November 4th, 2005 - Laos So Far
Beautiful waterfall- the best I ever saw
This place rocks!!
Even though it is really really hot here, and some of the places are dirty, it is absolutely an incredible country. Everything is cheap. Our room is $1.50 each per night. The people are friendly.
The last few days were spent in Luang Prabang. We didn't do much, sat around some cafes in the city and went to a MASSIVE waterfall 29km from town. (the roads here are so bad the 29km took 1hr to drive) It had a whole bunch of different levels to it and you could hike up to them and everything. There are 5 of us but we had 2 other dutch guys come with us so we had a good laugh. Eddie and Adrian didn't want to pay the park entry fee (of $1.50!!! cheap asses!) so they trekked up the stream and met us after. But hey payed in other ways! Both of them got leeches! GROSS!!
The drive to the waterfall was really neat. We drove past all these little villages, all the people here seem to live in litle wooden thatched buildings. There are children EVERYWHERE. It is sad in a lot of ways, because you know a lot of them should be in school, and some of them even serve you in the resteraunt and stuff.... it is such a shame that the parents need money here to get their children an education. The kids are so so cute though. They must see loads of westerners everyday, but they are all smiles and waves and chase after us, yelling Hello and stuff. I want a Laos baby!
Even though it is really really hot here, and some of the places are dirty, it is absolutely an incredible country. Everything is cheap. Our room is $1.50 each per night. The people are friendly.
The last few days were spent in Luang Prabang. We didn't do much, sat around some cafes in the city and went to a MASSIVE waterfall 29km from town. (the roads here are so bad the 29km took 1hr to drive) It had a whole bunch of different levels to it and you could hike up to them and everything. There are 5 of us but we had 2 other dutch guys come with us so we had a good laugh. Eddie and Adrian didn't want to pay the park entry fee (of $1.50!!! cheap asses!) so they trekked up the stream and met us after. But hey payed in other ways! Both of them got leeches! GROSS!!
The drive to the waterfall was really neat. We drove past all these little villages, all the people here seem to live in litle wooden thatched buildings. There are children EVERYWHERE. It is sad in a lot of ways, because you know a lot of them should be in school, and some of them even serve you in the resteraunt and stuff.... it is such a shame that the parents need money here to get their children an education. The kids are so so cute though. They must see loads of westerners everyday, but they are all smiles and waves and chase after us, yelling Hello and stuff. I want a Laos baby!
Speaking of education, on the same drive there were hundreds (well maybe not hundreds but a lot) of school kids walking/biking home from school when we were on our way back from the waterfall. I tell you! The distance some of these kids walk! The school seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, some of those kids must have had to walk 10km. Once again the children were all smiles and waves, and oh so cute.
I find myself a lot more interested in the history and culture of Laos than of Thailand and Malaysia. Laos has a sad history, there was so much damage here during the Vietnam war, there are still hundreds of thousands of un-detinated bombs around. It is sad because people are so poor, and can't even live off their land and farm it because it is ridden with bombs. Comming to Asia has made me hate America. |
Even more than i did. They are the ones who dropped the equivalent of 1 plane load of bombs every 8 minutes for 7 years (costing 2.2 million US per day) on a country their war wasn't with!! Why aren't hey cleaning up the mess? God knows they have the money! The nation and all americans should be ashamed.
Enough about politics. Today we took the journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. It is 130km and takes 7hours. That's right!!! 7 hours. Crazy eh? It is a very dangerous strech of road there are many attacks on busses etc (the most recent killing 12 and injuring 26), and the prescence of an armed guard with 3 guns (including a semi-automatic rifle) made us realize just how dangerous it really might be. At least there is someone there to protect us....
Anyways, Vang Vieng is a big backpacker centre. Lots of weed and opium around, caving, tubing down the river, all that stuff. We are gonna stay here for a few days and then see how we go... probably back down south to the capital and then back into thailand for a week or so of sun and sand before i head to rainy england.
Enough about politics. Today we took the journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. It is 130km and takes 7hours. That's right!!! 7 hours. Crazy eh? It is a very dangerous strech of road there are many attacks on busses etc (the most recent killing 12 and injuring 26), and the prescence of an armed guard with 3 guns (including a semi-automatic rifle) made us realize just how dangerous it really might be. At least there is someone there to protect us....
Anyways, Vang Vieng is a big backpacker centre. Lots of weed and opium around, caving, tubing down the river, all that stuff. We are gonna stay here for a few days and then see how we go... probably back down south to the capital and then back into thailand for a week or so of sun and sand before i head to rainy england.