Buddha Park

I've been hanging with three other solo female travelers for the past couple days and we all agree that there's just something about Laos that slooooows you down. The pace of life here is so slow, people are so relaxed, that you can't help but chill out yourself. So none of us has done much of anything here, until today when we all grabbed a tuk-tuk together out to Buddha Park, about 25 kilometers from the center of town. It was the weirdest place, just statue after statue of different Buddhas and Hindu gods. There was one giant structure you could enter, through a big mouth, and climb up to the top for a view of the whole place. It felt a little like Raiders of the Lost Ark inside. And at the other end of the park some guy had climbed up into the temple and was playing the flute, which for whatever odd reason just seemed to fit. It was definitely one of the strangest tourist attractions I've ever seen.




Remnants of an offering on one of the statues.

Vientiane

Oh no, am I getting so uncreative toward the end of my trip that I can only title my blog entries with the name of the city I'm in? I've hit another limbo moment... after the incredibly charming Luang Prabang, the rest of Laos just seems a bit blah. Actually the nature, in particular the mountains, are amazing, but as I am without appropriate footwear (I know that one hiking shoe is still out there somewhere on the side of the road in Kashmir!) I'm a bit limited as to what extent I can get out in it. Yesterday I settled for a lovely bike ride. It reminded me a bit of Taos, New Mexico in that everywhere you looked there was an amazing view of mountains.

I arrived in the capital of Laos today and am rooming with another solo female traveler from Austria. Our neighbor is also a solo female traveler from Australia. I'm not sure how many days I'll be here, probably at least a few days in order to arrange a visa to Vietnam. After a bit of research on airfares, I think I've decided to continue in Southeast Asia, down through Thailand into Cambodia and then up into Vietnam. As I start to think about my triumphant return to the states, all the usual questions are returning - what to do about money, health insurance, yadda yadda yadda. Maybe I can just hide out in SE Asia forever. ;)


I pulled over to take this picture on my bike ride. Holy gorgeous!


Humorous typos are everywhere here. In fact, there's a whole website dedicated to them, http://www.engrish.com/. I may submit this one. I have no idea what else they were possibly going for here... needless to say, I didn't order it to find out!

Vang Vieng

I'm now in Vang Vieng, about halfway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane, the capital of Laos. There's not a lot to do here, unless you want to go tubing (i.e. get wasted and float down the river) or watch reruns of Friends all day. No joke. Nearly every guesthouse/restaurant has TV screens playing episodes of Friends, all day every day. It's weird, but entertaining at the same time.

I'm using my time here to plot my next move. I'll leave for Vientiane tomorrow, but I'm not sure how much time I'll spend there. From there I expect to cross back into Thailand. When you fly in they give you 30 days, but when you enter overland they only give you 15 days. So... I'm very up in the air as to what to do or where to go next. I'm sort of craving another week at the beach, so perhaps another island destination.


The mountains surrounding Vang Vieng.

A little boy at one of our rest stops along the way to Vang Vieng. As if on cue he fell off his ball as I was taking pictures of him. :)

Ahhhhh…

Nope, I didn’t get a massage, I just got rid of my backpack. Today was a travel day, which means you’re going to get some serious exercise whether you want to or not. I bought some things in Laos to add to my collection and was planning to send them home. However, as I discovered, it costs way more to ship from here than from India. That seems to be the general theme of this trip: India is super cheap. So I decided to compress them as much as possible and stuff them into my backpack. It worked, but now my bag is chock-full and weighs three kilos more. I may end up giving in at some point.

I definitely have the sense that I’m nearing the end of my trip. It’s a self-imposed pressure, I suppose, but I’m being way more budget-conscious these days. I’m trying to prepare myself for the shock of spending as much on groceries as I can get by on for a week over here. Yikes.

Yesterday I met a guy from Alabama who had spent the past six years in Ladakh, northern India working for an NGO. He also happens to be into photography and is hoping to try to make a living doing that now. His stuff puts my photography skills to shame. Check it out: http://www.photoshelter.com/c/nomadruss. Definitely National Geographic material if I’ve ever seen it. Anyway, he was fun to talk to, and we ended up going to an Indian restaurant. He remarked that even in pristine Luang Prabang, this place definitely had an Indian feel to it. It was rundown, almost a little dirty, but the food was delicious. And the strangest thing is that I actually found myself feeling nostalgic for India. Yes, there are definitely things that I absolutely hate about India, but at the same time there’s something special about the place. I never ever thought I would consider it a cooler place to travel, but it kind of is. Southeast Asia is easy, which is nice, but in some ways it’s too easy. India really makes you work for it. It’s amazing what time and distance can do for your perspective.

Yesterday I went to Kuang Si waterfall, the one my friends had biked to. It was lovely.. Here are some pics from the day.


The waterfall.


Outdoor bath.


Village woman sewing.

I Heart Laos

They sell t-shirts here with that slogan and it's true, I do. I'm not sure I've ever been to a more chill place. Today I walked around some more and ended up crossing a rickety bamboo bridge which led me to a village where they weave the many silk scarves you can find in the market and make paper out of mulberry, bamboo, even elephant dung. It was a beautiful walk. The weather here is perfect at this time of year - cool at night and hot during the day.

Cristiano from Brazil left this morning and the rest of the gang heads out tomorrow, but I'll be staying on for at least a couple more days. Tonight we hit the night market and Jasper bought some things to try to sell back in Belgium, inspired by my plan. He has so much energy and was a blast to shop with. We were able to pool our buying power as well, which is always good.

Everything pretty much closes here at 11:30, even the bars. So it's maybe a little too sleepy, but I guess it keeps people out of trouble, namely the tourists. Currently I'm outside at a table of a closed restaurant, next to the restaurant where I got tea this morning. This morning's restaurant had free wifi so I am now stealing their signal. And listening to really, really awful karaoke from some bar near the river. Why is it that the tone-deaf are the most enthusiastic crooners? Ay yay yay.


Monk robes hanging out to dry.


Silk worms, right, and the fruits of their labor, left.


Silk thread waiting to be spun into a fabulous scarf.

Sleepy town

The guesthouse I’m staying in overlooks a tributary of the Mekong River, which actually has a pretty swift current. The sound of the water is so peaceful and is punctuated occasionally by the sound of roosters crowing. Those things seem to go all day and night.

My traveling companions rented bikes today to check out the waterfall outside of town, but I decided to stroll through the streets and get acquainted with the new city. There’s nothing I love more than happening onto some random alleyway; you never know what you’ll find at the end of it. There are plenty of alleyways in Luang Prubang - lots of great images to be captured. The traffic here is pretty light, which is a nice change from most of the cities I’ve been in so far, and I’m having to get back into the habit of looking left when I cross the road, instead of right, as they drive on the same side as we do in the U.S.

I anticipate my time here being pretty relaxing. The nice thing about having an open schedule is you don’t have to run around trying to see this temple or that statue; you can take your time. And honestly even if you don’t see those things, that’s okay too. The point of this trip is to take time to reflect and enjoy the moment. And if that means sitting in a café or wandering aimlessly for hours, then so be it.

I noticed a disturbing trend at the night market tonight. Almost all of the vendors are women, but many of them look very, very young. Granted, no one in Asia looks their age, but there are definitely kids working. My first thought is, Isn't it a school night? But the literacy rate in Laos is pretty low, so it's likely that these kids don't go to school. So do you buy something from one of these girls, thereby supporting this trend? Hmm...


One of the many golden Buddhas at one of the many temples. The temples here seem a little bit cooler somehow, maybe because they feel a little more weathered.


My walk led me to this one shop where the owner’s dog had just given birth to these puppies 9 days ago. Adorable.

Luang Prubang

We just arrrived in Luang Prubang around 5 p.m. today and already I'm in love. There is the most chill vibe in the air here. People are friendly, all the shops look lovely (with uniform wooden signs I might add), and they sell nutella-banane crèpes on the street. What more do you need? Actually, what more would you expect from a city that is a world heritage site? I see myself staying here for several days. I was lucky enough to meet a great group of people on the slow boat - two women from Argentina, one man from Brazil, and another man from Belgium. Two of them are a couple, so I shared a room in Pakbeng, Laos last night with Maria and Cristiano. We're also sharing a room here, which is great. Traveling alone is cool, but companionship is also cool, not to mention the added benefit of splitting the cost of a room.

The boat ride was lovely... and slow. The shores of the Mekong are lined with mountains and forests and tiny fishing villages along the way. There were mostly farang on the boat, but a few locals would hop on and off at various points. Almost every time we pulled into shore a crowd would gather. I had heard that Laos is even more beautiful than Thailand, both in terms of the country and the people, and so far this seems to be true. Tonight we walked the night market, where we also ate, and it seems that good food is just as plentiful here as it was in Thailand. The handicrafts, although repeated in some fashion from one stall to another, seem to be of higher quality as well. And the great thing is that the vendors are really quick to drop their prices. All you have to do is stand up and they're knocking 5-10,000 kip off. (One dollar is about 8,400 kip, so this visit will be a test of my math skills.) This is great because unlike some people, I don't really enjoy bargaining.

So, more to come. Right now it's off to shower and meet some lovely English ladies that I also met on the boat. This trip just keeps getting better. :)


Morning on the Mekong.


Women and children greet our boat.