6th – 13th of March
It was kind of hard for us to leave Chiang Mai. Not because we liked it so much, but first Jasper was sick for a day and then me. When we were finally ready to leave, we encountered long queues at the bus station and had the choice to either wait for 4 hours for our bus or leave the next day. We decided for the latter and went back to town. Too embarrassed to show up at our old hostel, we were looking for another one. The one we found had a pool!
The next morning we finally left Chiang Mai for good and after several hours bus ride arrived in Chiang Kong, the Thai border town at the Mekong. It was the first time for me that I had to clear emigration and immigration at a land border and I was impressed how smoothly it went. And as I was used to the thorough checking of my luggage and hand luggage at the airport I was also a bit surprised that no one wanted to scan my things. ^^ After emigration we boarded a long tail boat which brought us in a few minutes over the river. There it was, Laos. Immigration went smoothly as well, although we were lifted of 1 Dollar “working after 16:00” fee each.
View from Chiang Kong on the Thai side of the Mekong to Huey Xai, Laos
Setting foot on Laos
Having been a French colony, in Laos people drive on the ride side again. But it took us three days to notice this because in the first two villages there was hardly any traffic at all. The border town Huey Xai were we arrived consisted basically of one street.
Main street in Huey Xai
At our hostel was an elderly woman, who was actually recommended by the Lonely Planet to buy tickets with. She charged us 900 Bath for the 2 day boat ride down the Mekong river, which included pick up at the hostel. 900 Bath are a bit more than 20 Euro, so actually a good price. Until we discovered the next morning at the boat peer that we could have bought it there for half the price. No wonder the old woman complimented us for being good customers! At least we did not book the room for the next night at Pak Beng (where the boat stops for the night) with her. At the boat we had to wait 2 hours until we finally left, during which we were entertained two more times by people trying to selling us rooms at the boat. 
At 12 we finally left (we got up at 8 because originally we were supposed to leave at 9 at the hostel!). The ride down the Mekong river was very pleasant. The seats were comfortable and we saw a lot of water buffalos, fishing rods and small villages on both sides of the river.
Water buffaloes
Fishing rods
Village at the river
We arrived at Pak Beng at sunset and there were loads of hostels who were waiting for us and after finding a pleasant one, we dined fried water buffalo with sauce, vegetables and sticky rice, which was one of the best meals I had on the whole journey! Apart from that it was quite hard to find Laos food. All restaurants had a lot of Western food for veery cheap prices. Only half of the dishes were Asian and few Laos. Pak Beng seems to consist only of hostels, restaurants and snack shops. The villagers are definitely lucky to live half way between Huey Xai and Luang Prabang! The restaurants openly advertise “happy” meals, which does not mean a toy, but marijuana, and young guys come and offer you opium.
Arriving at Pak Beng
Dinner at Pak Beng
"Happy shakes" anyone?
Main street of Pak Beng
The next day we left early in the morning and after another scenic river cruise arrived at Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang is praised in the Lonely Planet as an ancient Asia which is increasingly hard to find. Especially the daily ceremony of the monks collecting rice in the early morning is recommended. We didn’t find much of “old” Asia. In fact we found it quite touristy. It is a beautiful town with beautiful landscape, but it did not feel “ancient”.
Luang Prabang (river is a side river of the Mekong)
Luang Prabang
We stayed one day to explore the nearby village, which is famous for its silk weaving and paper lanterns made of elephant dung or recycled paper. Mostly I wanted to go there to see silkworms and we successfully found a friendly local who showed us silkworms at different life stages. Before we took time to visit Wat Xieng Thong, the most important – and expensive – temple of Luang Prabang, which is truely beautiful!
In the evening we climbed up the city hill to see the sunset. We had to pay entrance because there was also a small temple on top, but it was definately worth it. We then booked our trip to Vang Vien the next morning and went shopping at the night market, which offered way better prices then Khao San Road.
View during a small hike
Wat Xieng Thong
Tree of Life at Wat Xieng Thong
Nearby village we walked to
Silk worms
Papermaking at the village
Monk walking over bridge
Sunset over the Mekong
Nightmarket of Luang Prabang
The next morning we got up at dawn to see the monk ceremony and it was exciting to dress in the dark to the distant sound of temple bells. When we stepped into the small lane outside of our hostel, we could see the monks walking past our main street. This was in fact impressive and felt “old Asian”. But as soon as we stepped onto the main street, that feeling was destroyed by the crowd of rude tourists who were nearly standing in the way of the monks and taking pictures with flash. You are supposed to keep a respectful distance and I don’t know if those people just don’t know or don’t care, but I felt quite ashamed of being a tourist these moments..
Monk procession
"Fremdschaemen" for disrespectful tourists
From Luang Prabang we took the bus to Vang Vieng. On the way we saw a lot of very simple villages at the cliff of the mountains we were driving through. The huts were only made from bamboo and we wondered from what the people were living there as there was steep mountain left and right the street for kilometres and only a small strip of land on which the villages were standing. These images gave us a feeling how poor most of Laos is. It is one of the 20 poorest nations on Earth, an economically least developed country. I have the impression that tourism is like the most important source of income. We have also seen a lot of water buffaloes and cows, sometimes they were just walking on the road in front of us.
Simple Huts
How to live here?
Cows on the road
Vang Vien is (in)famous for it’s tubing, which means floating down the Mekong on big rubber wheels. We did not have time to tube in Vang Vien, but we enjoyed the hammocks at our river bungalow. The next morning we had some time to walk around and enjoy the of course stunning landscape before we took the bus to Vientiane in the afternoon.
Our Bungalow
Ready to tube?
Vientiane is the capital of Laos, but not bigger than Phuket. There are no major sights, so we stayed only two nights because we wanted to see the Buddha Park, a collection of huge stone statues of all kind of religions which were ordered by a local shaman in the 20th century.
Giant Apple in Buddha Park, you can go in and on top
View over Buddha Park from the top of the Giant Apple
The next day we took the bus to go all the way through Thailand to Cambodia. I will write about that in the next entry.
For now enjoy the pictures in the slide show (I could not integrate all in the text):
Diese Diashow benötigt JavaScript.
Tags: Buddha Park, Huey Xai, Luang Prabang, Mekong, Pak Beng, Slow Boat, Vang Vieng, Vientiane, Wat Sisaket, Wat Xieng Thong
