Hello everyone,
Whoah, what a journey, after three days travelling from Chiang Mai (One day on a bus, two days on a boat) we finally arrived last night in Luang Prabang, the old capital of Laos. The slow boat, while not quite as awesome as Simon made it out to be, turned out to be quite bearable due to some new friends we made coupled with the presence of the now ubiquitous Beer Lao. I don't think Laos has tourism quite figured out yet, as we found out when we paid for our boat trip, only to be given back the money in two fat wads of 5000 kip notes - one to pay on the first day, one to pay on the second.
Which brings me to the Lao currency: the kip. I had been led to believe that any combination of Lao Kip, Thai Baht, and US Dollars were widely accepted here, however it seems that the government are making a strong push to legitimise the local currency, and have illegalised the use of foreign currencies. Not realising was I was getting myself into, I exchanged US$100 at the border, only to be given 160(!!!) 5000 kip notes in return.
Anyway, now we are in Luang Prabang, which is by far the prettiest, well kept place we have seen since we left. Occupying a rather picturesque setting on the Mekong River, the entire town is beautifully landscaped and clean, the footpaths are nicely paved and lacking in the potholes that we've become used to avoiding, and the sound of tuk-tuks has been replaced by that of pushbike bells. Most of the architecture here is in a surprisingly well preserved French Colonial style and the town almost feels like it belongs in Europe rather than Asia. The downside to all this is that everything is a fair bit more expensive than in Thailand.
Now we are off to explore the town on the bikes we just hired. We should be here for the next two days, then it's a bus to Vientiane, the Laos capital, where we need to arrange our Vietnamese visas before we fly to Hanoi, with perhaps a side trip to Vang Vieng (TUBING CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!!!) while we wait.
PS. Good news on arriving at the Laos border - we found out that Jackie got into Melbourne Uni!!
4 comments:
Congrats on Melbourne Jackie.
Think of all those nights we spent disecting the likelihood of admission, and talking about alternatives.
Now we're all at Melbourne with no worries! :)
Laos sounds hot. We're in Dalat which is cool. When do you guys hit Hanoi? How much time are you spending in Laos?
Man I'm so jealous. I want to spend my hard saved monies on a trip there, the pics are awesahma.
Great news on acceptance at Melburne Uni. Sitting at work reading your latest news. How did you sleep on the boat? Any pictures? Is there much english in Laos? How are you going with the food? Has it been very hot? Everything sounds great so far. It will be great to catch up on your return. Take care.
Sounds like you're having an ace time!
I suggest some caving in Vang Vieng. I hear their safety standards are world class too!!
See you in Bangkok between feb 3 and feb 10....
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