Sabaidee Laos

  From one country to another

After an exhausting overnight bus drive from Bangkok we arrived around 6 o'clock in the morning at the bus stand close to the Thai-Laos border. We straight away took a rikshaw to the Thai-Laos Friendship Bridge border and could leave Thailand without any problems. Thailand and Laos are divided by the Mekong river and therefore the no-man's land in between is quite big. Luckily we had the exact amount of 10 Barth left to pay the shuttle which brings your over the bridge to the Laos border. After filling out the papers and paying the visa fees, we already got our passports back after 20 min. with a proper one-page visa in it. The fastest visa which we ever got! Just when you get out off the security and custom controls a flood of taxi and rickshaw drivers over rolls you.

Where do you want to got?

I know a cheap hostel!

Just 50000!

No buses, only taxis!

Most of the time the taxi and rickshaw drivers are the only people who are speaking a little bit of English and of course they want to make some sort of profit. Due to that they always tell you there is not a bus even if there is. On chance we just saw a bus arriving on the border and were able to tell the bus driver to tell him to drop us close to the Chinese embassy. The Chinese visa application went way better and faster then we expected (cf. Yes, we got it!). But this you already know =) 

Streets of Vientiane

Finding our new home 

After paying our fees at the Industrial and Commerce Bank of China it was finally time to meet our new couchsurfer – Ndjoo- and to find our home for the next couple of days. We always use maps.me – an offline map application for smartphones- to figure out where we are and where we need to go. We would have been lost so many times without it! Like on this day. Both of our phones run out of battery and we were lost in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Asking around in English for the way wasn't so successful and at some point we just decided to go towards west where we thought Ndjoo's place is supposed to be. I guess we looked quiet lost walking around with our backpacks because suddenly a guy on a motorbike appeared next to us and asked: Are you Julie and Hannah? Yes, indeed it was Ndjoo who was worried because we didn't appear and the meeting point and started to look for us! We were so happy to see him. He was really our hero in that situation! 

A few things about Vientiane :

• it is rather a small capital
• it has beautiful, shiny, golden and colorful old Buddhist temples (and a lot of them)
• a nice night market right next to the Mekong
• a promenade at the Mekong where you can see lots of people running, cycling, doing exercises or families going out for a walk during the evening
• in the North is a big temple called That Luang with a huge golden pagoda
• lots of rickshaw drivers with who you need to bargain quite strictly

Sunset over the Mekong

A normal Lao evening ...

Ndjoo invited us to spend the evening with him and his friends. Around 10 people sitting around a big table in the driveway of a house, barbequing, drinking beer, talking, making and listening to music and enjoining each others company. And of course eating meat. People in Laos love meat. It is possible to find it everywhere on the streets. Small stalls are barbequing some meat sticks or sausages and people just walk by take one and continue their way. And when they barbeque at home the go full out: beef, seafood, snails, dug feet and heads and luckily for us some rice and some vegetable side dishes. As much as they love their meat they also love their Laobeer. Everybody get a class full of ice cubs when they arrive and then it will be constantly refilled with beer and more ice cubes. So in the end you have no clue at all how much you were drinking. Apparently Lao people do that every evening when they have time. What a life!

A cultural and natural paradise

Our next stop in Laos was Luang Prabang. We took an overnight bus to their from Vientiane and arrived really early. After the sunrise we started to walk to the city center. On the way we saw lots of people on the side of the street sitting and waiting. Waiting for the Buddhist monks to pass by. In Luang Prabang the tradition of alm offering is still alive. The monks go out of their monasteries, walk through the streets and collect the food the people offer to them in their bowl. That is the only food they have for the entire day – breakfast and lunch as Buddhist monks are not allowed to eat after noon. Unfortunately we only saw all these people waiting on the side of the streets but not the monks walking around in ques to collect the food. We were just to tired to stay awake and went to our – first- hostel and slept for a couple of hours. 

After strengthening ourselves with a big bowl of noodle soup for breakfast we started our day again and explored the shiny, golden temples - but after seeing so many temples we slowly got bored of it and skipped some =).

We didn't miss to have a look at an old hand-made bamboo bridge crossing the Mekong and when walking on the promenade at the Mekong we discovered following: 

After a midday sleep and a though series of bargaining we found a tuck tuck driver who took us to the Kuang Si waterfalls. It was just amazing! Already the way to get there through the countryside with lots of greenery, hills and fresh air was worth it. The waterfall itself is not significant high but light blue color of the water and the three small, natural pools with some small waterfalls were just beautiful especially after spending so much time in cities. The water was freezing cold but we didn't mind it and went swimming. When you didn't move in the water little fishes would come and tenderly bite you – a free fish feet peeling =). Thanks to a friend's recommendation we found an astonishing spot on the the top of the waterfall almost all by ourselves. We noticed that we were really missing nature around us; living in Auroville got us used to having plants and trees around us all the time. We are really looking forward to the time in Mongolia which we mostly want to spend in the countryside. 

To finish up this long but beautiful and impressive day we choose a small restaurant directly on the Mekong for dinner and managed to order some delicious and spicy papaya salad and tofu soup. And to make the day perfect for Julie: the restaurant was serving sticky rice with mango. A dessert we saw the first time in Malaysia and missed trying it. It was really delightful. With full stomachs, happy faces and heavy eyelids we walked through the night market and to our beds in the hostel. 

Next stop China

The following day we woke up early to catch our bus at 7 am to Kunming. As we wanted to walk there we planned for a lot of extra time and luckily we did. We were just wondering what food we could take with us on the bus when we saw a women on the side of the road making and selling baguette sandwiches. We asked for two vegetarian ones and got them super quick but when we wanted to pay we discovered that we only had one bill left. A pretty big one and she didn't have any change. So her daughter took our money to get it changed but it seemed to take forever. After we finally got our change we walked super fast to the bus station, tried to figure out which one our bus was, figured out how to get our reserved tickets and just jumped into the right bus when it was leaving. Just on time! And with this hurry started our 27 hour bus ride to Kunming, China. 

Road leaving Luang Prabang