11 days in Laos

Our (for now) 11 days in Laos flew by and we only visited the 3 places Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, and Vientiane, as well as their respective surroundings.

We spent the first few days in Luang Prabang, where there are incredibly beautiful temples to see and the surroundings invite you for trips with the Mekong River, the mountains, and the waterfalls. The UNESCO didn't declare the city a World Heritage Site for nothing.

In addition to visiting many temples, we took a boat trip on the Mekong (the caves, which were the actual destination of the trip, are relatively boring compared to the Mekong and the surroundings), hiked through the jungle to more hill tribe villages, and enjoyed the wonderful waterfall, although the water was very, very refreshing. :-)

From Luang Prabang, we continued to Vang Vieng (the former party capital of Laos). The place itself is not worth a visit, but the landscape is simply incredible. The hotel we had booked in advance turned us away at check-in because they had not had electricity and water for 2 days... that's Laos for you! But we quickly found a replacement...

After some consideration, we decided to go on a bike tour, which we booked with a German couple and finished with a sore a... You know what. The road was quite bumpy and the hard saddle didn't help either. But the villages we passed through and the cave we explored were definitely worth the effort. Luckily, we returned just before a heavy rainstorm and could seek shelter in a bar where we celebrated the tour with a few Beer Laos (just for the beer, it's already worth visiting Laos).

After a day of rest, we went on a hiking-cave-exploration-kayaking tour, where we experienced a lot. Among other things, we (unintentionally) took a dip in the river because we didn't have the paddling under control. We are definitely better suited as cave explorers, which was a lot of fun.

The last stop in Laos was Vientiane, where we wandered in the footsteps of the French. They have built their 'Champs Elysées' and the 'Arc de Triomphe' in the colony. Fortunately, they also left behind the 'baguette' and the 'pain au chocolat' and we could finally enjoy really good bread again.

In addition, the COPE Visitor Center, which deals with the issue of unexploded ordnance and its consequences, left a lasting impression. Probably few people know how much Laos was affected by the Vietnam War and still is affected:

http://www.copelaos.org/ban_cluster_bombs.php

If you have too much money, you can definitely do something good here.

Today we flew from Vientiane to Hanoi and will be in Vietnam for the next while. However, we don't know if we should skip the south of Vietnam (Saigon and the Mekong Delta) for another trip to Laos (Pakse and 4000 Islands) and northern Cambodia. If anyone can help us with this decision, please let us know.

You will probably find out the final decision in the next blog post, and Beer Lao is certainly a strong argument...