Tag Archive: Laos


This is beyond the dancing elephant at a bar.

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.17, 2010

Well, continuing on from the last post…

We get to the beach and it is clear that they are not going to continue on by slow boat. Now they are trying to sell us 1000 baht per person tickets in speed boats to get to the next stop (Pak Bang.) No one goes for it, but again, huge amounts of time are wasted explaining we are not going to fall into their scam. They adapt, saying that they will take us to the spot where we will sleep in the sand for 500 baht (instead of walking) again, no one goes for it… well they try again, how about 100 baht and we just bring your bags? No dice from anyone. It seemed a few tried, but we all ended up in the same spot eventually.

Now it is dark, and our group of 80 to 120 people or so has been fairly split up as some had started walking to the sleep area, while others stayed behind to keep trying to figure out what exactly was happening. We started off as a group of 5, an picked up people as we wandered through the winding and weaving trails. Grass was taller than me on both sides and it was hard to keep sight of the person in front of you. Very quickly the remaining light from the sunset was gone and we were wandering in pitch black, always with some one in front, but never knowing who that was, or why they chose the paths they chose. We eventually found a village and some guy from there tried to lead us to the spot. Lots of confusion later we break over a bluff and we cannot even start to believe what is there…

Lights, bonfires, food stands, beer, people, people, and more people. Kids from the villages, music over huge speakers, it was a massive freaking party in the middle of the Mekong river. It was hard to wrap your brain around at first, we expected sleeping in the sand, maybe a small fire if we were lucky and could get some sort of dry wood from some where. Eventually we just became a part of it. Some tasty eats, my first (and last) “beer lao” and then playing with my camera to try and get some neat shots at night. These kids were quite fascinated by us, and especially excited to see themselves on my camera after taking a picture.

Eventually we settled in to sleep under Jen’s mosquito net in our sleeping bags.

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What is this? The rip-off store?

Filed Under: Thailand
Feb.16, 2010

Well, I don’t remember if I had mentioned before, but the place we got the “tour”/trip to Laos was at our guest house. We checked a few places, felt good about a couple, but eventually settled on getting it from our guest house because it was such a nice place and the people were always so helpful. We got a really good feeling for sure from it…

So we wake up in the morning, they let us leave our bags at reception and we went off to have our breakfast at the hotel we stayed at previously (which is connected to the guesthouse by management and proximity.) It was really tastey as always. The bus shows up (kind of like one of those big vans you would expect a bunch of rich Chinese tourists to pile out of, and once again we are the first people on. As we pick up people we realize that they are from some pretty upscale places, so our expectaions of the planned guest house (from the tour) went up a fair bit. I mean the pictures looked nice, but the pictures ALWAYS look nice.

We had a nice little pitstop and got some food, a little bathroom break, and then it was back to the airconditioned minibus/van; back to enjoying the countryside until we eventually pulled up to the guest house. We roll in, and WOW, this place is like some garden of Eden or something. The buildings are gorgeous wood siding, hidden among the trees, the brick and greenery paths through the gardens were picturesque. The pool looked fantastic, there was a little waterfall included, warm showers, lounge chairs, the works. Then we start reading the signs, and the rip-offs begin. Pool, an extra 50 baht, towel annother 120, cusion for the boar 40 baht… etc etc etc. They tell us that the way the tour is set up they need to send our passports ahead for the exit stamp, even though we insisted we wanted to do it, they said it wasn’t possible, we needed to fork over 180 baht for it too, plus they wanted 3 pictures for the visa (we wanted a visa on arrival, which shouldnt need a picture for obvious reasons.) They wouldn’t budge, and we didnt want to get stuck on the wrong side of the river with the tour carrying on so eventually we gave in.

I drew the line at water. I wandered through town to find cheaper water (as I drink a lot of it) and I refused to buy one of their damned cusion (it’s almost like I have some dutch in me eh?) We (Amy and I) DID give in to the pool fee as it was so warm, and granted, it was enjoyable, but when it was time to use the warm showers after… I think I spent a good hour in there enjoying the hot water after.

After dinner (no one understand a buffet over here I suppose) and a movie, we went to sleep in our room under mosquito nets, leaving the door open to try and stay cool through the night.

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Lao Jer Gun Chiang Mai

Filed Under: Thailand
Feb.15, 2010

Well it’s our last real day in Chiang Mai. We had a fairly hefty list of things to do before leaving. Firstly, having slept in a different spot every night, I wanted to keep that alive, so I wandered off in the morning to see if I could get into the guest house next to a hotel with a pool which we enjoyed before. We had been trying here for a long time and finally we were able to get a room. Roughly 10-12 bucks for all three of us in a nice room, access to a pool, en suite washroom, free water bottles in the room… crazy good deal.

After we moved over we got some breakfast and then it was off to get a scrape on Jen’s leg checked out (she got it on the trek.) A short tuk-tuk ride to the hospital and I think we had probably the best experience you can have in a foreign hospital. The waiting room had 4 seats, and that was all it needed. Jen was in getting checked out in a flash and after a shot and some antibiotics, all done right there, the total bill was only about 30 bucks. I don’t know how they do it over here.

We got our stuff figured out for Laos. We will be taking a bus ride to the border. Sleep for a night there, cross in the morning, take a river boat down (2 days) while spending the night at a village along the river. At that point we will be enjoying all Laos has to offer until Amy’s visa kicks in for Vietnam. There is some fun stuff to do along the river, and apparently some trekking like adventures to be had as well. My understanding is the road system is horrible in Laos, so train and water will be the way to move around when possible.

We got set up with books, and some US currency (apparently that is the smartest one to get for Laos) and now I am just making sure the ol’ blogeroo is in order before I enter the land of the unknown. Internet might not be so easy to come by. I might need to buy myself a note book to keep track of what happens and do another one of these blog assaults when I get back to civilization. After a dip in the pool it will probably be bed time… maybe a late night snack could get squeezed in there too :D

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Lovely Daze

Filed Under: Thailand
Feb.14, 2010

Well so far every night in Thailand (outside of Bangkok) we have stayed in a different place every night… tonight is no different. It is a really nice place, but our two rooms are separate buildings and we are without AC, and the mosquito nets, while very pretty, seem like an ominous threat alluding to some potential night time visitors.

Today was more like a recovery day from the trek. We all slept in till about 10, which really isn’t common for all of us (maybe some of us, but not all of us.) We had a nice big meal, I took a chance to eat a pizza while it was sill available… it was good, but it was not an “American pizza.” We hit the internet cafe, and did some research on how we were going to get to Laos at some travel agent places around our hostel.

Every sunday there is a massive street market in Chiang Mai. We walked around for hours on end, and we had barely made a dent by the time exhaustion set in and we had to head back to bed. I don’t think it would have been possible to simply walk around the whole thing which spread through court upon court, and block upon block, never mind actually looking at the stands.

On the way back we got a quick massage for 2 dollars and then hit the sack.

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