we are now in Laos. so far, my favorite country in the entire world.
for those of you that need an update....we left india, after 2 fantastic days in delhi wandering the crowded streets for the last time with a crazy Canadian river guide named Bernie and his Dutch traveling partner Wendy.
we arrived bangkok without problems and flew directly to phuket, the hub of beach tourism in the south of thailand, where we had planned to island hop and relax on beautiful beaches, sea kayak, snorkel, scuba dive, rock climb, etc. but we experienced severe reverse-culture-shock, as this part of thailand is extremely developed and western and basically feels like one huge european vacation. which it is. and although we knew thats what it was beforehand, our expectation to be wanting an easy, organized, relaxing beach vacation after finishign india was ultimately incorrect. we immediately felt out of place and knew we had to get back to the more difficult, more undeveloped, more disorganized backpacker trail.
so, after a few days making the most of our time in thailand and actually really enjoying ourselves (though this meant walking through shopping malls and eating ice cream at swensens) we changed our plane ticket and flew back to bangkok. we somehow found ourselves on a really cheap flight to Nong Kai, the thai town on the Lao border, and then at a food stall in the middle of the street eating a whole chicken with a 57-year old gay norweigan man, who was very excited to tell us stories about his career in the flower-selling business and his estonian lovers.
we spent the night in Nong Kai at a beautiful carved-teak guesthouse right on the mekong river, and spent the next morning exploring the alleyway markets, where you can buy anything from boiled chicken feet to silk scarves to 357 magnums. then we paid a 300 pound thai woman to take us to the Friendship Bridge in her tuk-tuk, where we got visas, crossed the border into Laos, and shared another ride with 2 italian guys, their thai wives, and one thai mother. i strapped our bags on the roof and jumped into the tuk-tuk, where i proceeded to speak a hilarious form of spanish-italian with the whole family as we drove through rice-paddy fields and kendall and i laughed about how much more comfortable we were now that we were back in the dirty rural areas.
now, we've spent a little time in vientiene, the capital of laos, and we are loving every minute of it. the people are absolutely wonderful, and almost every single exchange with one of them ends up with everyone erupting in laughter, whether they speak any english or not. the city is very laid back, and you usually have to wake someone up to get anything done. today we saw some impressive temples and monuments, and wandered through a really fascinating market where the cielings were so low i had to basically crawl through the whole thing, much to the amusement of all the lao people. just as we were discussing our long-term travel plans, we pretty much collided with the vietnamese embassy, so we walked in and bought our visas in about 10 minutes. decision made.
we've spent a lot of time walking this calm, relaxed city, finding french bakaries with croissants and pizza and bageuttes, and washing down delicious lao food with cold beerlao on the banks of the mekong river. today we sat next to a group of young lao girls who joined us in laughing at and with the owner of the food-stall, who was as gregarious as they come. he spent most of the time dancing around in arguile socks and plastic sandals, walking around rubbing his bald head and asking people if they thought he was handsome, and shouting to us from 100 yards away "yeah yeah, beerlao very good! yeah chicken yeah! you dont like you no pay!!"
the only challenge has been deciding which currency to pay with, as youll sometimes get the bill in Lao Kip, pay with US dollars, and get the change in Thai Baht. confusing.
soon we'll leave the capital city and try to get out into the more rural villages along the Mekong, explore national parks, and see what happens.
for those of you that need an update....we left india, after 2 fantastic days in delhi wandering the crowded streets for the last time with a crazy Canadian river guide named Bernie and his Dutch traveling partner Wendy.
we arrived bangkok without problems and flew directly to phuket, the hub of beach tourism in the south of thailand, where we had planned to island hop and relax on beautiful beaches, sea kayak, snorkel, scuba dive, rock climb, etc. but we experienced severe reverse-culture-shock, as this part of thailand is extremely developed and western and basically feels like one huge european vacation. which it is. and although we knew thats what it was beforehand, our expectation to be wanting an easy, organized, relaxing beach vacation after finishign india was ultimately incorrect. we immediately felt out of place and knew we had to get back to the more difficult, more undeveloped, more disorganized backpacker trail.
so, after a few days making the most of our time in thailand and actually really enjoying ourselves (though this meant walking through shopping malls and eating ice cream at swensens) we changed our plane ticket and flew back to bangkok. we somehow found ourselves on a really cheap flight to Nong Kai, the thai town on the Lao border, and then at a food stall in the middle of the street eating a whole chicken with a 57-year old gay norweigan man, who was very excited to tell us stories about his career in the flower-selling business and his estonian lovers.
we spent the night in Nong Kai at a beautiful carved-teak guesthouse right on the mekong river, and spent the next morning exploring the alleyway markets, where you can buy anything from boiled chicken feet to silk scarves to 357 magnums. then we paid a 300 pound thai woman to take us to the Friendship Bridge in her tuk-tuk, where we got visas, crossed the border into Laos, and shared another ride with 2 italian guys, their thai wives, and one thai mother. i strapped our bags on the roof and jumped into the tuk-tuk, where i proceeded to speak a hilarious form of spanish-italian with the whole family as we drove through rice-paddy fields and kendall and i laughed about how much more comfortable we were now that we were back in the dirty rural areas.
now, we've spent a little time in vientiene, the capital of laos, and we are loving every minute of it. the people are absolutely wonderful, and almost every single exchange with one of them ends up with everyone erupting in laughter, whether they speak any english or not. the city is very laid back, and you usually have to wake someone up to get anything done. today we saw some impressive temples and monuments, and wandered through a really fascinating market where the cielings were so low i had to basically crawl through the whole thing, much to the amusement of all the lao people. just as we were discussing our long-term travel plans, we pretty much collided with the vietnamese embassy, so we walked in and bought our visas in about 10 minutes. decision made.
we've spent a lot of time walking this calm, relaxed city, finding french bakaries with croissants and pizza and bageuttes, and washing down delicious lao food with cold beerlao on the banks of the mekong river. today we sat next to a group of young lao girls who joined us in laughing at and with the owner of the food-stall, who was as gregarious as they come. he spent most of the time dancing around in arguile socks and plastic sandals, walking around rubbing his bald head and asking people if they thought he was handsome, and shouting to us from 100 yards away "yeah yeah, beerlao very good! yeah chicken yeah! you dont like you no pay!!"
the only challenge has been deciding which currency to pay with, as youll sometimes get the bill in Lao Kip, pay with US dollars, and get the change in Thai Baht. confusing.
soon we'll leave the capital city and try to get out into the more rural villages along the Mekong, explore national parks, and see what happens.
posted by thane at 4:18 AM
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