A week in Laos

Laos

After we crossed the Mekong River we arrived in a small border town called Huay Xai and were given the option of either taking a two day slow boat to Luang Prabang or an overnight 10 hour bus journey.

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The slow boats.

The slow boats travel all day down the Mekong, stop overnight at a guesthouse then travel all day again the following day. The scenery on the way is meant to be stunning and although this seemed like a more comfortable option then trying to sleep on a bus, we choose the faster option

And uncomfortable it was. At least for one of us!!!!

Andy was snoring his head off as soon as we got on at 5pm. He woke up at 6:30pm thinking it was morning, haha. If only! It was so difficult to sleep as the roads were so twisty turny, we were swaying all over. I couldn't get to sleep at all on the seat so took my blanket and laid on the floor in the aisle, which was fine for a while until someone stood on my head! There were no toilet facilities on the bus so we stopped every two hours for a roadside wee, making sleep even more impossible.

At 5.30 in the morning we were all kicked off the bus, confused and disoriented at an empty bus station in the middle of nowhere, somewhere near Luang Prabang! A small bus picked us up and charged us half of we had just paid for a 12 hour journey to take us 15 minutes into town!

We checked into a guesthouse around 6am and finally slept.

The city of Luang Prabang is a world heritage site and although it is very pretty with some nice buildings, there isn't too much to do. Also, as Laos is a communist country, with it's rules and regulations, there is an 11:30pm curfew. 



Procession of Monks collecting morning Alms.

Early morning markets setting up.

Lao-French colonial buildings

Laos buses

It's very pretty by night, with all the restaurants lit up and although we had heard there were a couple of bars, we couldn't seem to find them and as we had to be in bed by 11:30pm anyway, we gave up looking.

We found Luang Prabang to be very expensive in comparison to Thailand and as we were trying to save, after overspending on various occasions we weren't that enthralled by the place.

So after one full day and night we decided to move on.

There are no train lines in Laos so we opted for a daytime minibus to our next destination. 

Travelling by day was far better as we didn't need to sleep and the views, scenery and mountainside villages we passed were amazing, making me a little fonder of the country.

Andy feeding the strays all of our chocolate chip cookies!!

So after our supposed five hour journey, that actually took eight, we arrived in Vang Vieng.

Vang Vieng town is definitely not as pretty as Luang Prabang but the surroundings are beautiful.

Another one of the Laos customs is no public displays of affection. Unless of course your a dog!!

We were subjected to this sex show on more than one occasion at breakfast!!!

After seeing more than a million Man U shirts and a handful of Man City ones in Thailand, we found this one in the small town of Vang Vieng in Laos!!!

The prices in Vang Vieng were half that of those in Thailand so it was good to be able to save some money. There is not a great deal to do in this town either, but there are plenty of pubs. Many of them are huge and have no music, but play reruns of Friends and Family Guy from 7am til 11:30pm. Not our cup of tea but I'm sure Angie would have found paradise, haha!!

The thing that really made this trip worthwhile for us, were a group of people we met at Full Moon Bar, where we spent every night.

The owner of the bar in the red top, one crazy guy!! And our good friend Hussein, who was celebrating his birthday and at the end of the night, paid everyone's bar bill, what a guy!!!

Andy and the DJ, who was one really cool kid.

After four days in Vang Vieng we decided to move on to the capital city of Vientiene. After getting picked up from our guesthouse at 9am, we took at three hour journey to the capital. As soon as I stepped off the bus I didn't like the feeling of the place, but we went in search of accommodation. Everywhere we went was either full or wanted treble our budget for accommodation.

Now I have been known to be impatient and impulsive at times and this was definitely one of them.

"Lets just get the hell out of here and go back to Thailand" I said. Andy, picking up on my mood, didn't disagree. So we went into the travel agent and booked a train to Bangkok. A mini bus picked us up and drove us to the border to catch the train to Bangkok.

On arriving in Bangkok we realised this might have been a mistake. Everything was covered in yellow and we realised it was December 5th, the Kings birthday!  

Now the Thais really love their King and seeing the crowds gathering around the city on TV, which can only be described as the ones for the Royal wedding in London, X1000, we realised there was no way we would find a room.

So another quick decision made we decided to jump into another mini bus and head to Kanchanaburi, two hours outside of Bangkok.

After leaving our guesthouse in Vang Vieng at 9am, taking 2 buses, 3 trains and 2 taxis we finally checked into another guesthouse in Kanchanaburi at 3pm the following day.

My god I need a holiday!!!!