Wednesday, October 26, 2005
A Little Heaven called Laos
While we liked Vietnam, we just loved Laos from the very first sight.
Laos is a relatively young country, founded in 1975 and still under developed. Laotian people are so easy going, kind, modest, happy, smiling and always greets you with "Sabbei-dee" (hello) and "Koph Chai lai lai" (Thanks). most of all it is (still) untouched by the mass touristic hand so people are rather authentic, most of them Budahists with lots of Bodha temples and monks in traditiobnal orange custom, marching each morning bare feet on the streets and collecting rice from the women.
Van Vieng. a cute little town asside to a river, surrounded by sticky rice fields and green moutains with absolutle tranquility. Spolied with the layed back atmosphere, great fruit shakes, panckakes, movies and most of all - just sitting and warching amazing reddish sun going down between the mountains diving onto the river .Naturally, went to explore the surroundings - a 15 Km bike ride took us through the villages, stalektite caves, Bodha statues into an amazing blue lagoon. also went tube riding (aka "Abuvim") down the river, with stops for "LaoLao", the local (horrible) whisky, "BeerLao" (the local beer), Omega and Swing with some scarry high river jumps.
Luckilly we arrived in time for the full moon festival in Laos, where the end of the wet season is celebrated by a kanu rawing competition (they take it seriously), funny naive dancing in a muddy arena next to the river to the sounds of local band. For some strange reason they run after each song back to their seats and then come back for the next song. go figure...
It was pretty hard to leave this Heaven-on-earth but finally we continue north to Luang Pravang, the ancient capital of Laos. the road is tough by nice scenery as it takes you between the villages and markets, in one of which we met ome belguic couple in the midst of a TV reality show with a mission to hitchhike from Saigon to Beijing without any money... so we helped them and got filmed as well.
Leaving this little Heaven payed off, as we arrived 2 hours before the begining of the full moon festival parade in Luang Pravang.
more to come.
Hanan
Laos is a relatively young country, founded in 1975 and still under developed. Laotian people are so easy going, kind, modest, happy, smiling and always greets you with "Sabbei-dee" (hello) and "Koph Chai lai lai" (Thanks). most of all it is (still) untouched by the mass touristic hand so people are rather authentic, most of them Budahists with lots of Bodha temples and monks in traditiobnal orange custom, marching each morning bare feet on the streets and collecting rice from the women.
Van Vieng. a cute little town asside to a river, surrounded by sticky rice fields and green moutains with absolutle tranquility. Spolied with the layed back atmosphere, great fruit shakes, panckakes, movies and most of all - just sitting and warching amazing reddish sun going down between the mountains diving onto the river .Naturally, went to explore the surroundings - a 15 Km bike ride took us through the villages, stalektite caves, Bodha statues into an amazing blue lagoon. also went tube riding (aka "Abuvim") down the river, with stops for "LaoLao", the local (horrible) whisky, "BeerLao" (the local beer), Omega and Swing with some scarry high river jumps.
Luckilly we arrived in time for the full moon festival in Laos, where the end of the wet season is celebrated by a kanu rawing competition (they take it seriously), funny naive dancing in a muddy arena next to the river to the sounds of local band. For some strange reason they run after each song back to their seats and then come back for the next song. go figure...
It was pretty hard to leave this Heaven-on-earth but finally we continue north to Luang Pravang, the ancient capital of Laos. the road is tough by nice scenery as it takes you between the villages and markets, in one of which we met ome belguic couple in the midst of a TV reality show with a mission to hitchhike from Saigon to Beijing without any money... so we helped them and got filmed as well.
Leaving this little Heaven payed off, as we arrived 2 hours before the begining of the full moon festival parade in Luang Pravang.
more to come.
Hanan
# posted by Hanan @ 7:20 PM 
