Hello, it's me again! It has been some time since my last post. I suppose as I become more and more used to being here, and used to the experiences I have, I imagine you will all become bored of reading about them, or bored of looking at the photos. So, I am sitting down and forcing myself to blog today. Since the last blog, we eventually left Chiang Mai, and headed up to Chiang Khong, to the Thai / Laos border.

Looking over the Mekong at Laos, we boarded a boat from Chiang Khong

We made it over to Huay Xai, the border town of Laos, and settled in. It was in our plans to take the trip from this border town down the Mekong river, on a two day journey aboard the "slow boat". I had been advised to do this trip by another person who had, as well as by books, and fellow travelers. The other option was to take a bus, as the locals do. 

Here I go down the river on the slow boat

The journey on the boat was well, slow. The boat was PACKED, so full they had to turn some of the locals away, including one man who boarded with some chickens in a box. Sorry man! The boat takes a leisurely pace down the Mekong, and stops at villages here and there to either let locals on, or off the boat. Some of the villages are only accessible by the river, and it is obvious that the Mekong plays a large part in their lives. They rely on it for food. The first day's journey took about 6 hours, before stopping in Pak Beng for the night. When we got in to Pak Beng, it didn't take long before it started to pour rain. It rained all through the night, and most of the following day, which made the second day boat journey a little rougher than the first, considering it would be 9 hours this time.

This little lady liked to play hide and seek with us, especially Ryan. He ended up giving her a fan that he had, which made her smile so big!

After our second day on the Mekong, we arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos. This was such a quaint and cute town in northern Laos. Known for French architecture, including cobblestone streets and French influenced cuisine, it is a really fun and romantic old city. 

We got a really nice guesthouse on our second day here and did things like ride bicycles through the town, visit the Pak Ou caves, and enjoy the night market which was there each night. It also rained harder than I remember ever seeing for at least 2 or 3 days solid. We spend a lot of time experiencing blackouts, which were caused by landslides, and in our case a fallen tree.

We spent a total of 5 days here in Luang Prabang. We frequented a few places, actually beginning to make some friends, which made it a little harder to leave there. We had a couple of weeks to play with, allowing only a specific amount of time to spend in each place, until we were to leave for Cambodia to meet up with Ken and Tuyet. So, we reluctantly had to leave Luang Prabang, and we headed for Vangvieng, where we were looking forward to tubing down the river, weather permitting.

On the journey from Luang Prabang, to Vangvieng, we took a bus on Highway 13, which took us through lush green mountains, with views of valleys full of mist and rain that went on for days. Scattered throughout the mountains were modest villages full of happy half naked children, who wore no shoes, and many young children who were put to work doing chores such as carrying water from the provided watering center to their houses. The reality that these kids face daily is nothing that most children in my home country have to face. You don't see most children here in Laos or Cambodia living carefree lives, with nothing to worry about. Instead, you see them working, and working hard, all day, or pitching in to gather, collect, or transfer goods to and from villages. Most of them are dirty, have no clothes, no shoes, and sometimes, don't even have any parents. It is something that can make you really sad, or something you have to come to terms with in order to deal with it.
The kids here are adorable. 

We made it to Vangvieng, but the rain just would not let up. Instead it started to rain harder, and continued on through the night. We had hoped that we would arrive, stay the night, and then go tubing in the morning. This was not in the cards. Tubing consists of renting a large inner tube and setting off down the river upstream so you drift for a long time. The main attraction here is the bars, and the free booze. This wasn't what I was looking forward to, since I'm not really a drinker. I was looking more forward to having a fun time on the river. In the rainy season, however, this is a bit tricky. Because of the rain, the river was more swollen than ever, and thus, quicker, and not really safe at all.
We decided that our safety was much more important than going down a river, and the multiple people I saw with various injuries like; sprained ankles, taped up feet, people with crutches and mysterious tape on their legs and feet, indicated that this was the right decision to make. 
Vangvieng was not without incident for us, however. Vangvieng is known as somewhat of a party town, and here, you can find many items on the menu, guaranteed to make you "happy". As you can imagine, this indicates something other than just a natural state of mind. What "happy" menu items entail is, well, drugs. Well, we ordered a "happy" shake, thinking it would just contain weed (we actually asked ahead of time)... but, I think it had more to it than met the eye. I noticed that I felt high right away. My friend on the other hand, didn't notice it for a while, but when it hit, it hit like a bitch. My friend kept telling me he was dying. Now, I have been high before, and I know what to expect, only, we weren't one hundred percent sure just what it was that was in this shake, so, we were experiencing multiple symptoms. I had no hallucinations, I just felt like I was on weed, however, I couldn't really sleep, and I felt like a bus ran me over the following day.. That's not weed. It actually took us about 3 days to get over this whole thing and feel back to normal again.
We stayed in Vangvieng for 2 days and left the 3rd day in the morning, heading for Vientiane, the Capital city of Laos.

We arrived in Vientiane, and we stayed here for 3 nights. I thought that Vientiane was alright, but the most notable thing about this city was the orphans. It was really hard to see them, dirty, shoeless, and begging, day in and day out. There was a small pack of them who stuck together in the main part of the city, and there were about 5 of them. They all looked younger than 8. I figured that they must be taken care of by some adults here and there, but I am not really sure. One encounter that we had which stayed with me, that made me almost lose it, was when we were inside an eating establishment, similar to KFC. A few of the kids came inside the place. They are obviously not really welcome here, as someone was instantly up near them shooing them away. The kids walked up to the counter, and actually pulled out a wad of cash, which I assume they worked all the tourists and locals for to get. They pointed at something on the menu on the counter, and instead of serving the kids, they got kicked out. While they were getting kicked out, the main kid started to scream angrily at them as they were nearing the door, and once outside, they threw things at the door that they had near or on them, to show their anger. This enraged me and I actually asked the people working there, just why they couldn't buy food, when they had the money. I never got an answer. They didn't even understand what I was asking them, really. This is the main difference between countries outside of what I am used to, the U.S. At home, money talks; if you have money, you can buy something, no matter how dirty, smelly or gross you are. Here, little homeless kids, with money, cannot even eat, because they are looked at as a nuisance. Seeing this was really hard for me. It is through no fault of these kids own that they have to beg and follow people around daily for something to eat. All I wanted to do was help them. With a heavy heart, I called it a night.


We left Laos the following morning, and boarded a plane, headed for Seim Reap, Cambodia. 

If you haven't already seen my Wat-Fest 2011 album on Facebook, go check it out. I will be posting again sometime soon!


Until next time!
xoxo