Lounging in Laos

Laos (the final S is silent, thank you French colonialism) in many ways is the inverse of Vietnam in regards to tourism. In Vietnam we were always being solicited for a ride, drugs, shopping where as the Laos people... well they just sit around. In fact they do such a good job of sitting around that we thought we should spend our time in Laos joining them in this noble pursuit and consequently our time in Laos was a great relaxing time.

View from the boat en route to the Thai border. (This one is a bit traveloguey, but we need those every now and again right?)

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We spent almost all of our time in Laos in a cute little town called Luang Prabang, a sleepy little place next to the Mekong river and one of the lowest key places we've seen so far. There isn't tons to do at Luang Prabang if you don't head out on a trek, but not doing things is what was so great there. LP had some of the best weather we've seen yet. It was hot in the day (as is the norm) but at night it would cool down a decent amount, and we both enjoyed spending the evenings in pants. There were some great restaurants, the best street food we've had so far, and just some great places to lay low. After coming off the whirlwind that was Cambodia and Vietnam it was great to have a place to put ourselves back together. I should say that there were plenty of nice wats (temples) in Luang Prabang, and some neat ones at that, but we never really have an urge to post our photos of them. Megan often compares them to cathedrals in Europe, great buildings and spaces but after a while you get the attitude of "just another wat." The city also holds the old national palace with an ornately decorated thrown room and waiting rooms, but surprisingly spare living quarters. Probably not George W. standards.

View of the Mekong at Luang Prabang

There are really only two main tourist destinations near Luang Prabang as far as day-trips are concerned. The first is a place called Pak Ou caves, which has become a repository for Buddha images throughout the years. Since you can't destroy an image of Buddha, for obvious reasons, these caves have been used to hold all the decrepit ones from the region. In fact the royalty of Laos used to make voyages up here and to visit these caves every spring, though that tradition has since stopped. But this whole process of holding the Buddhas while they "die" creates this fascinating location of crumbling Buddhas. Fat Buddhas, thin Buddhas, "praying for rain" Buddhas, seated Buddhas, you name it they have it... and then they have 7 more of them hidden in another corner of the caves. It wasn't that the Buddhas were that ornate or well made, there were just tons of them... small decaying Buddhas everywhere. Pretty neat.

The Buddhas at Pak Ou

The long skinny boat to Pak Ou. Megan insists I include this to prove to her family and the Nyenhuis' that she was indeed on a boat on Memorial Day.

The other attraction was a nearby waterfall. The waterfall is a series of several tiers where one waterfall creates a small pool leading to another smaller waterfall, leading to another pool, etc... This leaves basically a series of blueish-green pools of cold water for swimming. Also one of the deeper pools had a rope swing, which both the tourists and local kids had fun on. We spent the middle of the afternoon swimming and then sitting around eating fresh pineapple... let me tell you life can be tough in Laos.

One of the many tiers of the waterfalls

Kids and the always entertaining rope swing

Cutting our lunch at the waterfall... mmm fresh pineapple cut with a new sharp object for Josh.

The last little bit of our time in Laos was a two day boat ride up the Mekong River from Luang Prabang to the Thai border. The ride itself was great, although the seats could become a problem as most of them were simply wooden benches and the trip is 8-9 hours a day but still it was worlds better than two solid days on the bus! It was so nice to be able to walk around and have a breeze in contrast to most of our bus rides where I feel rather confined for the whole trip. They don't design these buses for 5'11" tall westerners. Also noteworthy: we spent less than $2 on our guest house room the night between boat rides. Can't beat that.

View from the boat on the ride to the Thai border

After that we hit the border and took a bus to Chaing Mai, which we are leaving soon for points south. Sorry if this post is a bit more traveloguey than most but we just wanted to give an update about this great little place that was perfect to recover from the busy travels we've had so far.

P.S.

An obligatory picture of one of the wats at Luang Prabang.