Travel Laos

Two bus hours heading to the north of Luang Nam Tha, we got to the Muang Sing village, and once every two years in October the have a budist festival with five thousand people around, eating, drinking and dancing all day. We rose up to the scene and spoke some spanish words... everybody were looking at us thinking "what the hell are they talking about?".

Luang Prabang´s city is declared World-wide Patrimony of the Humanity from 1995 by the UNESCO and it is placed between two rivers, surrounded by mountains and forest, so it is worth to stay a couple of days visiting the famous temples, take a walk throught the forest, renting a canoe and contemplate the live around the river... or just rent a bicycle and get lost all around.

From Vang Vieng you can canoeing up the Mekong river untill Pak Ou island, there we got in a wedding day with all the people "very happy". The were no backpackers place anywere but they rent us a beautifull house for three days. That was our base camp, and from there you can get a canoe and go around to the climbing places.

Traveling around Laos is a pleasure. You can breath the quiet all around and in every city, even in the capital (Vientiane) we can feel as if we were in a small village. People is kind and they are not that used to the tourism as it´s neighbor´s countries, so the pressure over the tourist is not that much. All along the travel there is something that surprise us... butterflies. It´s true! Laos has a wide quantity and variety of butterflies that will go with you everywhere... try to find our fellow in the picture!

Asian countries are cheap and Laos is not an exception. When you get for the first time to any country, it will take you at least two days to get used to prices and how business run, be patient and don´t get mad if you spend few dollars over your budget in those days. Once you get used to it, don´t pay more than it´s worth and try to know the people before making your purchases. We always buy in the last days, as you can see Laura´s doing fine! She spent few hours bargain with the local people and at the end she was surronded... but she could get away!

Both Vang vieng and Pak Ou are good places for sport climbing, and if you want to go on your onw, disorganized it very well from your city, because it is difficult to find the places. If you go on bicycle, you can take the road from Vang Vieng and 1 km up on the north there is one place inside a cave on the other side of the river, and there is a taxi-canoe that crosses from one side to the other and afterwards they pick you up.

You can take some local busses to move around the big cities in Laos, they stop everywhere and it will take around 6 hours for 150 Km, but once you get there you can rent a motorbike and move around. We hichhiked many times and the people brought us with the smile in their faces and their trucks full of cows, but don´t forget that they don´t have the same hand signs that we have, so you´ll have to stand up in the middle of the road and stop them!