The day we crossed into Laos started well enough with delicious scrambled eggs, toast with house made spicy apple cinnamon jam and good local coffee and fruit from our hospitable guest house (local coffee seems to be consistently good throughout northern Thailand). We packed our bags, got on the complimentary taxi to the border and checked out of Thailand. This is where it gets interesting.
After crossing the Mekong to the Laos side, just 20 feet from the waterfront is the immigration office. It consists of a currency exchange window and three other windows not clearly labeled but with crowds around all. We were lucky enough to be led through this process by our slow boat company guide or this would have been a longer and even more convoluted process. We filled out the necessary papers, attached passport copies and submitted our passports to the woman helping us who handed them to a man that periodically appeared out of an office door. Basically, you wait until you hear your name or see your picture up against the window of the office and then give them money to get your passport with a fresh visa. Unfortunately, Megan and I had worked out that we had enough Laos kip to buy our passports back with the correct exchange rate but not with the highly inflated one the officials were charging us to use Laos kip. We had enough to pay for Megan’s and while mine was hostage to Laos immigration, Megan went on a 20 long minute ATM hunt. We were charged about $6 more than if we had paid in American dollars. Live and learn (green is accepted or even encouraged everywhere, especially in countries where currencies are not traded internationally).
From there, our journey on the slow boat began, sitting next to a pleasant threesome of Canadian girls and two gay French men. The slow boat really was the right choice to see Laos. We witnessed the lifestyle of some of the different tribes dotted along the riverfront and surrounding hills, striking volcanic rock jetting out of the river and its banks and chatted with fellow travelers for the six hour journey. The town we stopped at overnight, Pak Beng, can’t be considered our first glimpse of Laos because this city had quite literally been constructed to accommodate overnight slow boaters. The only short paved road in town was perched high on a cliff and contained only guest houses, restaurants and small snack shops. We found a cheap room and food with ease after many solicitors.
The next morning the whole town and river was covered in a calm, low fog that was coaxed away by the sun about noon or so. Along the second day of the boat ride, we saw more volcanic rock formed in uniform directions or curved angles, small fishing and subsistence villages with straw and bamboo houses along the hillsides and naked children playing on sandy beaches. It looks like a slow and peaceful lifestyle through my western lenses.
We arrived in Luang Prabang late in the afternoon the next day and were greeted with the usual barrage of tuk-tuk drivers offering us rides which we respectfully declined. Our hunt for a room was long and exhausting; we asked at least a dozen guest houses, hostels and fancy hotels if they had beds but the answer was a consistent no. Around seven in the evening, we secured a private room in a great setting with no neighbors, a hot shower and even a private balcony (we later learned that this was the last room left in the guest house). We watched with empathy over our well earned dinner as other travelers were going through the same process to find a bed. Toured the night market after our meal. Same same and claustrophobic too.
The next day we saw a few sights but mainly just gazed at the city’s Indochinese pristine condition and relaxed starting with a delicious french bakery (very common in Laos). While the buildings and sights are well kept, many of the restaurants and bars are plain cheesy, opening with little thought except overcharging tourists flocking to a UNESCO world heritage site. One other weird thing I noticed on our third full day in Laos is that the beer in restaurants is the same price if not cheaper than beer in convenience stores. I am just so used to paying less outside a restaurant that it felt odd to me. Oh, and Laos drives on the correct side of the road too, which also felt foreign after spending a month in Thailand. Our quest for the Vietnamese embassy that day ended in disappointment. They were closed a whole week for Chinese new year until the following Monday. Looks like we would be getting our visa for Vietnam in Vientiane after all. The day did end well at a wonderful bar near our hostel (Ikon) run by a French ex-pat serving up delicious drinks, cozy atmosphere and a playlist much to my liking.
The following day we had trouble tracking down a motorbike to get us to the Kuang Si waterfall park, which was the highlight of our Luang Prabang experience. Once we had rented a brand new automatic Honda for the day, we sped off 30 km out of town to a stunning public park. It begins with an bear rescue center zoo exhibit for endangered bears and it was fun to watch them so close to you (maybe too close since a few visitors were irresponsibly feeding them...). We followed a narrow footpath up to an extraordinary collection of pools with still, turquoise water in each one being fed by crystal clear falls down from one tier to the next. They seemed to get more and more stunning until we reached the towering 100 ft. waterfall at the top. The whole park is brilliantly well kept, flanked by dense forest and complete with benches, ample trash bins, a few designated swimming pools (one with a rope swing!) and a cool zoo exhibit to top it all off. We ended the day by making the drive to the Tad Sea waterfall park which was a total bust in the dry season, but saw some more elephants up close (of course used as a tourist attraction where you could feed and ride them around or even take a bath in the river with them).
Luang Prabang was really nice, and more expensive than any city we had been in thus far. Beautiful old French architecture and Buddhist temples are a great mix for a city and this one wears it well. The delicious bakeries, the waterfalls outside of town and the superb bars were definitely the highlights of this town. Our next destination would be quite the polar opposite of Luang Prabang: the backpacker party capital of Laos, Vang Vieng.
The six hour bus to Vang Vieng was stunning in itself. We rode through steep, narrow mountain ridges passing small villages and endless potholes along the way. (It got me thinking that there is hardly ever a good time to be driving the roads in the monsoon regions of the world because they are flooded or landslide ridden during the wet season and doing construction to repair them all dry season). Finally, on the descent, we marveled at giant limestone knobs and larger peaks. They just seem to jettison out of the earth like broken bone through skin. I was not surprised to see spirit houses erected in front of more than one of these knobs.
The city itself is beyond saturated with guest houses and bars adorn the main avenues around the river. It is full of young Australians and other backpackers mainly looking for a drinking binge, an outdoor adventure or both. Kind of an Asian Cabo San Lucas feel for Aussies and Europeans I guess? There are weird lounge restaurants playing continuous loops of Friends, South Park and Family guy TV shows which we later learned catered to the town’s psychedelic fueled crowd.
Our room was as dirt cheap as it gets - nearly $2 a night but you get what you pay for. The room had a private bathroom with a toilet and shower but no sink or trash bin. It faced a chicken coop with several roosters and to top it all off, there was blood drops caked onto the tile floor. What a dump. We ate dinner and had a few drinks at a bar near the river run by a man with a total rasta croaking voice. His wife made the meals and his 12 year old son did the busing and some bar tending too. The real highlight here was a relaxing tubing excursion down the Nam Song river. The scenery backdrops were unbelievable and it took about three hours of gentle drifting to float back into town. Definitely recommend it to anyone!
It was easy to find an inexpensive quality room in Vientiane, our next stop about four hours from Vang Vieng. It sits on the border of Thailand along the Mekong and hosts another night market selling all the same goods. This market was located along a long plaza strip on the riverfront. There seemed to be a good mix of locals - kids on their bikes and skateboards and vendors with their families. I feel like we were exposed to some of the middle and upper classes of Laotian society and that was a first for us.
Over the course of the next few days I got a Bangkok chique haircut for a good price and we found a bakery that we visited every morning during our stay in Vientiane. We visited the Laos National History Museum and were appalled and surprised at the sad recent history of the country; between the French colonialism and being stuck in the middle of American imperialism bombing campaigns, Laos has barely had a chance to breathe in a national identity, especially with its extremely diverse array of peoples who claim Laos as home. We rented a scooter for a long bumpy ride to a secluded Buddha park with a variety of Buddhist and Hindu statues while school children played all around us shouting “Hello!”. We secured our Vietnamese visas (again with some issues with not enough American dollars - will we ever learn?) and viewed Lao’s impressive (and improved upon) rendition of France’s Arc de Triomphe. We visited a non profit center (COPE) dedicated to working with the Lao government to help people harmed by unexploded bombs and mines and to prevent further injuries, which was inspiring to say the least. As fate would have it, Megan received a 2nd degree burn on her leg by the scooter exhaust right before we entered the COPE center.
One day we spent going to the Hoey Hung vocational training center for women and dyed pre-woven scarves and tried our hands at weaving ourselves for a bit. It was fun and encouraging hearing the stories of some of the womens’ backgrounds and they were especially excited to have a man participating in their workshop too! We came away with a new found respect for traditional Laotian weaving and intricate patterns (and dyeing a deep indigo blue is no easy task nor does it smell pleasant either!). I hope machines never totally replace these dedicated artisans.
As little time as we spent in Laos and as much as I wanted to see, I think my favorite city was Vientiane. We spent nearly a week there relaxing watching HBO, learning about Laotian history and urban culture and eating delicious meals ranging from French, Italian, to traditional Laos cuisine. This city intrigues me because it is a big city that doesn't feel like one yet. In one section, you feel like you’re in any other metropolitan center. Just a block or two away and it turns back into the same village it has been for decades and for an urban planner, developer (or just plain Sim City nerd like me), this city is wide open with opportunities.
Though Laos may be one of the poorest countries in the world, what it lacks in GDP it more than makes up for in natural beauty, culture and genuine smiles. It differs in Thailand mainly in cuisines and extent of development of cities and tourism (even the language is same same but different). Apparently Laos five years ago was a totally different place as well with rock bottom prices and much fewer western visitors and it seems like this country will be going through some rapid changes in the next decade with China and other Asian nations eyeing its natural resources and tourism. While I would have liked to see what Laos offered in trekking and eco-tourism, we continue to learn that we cannot see it all, even with an open ended time frame. Next it’s on a 20 hour bus ride from Vientiane into northern Vietnam, a country that enchants me as much as it intimidates me.
After crossing the Mekong to the Laos side, just 20 feet from the waterfront is the immigration office. It consists of a currency exchange window and three other windows not clearly labeled but with crowds around all. We were lucky enough to be led through this process by our slow boat company guide or this would have been a longer and even more convoluted process. We filled out the necessary papers, attached passport copies and submitted our passports to the woman helping us who handed them to a man that periodically appeared out of an office door. Basically, you wait until you hear your name or see your picture up against the window of the office and then give them money to get your passport with a fresh visa. Unfortunately, Megan and I had worked out that we had enough Laos kip to buy our passports back with the correct exchange rate but not with the highly inflated one the officials were charging us to use Laos kip. We had enough to pay for Megan’s and while mine was hostage to Laos immigration, Megan went on a 20 long minute ATM hunt. We were charged about $6 more than if we had paid in American dollars. Live and learn (green is accepted or even encouraged everywhere, especially in countries where currencies are not traded internationally).
From there, our journey on the slow boat began, sitting next to a pleasant threesome of Canadian girls and two gay French men. The slow boat really was the right choice to see Laos. We witnessed the lifestyle of some of the different tribes dotted along the riverfront and surrounding hills, striking volcanic rock jetting out of the river and its banks and chatted with fellow travelers for the six hour journey. The town we stopped at overnight, Pak Beng, can’t be considered our first glimpse of Laos because this city had quite literally been constructed to accommodate overnight slow boaters. The only short paved road in town was perched high on a cliff and contained only guest houses, restaurants and small snack shops. We found a cheap room and food with ease after many solicitors.
The next morning the whole town and river was covered in a calm, low fog that was coaxed away by the sun about noon or so. Along the second day of the boat ride, we saw more volcanic rock formed in uniform directions or curved angles, small fishing and subsistence villages with straw and bamboo houses along the hillsides and naked children playing on sandy beaches. It looks like a slow and peaceful lifestyle through my western lenses.
We arrived in Luang Prabang late in the afternoon the next day and were greeted with the usual barrage of tuk-tuk drivers offering us rides which we respectfully declined. Our hunt for a room was long and exhausting; we asked at least a dozen guest houses, hostels and fancy hotels if they had beds but the answer was a consistent no. Around seven in the evening, we secured a private room in a great setting with no neighbors, a hot shower and even a private balcony (we later learned that this was the last room left in the guest house). We watched with empathy over our well earned dinner as other travelers were going through the same process to find a bed. Toured the night market after our meal. Same same and claustrophobic too.
The next day we saw a few sights but mainly just gazed at the city’s Indochinese pristine condition and relaxed starting with a delicious french bakery (very common in Laos). While the buildings and sights are well kept, many of the restaurants and bars are plain cheesy, opening with little thought except overcharging tourists flocking to a UNESCO world heritage site. One other weird thing I noticed on our third full day in Laos is that the beer in restaurants is the same price if not cheaper than beer in convenience stores. I am just so used to paying less outside a restaurant that it felt odd to me. Oh, and Laos drives on the correct side of the road too, which also felt foreign after spending a month in Thailand. Our quest for the Vietnamese embassy that day ended in disappointment. They were closed a whole week for Chinese new year until the following Monday. Looks like we would be getting our visa for Vietnam in Vientiane after all. The day did end well at a wonderful bar near our hostel (Ikon) run by a French ex-pat serving up delicious drinks, cozy atmosphere and a playlist much to my liking.
The following day we had trouble tracking down a motorbike to get us to the Kuang Si waterfall park, which was the highlight of our Luang Prabang experience. Once we had rented a brand new automatic Honda for the day, we sped off 30 km out of town to a stunning public park. It begins with an bear rescue center zoo exhibit for endangered bears and it was fun to watch them so close to you (maybe too close since a few visitors were irresponsibly feeding them...). We followed a narrow footpath up to an extraordinary collection of pools with still, turquoise water in each one being fed by crystal clear falls down from one tier to the next. They seemed to get more and more stunning until we reached the towering 100 ft. waterfall at the top. The whole park is brilliantly well kept, flanked by dense forest and complete with benches, ample trash bins, a few designated swimming pools (one with a rope swing!) and a cool zoo exhibit to top it all off. We ended the day by making the drive to the Tad Sea waterfall park which was a total bust in the dry season, but saw some more elephants up close (of course used as a tourist attraction where you could feed and ride them around or even take a bath in the river with them).
Luang Prabang was really nice, and more expensive than any city we had been in thus far. Beautiful old French architecture and Buddhist temples are a great mix for a city and this one wears it well. The delicious bakeries, the waterfalls outside of town and the superb bars were definitely the highlights of this town. Our next destination would be quite the polar opposite of Luang Prabang: the backpacker party capital of Laos, Vang Vieng.
The six hour bus to Vang Vieng was stunning in itself. We rode through steep, narrow mountain ridges passing small villages and endless potholes along the way. (It got me thinking that there is hardly ever a good time to be driving the roads in the monsoon regions of the world because they are flooded or landslide ridden during the wet season and doing construction to repair them all dry season). Finally, on the descent, we marveled at giant limestone knobs and larger peaks. They just seem to jettison out of the earth like broken bone through skin. I was not surprised to see spirit houses erected in front of more than one of these knobs.
The city itself is beyond saturated with guest houses and bars adorn the main avenues around the river. It is full of young Australians and other backpackers mainly looking for a drinking binge, an outdoor adventure or both. Kind of an Asian Cabo San Lucas feel for Aussies and Europeans I guess? There are weird lounge restaurants playing continuous loops of Friends, South Park and Family guy TV shows which we later learned catered to the town’s psychedelic fueled crowd.
Our room was as dirt cheap as it gets - nearly $2 a night but you get what you pay for. The room had a private bathroom with a toilet and shower but no sink or trash bin. It faced a chicken coop with several roosters and to top it all off, there was blood drops caked onto the tile floor. What a dump. We ate dinner and had a few drinks at a bar near the river run by a man with a total rasta croaking voice. His wife made the meals and his 12 year old son did the busing and some bar tending too. The real highlight here was a relaxing tubing excursion down the Nam Song river. The scenery backdrops were unbelievable and it took about three hours of gentle drifting to float back into town. Definitely recommend it to anyone!
It was easy to find an inexpensive quality room in Vientiane, our next stop about four hours from Vang Vieng. It sits on the border of Thailand along the Mekong and hosts another night market selling all the same goods. This market was located along a long plaza strip on the riverfront. There seemed to be a good mix of locals - kids on their bikes and skateboards and vendors with their families. I feel like we were exposed to some of the middle and upper classes of Laotian society and that was a first for us.
Over the course of the next few days I got a Bangkok chique haircut for a good price and we found a bakery that we visited every morning during our stay in Vientiane. We visited the Laos National History Museum and were appalled and surprised at the sad recent history of the country; between the French colonialism and being stuck in the middle of American imperialism bombing campaigns, Laos has barely had a chance to breathe in a national identity, especially with its extremely diverse array of peoples who claim Laos as home. We rented a scooter for a long bumpy ride to a secluded Buddha park with a variety of Buddhist and Hindu statues while school children played all around us shouting “Hello!”. We secured our Vietnamese visas (again with some issues with not enough American dollars - will we ever learn?) and viewed Lao’s impressive (and improved upon) rendition of France’s Arc de Triomphe. We visited a non profit center (COPE) dedicated to working with the Lao government to help people harmed by unexploded bombs and mines and to prevent further injuries, which was inspiring to say the least. As fate would have it, Megan received a 2nd degree burn on her leg by the scooter exhaust right before we entered the COPE center.
One day we spent going to the Hoey Hung vocational training center for women and dyed pre-woven scarves and tried our hands at weaving ourselves for a bit. It was fun and encouraging hearing the stories of some of the womens’ backgrounds and they were especially excited to have a man participating in their workshop too! We came away with a new found respect for traditional Laotian weaving and intricate patterns (and dyeing a deep indigo blue is no easy task nor does it smell pleasant either!). I hope machines never totally replace these dedicated artisans.
As little time as we spent in Laos and as much as I wanted to see, I think my favorite city was Vientiane. We spent nearly a week there relaxing watching HBO, learning about Laotian history and urban culture and eating delicious meals ranging from French, Italian, to traditional Laos cuisine. This city intrigues me because it is a big city that doesn't feel like one yet. In one section, you feel like you’re in any other metropolitan center. Just a block or two away and it turns back into the same village it has been for decades and for an urban planner, developer (or just plain Sim City nerd like me), this city is wide open with opportunities.
Though Laos may be one of the poorest countries in the world, what it lacks in GDP it more than makes up for in natural beauty, culture and genuine smiles. It differs in Thailand mainly in cuisines and extent of development of cities and tourism (even the language is same same but different). Apparently Laos five years ago was a totally different place as well with rock bottom prices and much fewer western visitors and it seems like this country will be going through some rapid changes in the next decade with China and other Asian nations eyeing its natural resources and tourism. While I would have liked to see what Laos offered in trekking and eco-tourism, we continue to learn that we cannot see it all, even with an open ended time frame. Next it’s on a 20 hour bus ride from Vientiane into northern Vietnam, a country that enchants me as much as it intimidates me.