail, Saigon and other war attractions. Vietnam is massive so ill probably need to hop on a puddle jumper for the middle portion and power through the country in 3 weeks.

From Vietnam I enter Cambodia, heading straight to Ankor and other sights.

So how was Laos? Id have to say its a nice country. There is a nice quote about this region of the world, "Vietnamese plant rice, Cambodians watch it grow, Laos listens to it grow". The quote couldnt be more true. The concept of bettering yourself is more offensive than climbing a wat. The value of education, hard work, and healthy stress dont exist. The concept of time is also hilarious. When asking what time the bus leaves a vague answer is given. Asking how long the bus takes is another adventure. A six hour bus ride is more likely 8 hours.

I arrived in Luang Prabang via Chang Mai, Thailand. Laos airlines is one of the most secretive airlines in the world. They do not release safety records, being that they drop out of the sky often. I decided to fly from Thailand instead of taking the slow boat for several reasons. The slow boat takes 2 days. You have a steady paddle of 6 hours the first day and 8 hours the second day. As appealing as it is to sit on wood slab cramped with 80 loud French tourists really didnt appeal to me. The 1 hour flight was much better. Again the concept of time doesnt exist and the flight boarded about a hour late for no apparent reason.

Arriving in Luang Prabang was really wonderful. Set in the foothills of Northern Laos, Luang Prabang is a jewel. This former capital is on the world heritage list, allowing all the Wats, French Colonian buildings and other sights to remain untouched. I stayed with an American named Mark. Hah. Another Mark.

The 3 days with Mark were great. He is a a wonderfully middle-america-airforce-trooper. Say that five times. Mark has been all over the world and has served recently in Iraq. I learned alot from Mark and his opinions on the war were certainly enlightening. Mark is going on his second tour come March. Good luck and God bless.

The first night in Luang Prabang, Mark and I spent the night cruising the market. The market stetched about a kilometer with rare items like Laos silk, tapestries, opium pipes made of cow bone, wooden jewelery boxes, and homemade paper art. I almost bought a gorgeous opium pipe made of cow femur. It looked like a horn from the Lord of the Rings. I got the girl down to $50 american but I just couldnt justify it in the end.

The second day was spent doing a loney planet walking tour. Luang Prabang has over 50 wats and thousands of monks. Each morning you can hear loud gongs, drums, and chanting. Usually the roosters join in on the festivities and annoy all the tourists. Along one of the strolls Mark and I came along some younger monks that were playing hackey-sack. I decided to show them how its done and ended up playing for about an hour with them. Quite fun.

Day two was spent with Mark and two american girls. We went to two sights. The first sight was some budda caves which werent all that interesting. It was just a large cave filled with about 500 buddas. The second sight was a set of gorgeous waterfalls. Within the same area of the waterfalls housed a tiger and some rare bears. Both species had been nursed back to health and saved from Laos poachers.

In the middle of Luang Prabang there is a big hill with a Wat ontop. Two hours before sunset Mark and I walked to the top and started taking pictures of Luang Prabang. About a hour later the top was swarmed with tourists. Id have to say ive never seen so many amazing cameras. One girl had about 15 thousand dollars worth of camera equipment. The photos I got were out of this world. I posted several shots on a previous post but I cant wait to see them printed out and blown up.

Leaving Luang Prabang I headed down to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng used to be the smoke-weed, get drunk innertubing, and make babies capital of Laos. Today its full of movie resteraunts playing Friends, The Simpsons, and Movies 16 hours a day.

Arriving into Vang Veing wasnt the easiest of all drives. The imfamous Route 13 has a scary history. People have been killed, kidnapped, bombed and otherwise lost on this route. The last time a tourist was killed was way back in 1994 and the region seems pretty safe. Along the way I spotted several "police officers" walking around with massive assault rifles incase anything happens. Otherwise the ride was 6 hours of twists and turns, an older woman puked the entire way. It wasnt fun to say the least. The end of the drive was the best though. Massive mountains surrounded us and had the ability to really take your breath away. Thankfully our bus driver was going about 150km/hour down the road so we didnt have time to take pictures.

The second day into Vang Vieng I grabbed an inner tube with an Israeli traveller and we hit the river. Being dry season the water was moving pretty slow and the trip was short lived as we came along the first "fun park". Along the river the Laos people pull you in with giant Bamboo branches. When you get out of the water you are met with 20 platforms connected together. Enjoying a famous Beer-Laos is a must. Each one of these fun parks has a combination of zip lines, volleyball nets and lots of young people having fun. I joined up with a group of 6 girls, lucky me!

Being who I am, I was the first to try out the massive zipline/swing. Only about 10 meters high this swing was pretty tame but being our first swing we took it easy. After about 15 jumps we started to throw in flips, dives and other silly acrobatics. I met my first Japanese backpacker and found him so facinating. We decided to dare each other into doing probably really stupid things with this swing. Hanging upside down with just your ankles was something nobody seemed to want to attempt. The second swing was incredible as the height was increased a solid 2 or 3 meters and the speed by 25%. If you time it right you can flip/dive with no problems. Even the women were doing things you would never do back home. The last swing was the best because you zip past a sheer rockface and out into the middle of the river on a gradual pace. The pace allowed you to easily flip around and dive in without uneccesary risk. Most of this fun was capture by my camcorder.

Following a week of rest, and getting better from a nasty sinus infection that seems to follow me from Thailand, I headed to Vietiene, Laos capital. Again the lonely planet walking tour came in handy as it pushes you past all the major sights and attractions. Seeing massive arches, Wats, old French buildings and Museums kept me busy for two days.

I am excited to push through South-East Asia. Its time for something different I believe. This last month I hope to catch some great sights but Egypt and Turkey are so close! Ive already purchased my Egpyt and Turkey Lonely Planets and have planned to spend 6 weeks in Turkey and 2 weeks in Egypt.

Until Hanoi, Vientnam,

Farewell.

D.

....I took the one less traveled by

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Laos Complete

Temple Movies

Monday, January 29, 2007

Wats in Vientiene

Vientiene Walking Tour