I'm NOT dead

Alright, so contrary to what some of you believe, I actually am still alive. I just got back to Bangkok earlier this morning after finishing my tour of northern Laos. I would have liked to have photos to show you guys but the netcafe im at doesn't let you use more than 1 usb plug, so photos will have to wait. In any case, i'm going to do a quick run through of how Laos went.

I left on 25th from bangkok for the bordertown of chiangkong on an overnight bus and took a boat across the Mekong river to the town of Huay Xai. It was here that i met Beccy and Theiny from the UK who had been backpacking for a over a month now and are in the midst of a 5 month trip. We hopped on a tuktuk (taxi service in south east asia consisting of a motorcycle with a huge cage strapped on to the back) and made our way to the bus stop.

Along the way we saw a lot of interesting sights, ranging from ostriches (which passed by too fast for me to get a good picture), a 12 year old driving a motorcycle with THREE other kids sitting on the backseat, and just a whole bunch of crazy rural things like what seemed to be a handbuilt car/tractor/contraption.

At the bus station we also met two canadians, one from alberta and another from quebec, and we were all headed in the same direction so we made friends and had a good game of shithead before we caught a bus to the town of Luang Nam Tha. What this first day taught me is that Laos is a very laid back and slow country, scheduled departures happen 1-2hours later, and ALL cargo goes ontop of vehicles, and then the interior is usually overloaded with people.

Luang Nam Tha is supposed to be a trekking town, but the prices are dependent on the amount of people you have going, and as it turns out with the few people we had prices were in the 60$USD range for a two day trek, so the lot of us skipped on that and took a grueling 12hour minivan ride to Luang Prabang. The whole town of Luang Prabang is a unesco world heritage site, and its nicknamed the Emerald City. I'll show you a picture eventually.

BY THE WAY, travelling through northern laos is painful, all the roads wind around mountains, they zigzag, theyre partially unpaved, and covering 100km can take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, its painfully slow. And its really high altitude, but some of the sights are breathtaking, provided youre not busy puking into a back from the ride.

On the bus ride to the city i met a guy named Jason whos from Maryland, and he was pretty much fluent in mandarin since he'd be working in china for a bit. Eventually when we made it to L.P. we met up with 4 of his friends (Paul, Mike, Hailey, Fletcher) from boston and we had a huge group of 10-12. We went to go see the Kuang Si falls (google it), and at the bottom of the waterfall is a tarzan swing of which i got a video. Standing still in the water for a while will attract fish, and they'll start nibbling on your feet and anything thats exposed.

Luang prabang and all of laos is very very french influenced, theres baguettes everywhere, and theres even La vache qui rit cheese. Theres some interesting architecture, and it was also here that i met some singaporeans who were working at a hotel. They showed me the inside of one of the huts that the locals live in and its quite a sad sight to behold. It's quite disheartening when you hear that some people are living on less than 50$usd/month and see the actual condition they live in. Additionally, since the whole city is a unesco site, that means all buildings are regulated to be no more than 2 storeys tall, and since they want to preserve the status, i find its almost like keeping the whole town poor despite the increased tourism.

Oh i forgot to mention i met Ryan and Elyse from toronto who joined our group after a little bit. I decided to leave on the 1st for Vientiane which is the capital of Laos, whilst everyone else was going to Vang Vieng which is a huge backpacker spot with lots of drinking and overall nastiness. Vientiane is an oxymoron, its expensive for no reason, its ridiculously poor but has starbucks-like cafes all over the place. The major restaurants are all foreign cuisine, so its all a bit confusing. Although i have to say the pizza i had on my last night was AMAZING, made a belgian, but possibly the best pizza ive ever had. Others agreed. Also the Laab (local cuisine) is excellent too, too bad i dont know how to make any.

Oh another though, laobeer (which is dirt cheap, like 1$usd for a HUGE beer bottle), tastes exactly like molson. Fellow canadians agreed.

That's all i can think of now, i know these posts are rather lacking without photos, but eventually ill put them up (or i wont, whatever). I'm headed for some diving in the tropical islands of thailand tomorrow night, and then ive only really got cambodia and vietnam left.

Travelling alone is strange, its hard to force yourself to go visit sites sometimes. Man i've had enough of seeing stupid temples. Only really want to see angkor wat now. Vietnam and the DMZ and war museums should be very interesting though, i'm excited for the 2nd half of my trip.

Shuang, you were right, i hate bangkok and its scammy scammy dirty scammyness everywhere. I dont know why foreigners like this dirty place so much, the rest of asia is so much more pleasant.