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Mission Impossible? <br />To travel the world and give you all a run down of adventures, experiences, things to see and the best bars in town! I may even stop here and there and earn a few bob...but after this who would have me...

Asia, part V: Laos

Richard Rosss
2006-04-03 13:45:11

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Laos - the land of a Million elephants

I flew in on Laos Avation, and I quote from the US foreign dept website "Travel within Laos should be restricted and citizens should not use local buses or Lao airlines". I now know why...the turboprop planes and low cloud made for shaky landings, but the hot dog for lunch made me feel better! They do not beleive in radar, instead going for old fashioned pilot skills!

Vietiene - this place is a ghost town. Granted it was a Sunday, everything was shut and it was so quiet. So i had no choice but to sit in a bar all day drinking Lao-gria (Sangria) with some crazy Canadians. The following day I flew up to Luang Prabang and checked out this place. Nice, quiet wee town. Loads of nice bars, restaurants and a nice place to chill.

The next day was a boat race and a carnival round town. The boat race symbolises the end of the rains and helps to guides the naga's (spirits) back to the fields. The whole riverside was a mass of stalls and the whole province had turned up. Strangely, all the kids were walking around with huge toy guns pretending to shoot me (flashback to Cambodia!) The boat races were ace - huge boats with around 30 guys paddling for dear life. I bumped into Teresa, whom I travelled with in Myanmar back in June!! Spooky!

WEnt to the Pak Ou cave - a cave full of budda images - what a waste of time! I do not recommend it!

Caught the bus to Vang Vieng - the route (13) was full of soldiers carrying guns. 6hrs later we arrived into, what looked like a dead end town but proved to be a tourist chill out mecca. Loads of restaurants and movie places...

I went tubing down the river towards town - along the route there are loads of bars where you can quench your thirst with beer Lao. I just chilled for the next couple of days, chatting to some folks and watching bad movies!

I went Kayaking down the river to Vientiene - I thought it would be a diff way to get back to town. SOme nice folks on the trip as well, even a bloke from Milngive, Glasgow! Arrived into town on Sunday nite and went out with chaps for several beers and dinner.

The next day I went to the National Museam which was funny as it had so much propaganda about the war in the 70's and all directed towards the states! The rest of the day I spent killing time - there is nothing to do in town, esp as the main pagoda shuts on a Monday! What a boring place! Caught the overnite bus to Bangkok, which was terrible as we kept stopping every 2 hrs to repair the bus as it was braking down...so we arrived into Koh San Road 2 hrs late!

Checked into Merry 5 GH and grabbed some brekkie. Met a guy I hung around with in Hanoi, he was off home to Oz...

Went shopping to the main shopping areas (Siam Sq, Sarawong Rd) - not for anything particular, just for a look. Re-educate myself in the shopping mall. I only bought some shaving cream from the body shop as it was only 80p! I went to the snake farm in the afternoon and watched as they fed chicken legs to the King Cobra's and then milked some other snakes - great place!

Ko San Road is still the same, crazy bustling place with heaps of different clothes/CD and food stalls. I am still amazed at how good they are at copying the lastest fashions or CD's...

Watched the movie '28 days later...' last nite. Good movie, esp good to see London empty of all traffic and people...and then to see Manchester burn...shame! Its Alex Garland's book (The Beach!)>

Plans - here for a few more days, then head down to the islands for the full moon party on the 10th, then still into Malaysia. Went to the Malaysia tourist office yesterday, so I have some more info on places to see.