Vang Vieng - Small town Laos Jan 30

This town took me by surprise. It is only about 20,000 plus for population but it certainly has character.

I booked my place online and it kind of surprised me too. It is clean though and wasn't all that bad so by morning I had come to terms with it. Pictures tomorrow.


It doesn't take long to walk out to the country, which is beautiful. We are beside the Xong river and near the mountains.


These mountains look like the ones at Ha Long Bay.


The path to this restaurant is a wooden walkway of sometimes barely-there planks with a side rail of bamboo poles. It is not uncommon to meet motorcycles as you cross.


You can see in the above picture a number of little rooftops. These contain seating mats, pillows and a dining table so you can lounge and relax with your meal. There are many restaurants in town with this arrangement.


Ready for ballooning and waiting for the wind to go down.


Kids assembled to watch the balloons.



It is pretty low-key here but in a party kind of way. I heard lots of tales of last nights shenanigans at breakfast. It attracts lots of young backpackers and has a kind of new-age hippy feel to it.


I am glad I only booked one day here. I am sure there are places I will enjoy more than this. I thought about tubing but it isn't very warm and they do it as a party game anyway. There are make-shift bars along the river so that if you stop often enough you can be smashed when you get back. It is a lazy flowing river and quite low at the moment and it takes 2 or 3 hours to get back from where they put you in.

Tomorrow is a travel day again, 7 or 8 hours by bus to Luang Prabang.

Cozy Warm and Feeling Better Jan 29

My room has a king size bed, air conditioning and a big white puffy duvet. What could be better for spending a relaxing day in bed, well, the morning anyway.

I went out early to book my plane to Cambodia on the 5th and I booked a bus to Vang Vieng tomorrow and to Luang Prabang 2 days later. I will fly to Siem Reap, in Cambodia.

I crawled back into bed and slept till noon. The fever is gone but I still have the cough.

My hotel is in the middle of this group of buildings.

Doorway!

Temple!

I think we must underutilize our sidewalks in Canada. This normal looking sidewalk by day becomes a restaurant at night. They bring in a kitchen stove with all the equipment

Beside it they set up tables and chairs, with table cloths and voila, a restaurant. By morning it will all have disappeared only to return again the following night.

I caught a rear view of this tuk-tuk, named for the noise the motor makes.

It is a funny thing about the money here, it is impossible to keep the bills neatly folded in your wallet because the location of the denomination is in different on each.

You can't take several different denominations and pile them face up and expect to be able to find the amount of its value all on the same corner.

This means that you have to look at them top, bottom and both sides to locate their value, and that means, at least for me, that there is money everywhere to pick up once your bill is paid.

If these are big enough to see, they are the fronts.

The bills also have their Laos numerals which sometimes look like our numbers to add to the confusion.

Here are some examples:

50,000 Back, upper left and lower right. None on front.

20,000 Front, upper right.Back, upper right and left.
5,000 Front, lower right. Back, lower right and left.

2000 Front, lower right. Back, lower left and right.

1000 Back, all four corners. None on front.

500 Back, upper left and right one inch from the edge. None on front.

Here are the backs.

I can tell the stores are frustrated too when they open their cash drawer and dig through a huge pile of bills to make change like they are tossing a salad.

Ah, well, I don't have to live here.

Maybe I should get out of bed and find something constructive to do.

Tomorrow I get the morning bus at 9:00 and I think the trip is three or four hours.

Taking it easy in Vietviene Day 2 Jan 28

I was out a couple of times today and did some shopping to restock my shampoo and a few things. I am so happy to have blue sky again today.

A water lily bud.

This is the Mekong River at its low point. There is a freighter out there on the water.

Either I live in the temple neighbourhood or this city is full of temples and pagodas. I saw some nice ones but wasn't able to figure our any names. Here are a few of the best.

Buddhas around the Bodhi tree.

Coke light in Laos.

I went out a second time to get some supper but basically taking it easy and getting over a cold.

Today I realized that it is the first time I have not had any bookings for anything. I am just here. So I got busy and booked accommodations for my next 2 stops.

Funny how I don't know that I'm tired until I rest and then feel better.

Hanoi to Vientiane Jan 27

I left Vietnam this morning on a big blue bird hoping for warmer weather.

This is Hanoi airport. It was a short flight from here to Vientiane in Laos.

I decided to try the Visa on arrival process here. It went super smoothly. I just filled out one form, gave them one passport size photo and paid $42.00 US and it was done.

When I walked out of the airport in Vientiane I felt at home. The weather was warm but not hot and there were no taxi drivers clamouring to get my business. I walked over to the Taxi desk and paid for a taxi with no hassle.
The town is quiet and people are going about their business and not in your face with stuff to buy. It was a nice change.
The sky was blue not grey and it felt a lot like home.

I went out for a bit to get some more stuff for my cold and walked around a little bit. Then spent the day in my room until supper. I have had a bit of fever for a couple of days and sore throat and runny nose. It felt good to do nothing.

Luckily there isn't that much to do around here and I had a backlog of blogs to write too.

There seems to be a few temples in this area and I am a block from the Mekong River too. That can wait until tomorrow. For today I just rest.

I have one spot for a plug in this room so I had to unplug the TV. Now I am caught up on Facebook I might watch some TV tonight.

Ha Long Bay to Hanoi Jan 26

Waking up to another grey day but loving the view from my window anyway.

I am on the Golden Lotus now. It is a newer boat and a little nicer.

They have a sail but it wasn't up while I was on board.

The deck is very nice.

Passing another boat which looks much the same.

Our guide showed us this rock that they have on the back of the 200,000.00 dong note. There is no mistaking it.

These people are selling fruit from their boat.

Here is another one, prepared for a lot of business.

We left our shuttle boat and got into bamboo boats to go check out some more caves. It came with a person to row it. This girl is our person.

I took her picture and she took mine.

The first cave was open ended and took us into an area compleatly surrounded by rocks.

The second one took us out to open water again but we returned back through them both to get back to the boat.

These folks are from our tour.

A view as we paddle along.

Another view. Every angle is a different view. I never get tired of looking.

Here we have a school which is attched to the floating village and moves with them whereever they go.

Aproaching Ha Long City coming back.

Our bus stopped on the way back at a store which was also a greenware shop. They had several warehouses full of molds and pots. There were many kilns there but I couldn't tell if they were still in use.

Here they are patching deformaties on some greenware.

We got back to the Hostel around 5:30 and I was feeling like I had put in a long day. I ran out for some supper and went to bed very early because I had to get up for a flight and because I was already feeling sick.

This shot of a store selling New Years decorations is an example of what the whole street looked like.

The way they arrange things is with all the stores on the street selling the same type of thing. My street was the only street selling these decorations and was it ever pretty.

I must say that the Hanoi Hostel was a good place to stay. For five dollars a night you get a bed in an eight bed dorm with heat, a/c, hot water, free wi-fi, breakfast and the place was super clean. The staff were great so I would have to say it is one of the best.


Tomorrow, off to Vientiane and hopefully some warmth.


My tip: Come to North Vietnam in the summer.