Visions of Laos

March 13, 2009

I just purchased a laptop in Bangkok, an item I've been going crazy without for the past 6 and a half months. This blog could've benefited much more if I had a computer with me on long bus trips and during down time from all the sight seeing and the general cultural enrichment.

So, I've finally had a look at all the photos I've taken since India, back in October. Thought I'd show y'all some of the places I've sort of breezed over in the past few weeks.

Laos is a beautiful, vibrant, slow-paced country. The gentle, green Mekong is the lifeblood of the country. Monks draped in saffron robes roam the streets of the cities. Laos is a land of waterfalls and Asian black bears which are much smaller than their North American cousins. They also have manes, like lions.

The little, dusty village of Vang Vieng is a must-stop for the younger backpacker crowd. The draw: tubing down a subsidiary of the Mekong and being roped in (literally) by Lao people at riverside bars, then drinking, dancing, and trapezing back into the river to float to the next drinking establishment. The only problem with this town, beside the yearly casualties of tubing (and people do die from this activity), is that about one in four people get food poisoning while there. I was one such case.

Though I've no photos of it, the capital city of Vientiane is another stop on the trail to Vietnam or Cambodia. It was frightfully hot while I was there. I spent my few days in the city recovering from food poisoning moving from air-conditioned cafe to air-conditioned Internet cafe to air-conditioned museum. Then I continued the journey southward.

The last photos are of a place in southern Laos called 4,000 Islands. This was one of my favorite stops. Many of the islands in the Mekong have only gotten electricity in the past three years. Lao people spend much of the day lazing in hammocks in the shade under their houses built on stilts near the riverside. Though mentioned in the Lonely Planet, this place still feels like it hasn't fully been discovered. In a few years, though, it might just become another Vang Vieng.