5 Nights left in Laos!

It's hard to believe....our trip is winding down very quickly. We can count the sleeps we have left in Laos on one hand. We then head to Thailand again to meet up with my parents and finish off the trip! We're excited to come home!

We don't have much to report. We spent the day on a bus again yesterday. We spent the night at a nice little guesthouse in a town called Ta Khek, and then boarded a bus again today and we are now in Savannahket. It's another quiet town....there are a lot of these in Laos. We plan to spend two nights here. They have a dinosaur museum which we're hoping to check out tomorrow.

In food news....I've discovered an amazing new fruit. His name is Brian. No, actually, we've just discovered "mangosteen". It's definitely a favourite. It's very hard to describe the taste....but it's amazing. I plan to eat some everyday until we come home.

It continues to be really hot here. So hot that we're wondering how hot noodle soup has become a staple food in this country, or this part of the world for that matter.

Anyway, to my mom and dad, have a safe trip and we'll see you soon! To everyone else, it's 2 weeks until we come home!

Lazy Days

Enjoying sticky rice, Laos style!

Unfortunately, Brian and I have been a little under the weather the past couple of days. We thought Montezuma has had enough revenge on this trip and were taken a bit by surprise when he struck again. Needless to say we've been laying low for the past couple days. We're feeling quite a bit better today!

Yesterday we spent the morning walking through the city. We are still amazed at how quite the city is. As Brian said, we love the slow pace!

The weather is quite hot here as well....hitting the high 20's or low 30's. We spent the afternoon by a pool yesterday. Although the pool has seen better days, it was a good way to spend a lazy afternoon.

To spice things up a little and to try and forget our rumbling stomachs, we decided to go bowling! It's been a while since either of us have strapped on funky bowling shoes or picked up a big black ball, but we had a really great time. Our scores weren't too bad either! The bowling alley has definitely seen better days too, but it just added to the experience.

As you may remember, a little while ago we posted pictures of a scavenger hunt we completed, at the request of our friends. Well, they sent us a second assignement and here are the results.

They sent us origami animals that we had to construct and then place in their "natural environments".

Brian felt quite challenged by this activity. We find it hard to believe that ages 3 and up could make these things, as the package said!

Giraffes, eating leaves off some trees.

Lions....it doesn't get more real than that!

Elephants at a water hole!

Changing Face

We're here in Vientienne, the capital city. It's great...for a capital in asia. With a population between 200,000 - 250,000 it doesn't feel very big. It doesn't have any heavy traffic, any high rises, or any major tourist sites. It's pretty cool. That being said, there's not to much to do either. We spent yesterday just wandering around and checking things out. So since there's not too much to write about, I'll give you a little info on Laos itself.

So far it's a great country to travel in. The pace is so relaxed here. After leaving the hurry of Vietnam, you need to make a deliberate choice to slow down and be patient. Everything takes longer. Restaurants are very slow and you sometimes get your drink or rice 20-30 min before the main part of your meal arrives. When you show up at a guesthouse, you often have to find someone, and then the just sort of give you a nod and point towards where the rooms are. It's so laid back. They collect no $ or ID from you on arrival, unlike Vietnam where the hold your passport until you pay. We've learned to really like this, and we've even found ourselves walking extra slow everywhere we go.

Laos is the least developed country that we've visited in southeast asia...we'll it is the least developed in southeast asia. Here's a little of the history and some current events that we've learned.

Laos was made part of French Indochina in the 19th century. The Japanese had occupation after WWII for a little while and then Laos declared independence in 1945. It wasn't until 1950 though that the French allowed it to "govern" itself.

Laos was dragged into the Vietnam war since some parts of NE Laos were occupied by the Viet Cong. The US also thought that it was a key piece in the "domino effect". The Americans were worried that if one country in the region went to socialism, then they all would. So Laos got bombed. Hard. The US dropped more bombs on Laos than it did in the entire 2nd world war. It was recently reported that Laos was hit by an average of one B-52 bomb-load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973. Of the 260m bombs that rained down, 80m failed to explode, leaving a deadly legacy.

In 1975 Laos turned communist and signed a deal with Vietnam. Vietnam forced Laos to cut it's trade relations with China. The US obviously didn't like this either and also did no trading with Laos, leaving the land- locked country in the dust. Laos slowly relaxed on it's policies with China and the US, and finally in 2005 the US ended it's high trade taxes on the country. Aid has been arriving for years...but the US actually spends 20x looking for MIA GI's than it gives in aid.

For the last number of years now, Laos has been racing to catch up with it's neighbours. There are some signs of economic growth in the 3 "big" cites, but much of the country survives on subsistence farming, and lives much the way it has for a century. But times are changing and it's unclear how good it is.

Laos has a lot to gain from hydro electricity. Hugging the Mekong river, Laos has a lot of potential to harness the power of the 2nd largest watershed in the world. But the Mekong is very fragile. It supports the worlds most important rice growing area and the vast fisheries of Cambodia and Vietnam. It's the least developed major river in the world, and 60m of the worlds poorest people live along it's banks and depend on it for survival as they know it. China has it's hands on the taps of the river, and they have plans to build 36 more dams near the source. It's not disputed that building dams along the Mekong will bring quick east money to Laos, since it can sell the power to the powerhouses of China and Thailand, but it's also not disputed that it will forever change the fisheries further south. Some fish from Cambodia's Tonle Sap, migrate all the way to China's Yunnan province to bread. Since Mekong fish don't jump, they won't be able to use fish ladders. Who know what will happen, but at least they're talking about it, and not just doing it blindly.

There is also some major road construction happening. With the recent friendship between China and Laos, Laos is going to let Chinese freight move across it's land into Thailand. After the new bridge is created it will cut the transit time from China's west to Thailand from one month to just a couple of hours. The main road which runs north south in Laos (hwy 3), is going to get a major overall, so that China will also have quick and easy access to Cambodia's port of Phnom Penh. The overall cost benefits are in doubt. Forests along highway 3 are being cleared to make way for rubber plantations for the hungry Chinese market, where latex is in short supply. According to some reports, land concessions granted by the Chinese gov. to Chinese companies are not always voluntary on the part of farmers, and villagers are being told by the gov. or army that their land now belong to a Chinese company. Commercial sex, drug trafficking and HIV/aids also follow major highways in Asia. A study in India showed a 16% aids rate along a major route in s. India, compared to 1% nation wide. The WHO also says that aids is already really high along major routes in China, spread by long haul truckers.

Despite the deep-reaching rapid changes that these new roads, and economic changes will bring the majority of Laos people are unaware of what is happening. What will happen down the road is really uncertain (on my part of course).

Decades from now when Laos is looking very different, and it's citizens are able to travel to neighbouring countries with ease, will it be for the better? I don't know. But, I think it's clear though that if you want to come to Laos before it's too far gone, you should come now. Perhaps, even we are too late.

Happy Valentines Day!

So, to start things off we think it's appropriate to address the issue of the contest. There were many guesses, many tries, and many hopes. Congrats to all of you for participating. It was wise of you to use a wide range of resources to take on the challenge. Some of you used help from the world wide web. Some of you drew help from a Loas class you may or may not have taken when you were in high school in the 40's. Some of you tried to tell us what the rules were; making some sort of feeble attempt to bring down the hopes you your apponents who clearly had made more educated guesses, rather than just commenting 7 or 8 times with hopes of impressing the judges by chosing every possible option available. (we're not impressed)

yes yes, perhaps we should have told you what the rules were at the onset of the games, but we didn't. We left if up to our friends to use common sense, and to play fairly. We give our thanks to those of you who did.

B&E are pleased to annouce that there is no winner. This brings us much delight, since will won't have to lavish the vast riches of Indochina on any of you when we return. The correct answer: It's a store where you can bring your pet who is without a valentine. It's there that the helpful staff will match your furry friend with an appropriate mate. It seems to be very popular. (however we did see Bob Barker protesting outside)

We are in Vientiene, the capital city of Laos. It's good to be able to write that. We spent our day on a bus yesterday...it wasn't one of our better days.

We spent a good night in Luang Prabang after our long biking trip. The night market has an amazing vegitarian buffet. You fill a plate as full as you want it for only 60 cents. Right beside the buffet is a mouthwatering BBQ. You can add a peice of meat for only a dollar more. It was a great way to fill our stomachs.

The vegetarian buffet!

Amazing, BBQ'd Mekong fish!

The next morning we got up early to find breakfast, walk through the morning market, and watch the monks make their alms rounds on the street. We then headed for the bus station.

You pick your cup of fruit, and the ladies behind the table turn it into a delicious fruit shake, complete with coconut milk, condensed milk and ice.

We had the option of booking either a "VIP" bus, or an "Express" bus. Both promised airconditioning and trip times of 9-10 hours. The VIP bus included a vegitarian lunch, whereas you bought your own lunch on the express bus. The only other difference (or at least the only other difference they told us about), was that the VIP bus had a bathroom on board. Since we don't like the smell of the standard onboard bathrooms, we wanted to chose our own lunch, and the Express bus was cheaper, we opted to take that one.

Let's just say, that was a big mistake! Perhaps we were just really unlucky, but we had one of the worst bus trips of our trip yesterday. As we were sitting on the bus yesterday, waiting to leave, we could see the big, spacious VIP buses sitting at the bus station with air-conditioning pumping, and Westerners reclined in extreme comfort. We thought briefly of switching our ticket before our dingy, dirty, local bus departed, but opted to stay in hopes of a good cultural experience. And, as Brian said, "you want to remember this bus ride. If you took the VIP bus, 10 years from now it wouldn't stand out in your mind." Well, remember it we will!

The first two hours into the trip, it was shaping up to be a good bus ride. We had only stopped once at the side of the road for a short bathroom break. The ominous plastic stools that are placed in the aisle for people to sit on when all the seats are full were still in a pile at the back of the bus, and there were still empty seats.

The trouble came at about 10:00 in the morning. Brian and I both woke up from a little snooze to the bus stopping at the side of the road. We soon realized that another bus had broken down. In kindness, or more realistically, in the hopes of getting some more money, the bus driver decided to help the stranded people out. In Canada, they probably would have sent an empty bus to load the passengers and their luggage onto, but in Laos, things are done differently. The plastic chairs came out! During the next hour, we sat at the side of the road while bags of rice, and boxes of food were pilled onto the bus roof. We were stuck sitting in our seats since people were crammed on rice bags and plastic chairs in the aisle of the bus. The finishing touches were the 2 motorbikes strapped to the top of the bus. Then, we were ready to go.

Our bus driver was by no means the speediest of drivers. Initially, we were praising his driving skills, happy that we weren't in a bus speeding around the mountain corners, or through the little towns we passed on the drive. Our praises slowed down after we were passed by countless buses, and heavy trucks laden with produce. It seems that our driver liked to break whenever there was oncoming traffic (despite the fact 2 vehicles could pass comfortably on a wide, two lane road). Anyway, he managed to drag the 9 hour trip into 13 hours.

We started getting a little bit anxious after it got dark. We heard accomodation in Vientiene filled up quickly. We had hoped to get there by supper time. To make matters worse, the little kids in front of us had had enough of the bus, and were starting to get sick. One of the little boys threw up 3 times. I felt sorry for his father (as he was unprepared for his little boy to get sick, and ended up wearing it), but my sympathy ran out when some of the emesis landed on my bag and my foot, and the father kept feeding the kid. (Hence he threw up 3 times instead of just one).

We eventually arrived in the city at 9:00, very hungry, and perhaps not in the best of spirits. The challenge of finding a room proved to be a little bit difficult. Every hotel/guesthouse had signs on the door, stating "FULL". We did manage to find a room for the night, although we paid a little more than we wanted to. We got some supper, and I can't say that a hot shower has felt any better than it did yesterday.

So, would I spend the extra $3 for the VIP trip next time. Maybe.....

Luang Prabang

We're here in the UNESCO world heritage city of Kuang Prabang. It's a pretty neat place to be!

Yesterday we spent our time, wandering the streets, checking out the local market, and snacking on some great food. Today we were a were a lot more active however. We rent a couple of (half) decent MTBs (trek 3900 if you care) and road more than 70 km to a water fall in back. Under normal conditions it's not that huge of a ride for B&E, but having been off our bikes for nearly for months, and riding in flipflops with no padded shorts, we're now a little sore.

the honey lady at the market was also selling rats....cooked and raw too! Maby we should expand the horizons at B&E Honeyfields.

I got a flat after only 10mins into the ride. Good thing we were still in town.

that's more like it!

The ride was actually really hard. There were pretty much no flat sections the entire way, and there were some pretty monster climbs. One went one for almost 6km...we have nothing like that in Ontario. It was toatally worth it though. The falls were beautiful. There were several different cascades, and a couple of really great swimming holes! We had a good time! It was great to cool off for the hot ride back in 35c heat.

dare me to go in at the "do not swimming area"?

The other thing that's off interest here is the giving off alms to monks. This is something that happens throughout s.e. Asia, but is of particular interest here. Luang Prabang has the highest % of monks per capita in the world (were told). There are hundreds and hundreds of monks in this city of only 60,000. Every morning in the early hours they walk down some of the streets and collect food (all they eat each day) from the faithful. I don't want to more you with more details, but there's a bit more to it than that. Anyway, it's become a bit of a tourist thing as well. Not the alms giving...but as an attraction. It's a little sad to see people sticking camera in the monks faces, and standing way above them. There's signs everywhere saying not to do this. It is ok though to kneel on the other side of road and snap a photo or two. (or make a picture, as the Europeons say) 'Nuff about that.

One more thing. We saw this interesting sign above a shop and just had to find out what is was. Rather than tell you, we'll let you guess. So, if you know what happens in side this shop, post a comment and tell us. The correct person will recieve a very special prize when we return. Seriously!

give us a guess!

Travelling the Rivers

Sorry for the long delay in blogging. After entering Laos in the North, we spent 5 days in some small villages along the Nam Ou river. These villages were very simple. Electricity is new for them and still fairly unreliable, and there is no internet. It was actually quite refreshing to be in such surroundings. The scenery and the people were beautiful.

It probably makes the most sense to read from the bottom up. This will be the most recent post. Start with the one titled, "Travelling from Vietnam to Laos" if you want to catch up!

After a great time in Muong Ngoi Neua, we hopped into another boat to continue the journey down the river. It was a short trip and we arrived in Nong Khiaow in only an hour. It proved to be another small, peaceful, riverside town.

We celebrated Brian's 26th birthday here and were very lucky to find an amazing meal! We had lasagne, salad, garlic bread and even cheese cake! We finished off the evening with a good bottle of wine on the deck of our bungalow, overlooking the river. It was a great day.

Our Bungalow on the river.

To spend our time during the day, we walked to another cave. This one had been used as a shelter for Laos people during the Vietnam war (as some of the atrocities spilled over into this country as well. Not many people know this, but the USA bombed Laos very heavily as well).

For our second day, we decided, or maybe I should say, Brian decided it would be fun to climb one of the mountains surrounding the village. He got information from someone on where to find the trail going up the mountain. We figured since we had good practice with climbing Fansipan, we could summit this mountain in an hour or less.

It took us a little while to find the trail going up, but soon we were on it, heading for the top. It didn't take long for the going to get a bit tough. We soon felt like we were actually climbing, and not just hiking up the mountain. After about 20 minutes we were having a hard time finding the trail, but we persevered, determined to reach the top for the amazing views we expected to see. At this point I was hot, super sweaty and not too optimistic about getting back on the trail. Brian assured me it wouldn't be long before we reached the top, and that it would be worth it.

I would like to say that it was worth it.....but we came to a point after climbing for an hour when we decided maybe we should turn around. A few rocks were coming loose and tumbling down the hill. We could hear that they were tumbling a long way without stopping and we didn't want our fate to be the same. After a laughing away our discouragement we started the perilous journey back down the steep mountain side, wondering how we'd even gone up. We definitely slid more than we walked down.

All in all, it was a great 5 days! We took a 5 1/2 hour boat journey into Luang Prabang, which is where we are now. It's a beautiful town with great food! (We've realized how much we like eating). There is a lot of good "Western food" available here, which is a nice break from rice. We enjoyed a burger and fries for dinner yesterday, and an amazing banana and chocolate crepe for dessert. But don't worry, we haven't gone too soft....we're planning to head to the night market for some Laos food tonight!

Anyway, enjoy reading! Thanks to everyone for keeping up with our travels. We love your emails and comments! And we love sharing our trip with you! More from Luang Prabang tomorrow! We have a few more pictures we'd love to post...but our connection is too slow.

First Stop in Loas

( This is the second of 3 new posts so make sure that you continue reading.)
our first view of the village

After the 5 hr boat ride down the stunning Nam Ou, we arrived at the sleepy village of Mung Ngoi Neua. We had been trying to decide if we were going to visit there or not, while we were planning our route through Loas, since it's a little out of the way. When we arrived, we new instantly that we were so glad we went. this was the view from the porch of our hut

The village of no more than about 500 people, is tucked up against the Nam Ou (Nam is river), and lies in the basin of several jagged karsts. It's an amazing spot. It's only accessable by foot, or by boat, so it's really peaceful since there's no motorbikes or cars. We rented a simple little hut overlooking the river. We actually ended up spending three nights there.

There wasn't too much happening in this quiet village. That's if you don't count soaking in all the things that make this place such a jem. Kids were playing everywhere the way the only kids can. Whether it was kicking around a beat-up "soccerball", or stripping down to nothing to play and jump into the icy river, they were having a blast. Villagers were true villagers here as well. What I mean is they were working hard. On our travels that's one thing that usually rings true. Women were seen carrying huge loads on there backs, feeding the animals, tending the children, slaving over a coal fire, and working in the fields. Men were repairing their homes, hunting for birds, herding the buffalos, or fishing by night. Other than soaking in these sights, we also enjoyed reading in our hammocks by day, and listening the cicadas and crickets, or watching the bobbing torches of small fishing boats by night. With most of the noise in town coming from yelling children and eratic roosters, it was very peaceful.

We did however manage to venture out of the village into the fields and forest to seek out a cave we'd heard about. After walking on a footpath for several kms we came across a small stream with some men spear fishing. The stream they were fishing in actually flowed out of the cave we were going to check out. It was really huge....once again taking the place of the biggest cave we've ever been in. We snaked our way deeper and deeper into it, trying to follow the sound of the babbling stream somewhere below. After going in somewhere between 300 and 400 m, we turned out our single headlamp to see how dark it would be. Complete darkness! We quickly realized that since we had only one light, if it were to quit, we would have serious trouble navigating our way out of the cave. Also, since no one knew we were in there, we thought we'd better get out. Even in spite of the "danger" at hand, it was great!

not a great shot...but you can see how big this thing was

We continued walking the foot path for another 3 sweaty kms. We arrived at another little village, which was only accessable by foot. There wasn't much to do there, accept for wave at the currious kids and watch ladies sifting rice. We turned back and stopped on the way to eat the bread and bananas we'd brought with us. While eating, a dozen men with guns that looked like Sir Brock may have used once, came wadeing through the stream we were sitting by. They were out hunting birds we presumed.

It's great to be in a new country, and try to learn the ways of it. I think were really going to love it here...we already do! (you were right Rach.) With out any smoggy big cities, and a population of only about 7 million (small for asia), Loas has a pace that makes the other 3 countries we've been in look like they're in fastforward. We'll explain more later.

The food here has been really great also. It closely resembles Thai cuisene, but is distinct as well. In the two small towns on the river, we've seen a really interesting dish. Riverweed. Basically people collect weeds from the floor of the river and then beat them into a flat sheet, and then dry them in the sum. The often add thin slices of tomotes and garlic too. We've yet to try it...but we plan to.

We had a great time there before taking another boat farther down the Nam Ou.