Loving Laos

We are so happy to be in Laos. Vietnam was ok, but Laos seems great already – so much quieter, and the people are really friendly – everyone is ready to smile and say ‘sabaidee!’

We flew into Luang Prabang on the 27th and spent 5 nights there – a little longer than we had planned but we wanted to be somewhere fun for new years, and they were gearing up for it in a big way in Luang Prabang. On the night we arrived our usual search for hotels was thwarted by everywhere being full – eventually we found a place where they let us have a tent outside. It was cheap though! No sooner had we settled in to our tent than we found out the hotel owner was taking some of the other guests out to a local Laos disco, so we tagged along. It was just a tad different from a Western nightclub, mostly dark couches with a dancefloor in the middle, where the Laos youth did line dancing to a live band alternating with dj music. We joined in with the line dancing after a while, it was lots of fun!

Our days in Luang Prabang were mostly spent moseying around. We did a lot of walking around to different Wats (temples) and some museums, drinking beer and watching the sunset. We also visited a nice waterfall just outside the city (took some sweet talking to get in as we didn’t know it had an entry fee and hadn’t brought enough money) where Scott went swimming in the waterholes (Shell was too wussy – it was freezing!) and we visited some bears that were in a sanctuary after being saved from illegal wildlife trading. While waiting for our fellow minibus passengers to come back we also had fun watching baby chickens and puppies running around in the carpark. It’s always hard watching the way animals are treated in Asia. Some seem to be happy – dogs and pigs and chickens that get to roam around wherever they want – but others get treated really badly, like the little birds in tiny tiny basket cages they were selling at a temple we visited, presumably for worshippers to set free as a gift to buddha. I don’t think he would have liked the idea.

We also spent a day cycling around the countryside, and it was great to get out of town and do some decent exercise. We had lunch in a tiny village and visited some more wats – one of which was 5 levels high and was covered inside with ornate paintings of buddha’s life, and also the different types of hells! A friendly well-meaning monk offered to explain the paintings to us, but his limited english combined with his enthusiasm for the subject matter meant it was a a slow and painful process and so we escaped as soon as we could without offending him. We are enjoying seeing the monks everywhere again, the town looks so much nicer with orange-robed monks wandering around everywhere. Apparently they have a ceremony every day at 6am where all the monks walk down the main street and the villagers offer them food – we meant to go really we did but we are just too lazy for 6am.

Finally, after chilling out in Luang Prabang for a few days, it was New Year’s Eve! We were so excited! We watched the sunset with a beer and had some dinner and cards, then called our parents just after New Year’s in Oz, and headed to the pub. All was good – loads of people out, we met a few groups of people and started chatting and playing pool...

And then, at 10:30pm, Shell’s tummy decided it wasn’t happy. She thought it was the dodgy Laos cocktail she had just had, and even after we headed home at 11pm for a quick vomit, it all seemed better and we went back out to the pub. Met some more people, everywhere was packed and getting ready for a lot of partying. However, shell’s tummy didn’t want to party. In fact, it wanted to be a party pooper. At 11:50pm, it just couldn’t wait any longer, and so we ended up having our new year’s countdown in our room, in between vomits. Woooooooo!!!!! Lucky we stayed in Luang Prabang for those couple of extra nights. What a gut-wrenching story – that’s for you Brian.

Don’t worry, Shell was much better the next day, and even managed to brave a 5 hour bus trip. She’s saving her partying for later on in this trip!