We've spent the last week and a bit in Laos and it was definitely our favorite country so far. However, getting there was a bit of an adventure.
Being the smart people we are, we decided to take a 1 day bus ride and a 1 day slow boat from Chiang Mai in Northern thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos. The normal, beaten, cheap, and SMART way to do this is take a bus ride to the northern thai-laos border and a 2 day boat ride. We were like, 2 days on a boat? That's just silly when you can do it saving a day. Why wouldn't everyone do this?
Here's why: You're in a mini-bus for 8 hours. Fine if you have a normal, SANE driver. Ours was a lunatic, accelerating around mountain curves with 100 meter cliffs. The irish girls we were with have a video of it and we're all being thrown around, laughing and screaming because we're so scared. Then we get to the border, and calling it a border is a bit of a compliment. It's a road with a parking lot barrier on it and a little booth where the custom person was drinking beer with his friends. But he's only the border patrol, not the person that can let us through the border. So we have to wait about an hour and we walk a bit further to a 'proper' customs building. (and why they can't drive us through? That's still unclear) The first thing we see when we come in is ping pong tables and andrew immediately steps in dog shit (hilarious!). After they've stamped our passports (which by the way had a mysterious 100 baht fee) we were directed to a tuk tuk. This wasn't advertised in the brochure. For those who don't know, a Tuk Tuk is a taxi in southeast asia, but it's basically a truck and you sit in the bed. it's covered and has two benches, but that doesn't make the situation any better.
So we're heading in the Tuk Tuk and the previous bus driver says "have fun, no paved roads in Laos." Excuse me? So for the next 3 hours were bouncing around in the back of a pick-up truck with no paved roads on crazy mountain roads. At least this driver isn't a looney, but it had recently rained so parts of the road were eroding and we were constantly, narrowly avoiding these 10 foot gorges. Good times!!! The scenery truly is beautiful and my favorite part was having to wait for animals to cross the road...anything from cows, goats, and an elephant!
Eventually, we made it all in one piece after a very uneventful but beautiful slow boat ride down the Mekong. At least we were smart enough not to opt for the speed boat-it's a glorified canoe and they give all the passengers helmets. No thank you!
As for Laos, luang prabang was just lovely. A very beautiful, clean city with french colonial architecture and a very laid back atmosphere. The funny thing is the entire country has an 11:30 curfew so every restaurant, bar, etc. close and the city becomes a ghost town (thank you communism). However, for the foreigners in the city you can go 'illegal bowling' after 11:30. The first time I heard that I was like is this some sort of code word for an afterhours rave? Sure, let's go 'bowling.' But no, it's actually bowling!
Tuk Tuks drive you out to a converted warehouse with about 5 lanes of bowling and hundreds of westerners contininuing their drunkeness. And now we've been bowling in every southeast country we've been to! It's definitely a wierd thing to be able to boast about.
Next we went to Vang Vieng, but that journey and the town deserves a post in itself. We're in Vietnam now, meeting up with Andrew's Mom, sister, and Niece who get in tonight! More later!
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