Laos

After we were finished with Songkran in Chiang Mai we made our way towards the Laos border the next few days. This was our first trip outside of Thailand so we had been looking forward to it for a while and were excited to finally be on our way. Laos is a pretty small country with a population of around 6 million and the biggest city is close to the size of Grand Rapids. But it has become a bigger tourist destination in the past 10 years and there are generally three main stops that travelers visit on their loop through Laos. We had heard a lot of mixed reviews about Laos so we were eager to check it out for ourselves and see what it was about. Needless to say there were definitely some very cool things about Laos but there were also some things that were very weird and hard to get used to. 

The very first part of our trip into Laos was probably some of the hardest traveling that I have ever been a part of. In the Northern parts of Thailand, Thailand and Laos are separated by the Mekong River which is one of the biggest rivers in Asia. To cross the border we had to take about a five minute ferry ride across the river. However, to get to our first destination, Luang Prabang (LP), we had to take a two day boat ride down the Mekong. While the scenery was beautiful on the ride, the conditions were pretty rough. It was at or above 100 degrees for both days on the boat with a bunch of hot sweaty people for eight hours the first day and eight hours the second day. We stopped for the night in a small town called Pak Beng. The town's sole existence was predicated on this boat stopping there once a day and people being stuck there having to stay in their guest houses and eat at their restaurants. People jumped on the boat trying to sell us their hotels and food before we even made it to the dock. While this was a really rough ride the scenery was awesome as we were riding down the river surrounded by sandy beaches and huge mountains. Here are a couple videos of our time on the slow boat. My video and Paige's video. Paige narrated one and I narrated one but I'm sure you already know whose is going to be better. It has become my goal to wave as many times as possible during these videos. 

Some of the scenery on our slow boat ride down the Mekong. 

The actual slow boat we were on for two days. 

Laos was colonized by the French a little bit before 1900 and LP was the capital during this time all the way up until 1975 so it had a huge French influence. This was actually really refreshing to be around because we had gotten so used to everything in Thailand. It was nice to see some European architecture, languages, and food for a little while. The biggest cuisine difference was the presence of all types of bread and baked goods which was awesome. We had real sandwiches! There was a bakery/coffee shop right by our guesthouse that we went to probably three or four times in the three days that we were there because we were so excited about it. But the biggest thing for us was the architecture and the feel of the city. The whole time we walked around the city we could not stop mentioning the architecture. It almost seemed as if we we were on a French Caribbean island because of the way the buildings looked and the French on all the signs and menus.  

Some of the French architecture.

View over the river in Luang Prabang.

Floating down the river. 

The second city that we stopped in was Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a really small town that is a pretty big "backpacker" destination. The big attraction is tubing down a nearby river. The river is lined with bars pretty close to the whole way down and they all try to reel you in with free drinks, beer pong, free food and so on. But they literally try to reel you in with people dressed as spider man throwing ropes across the river to drag you into their bar. We decided to go all in and dress exactly like everyone else there. We bought the "Tubing in the Vang Vieng" tank tops, wore our fake ray bans and floated down the river all day. It was a lot of fun and some of the bars on the river were just ridiculous. They have huge water slides, zip lines, and the most absurd signs for their bars. All-in-all it was a good time and the scenery as you went down the river was unbelievable. 

The view on the drive to Vang Vieng.

Stereotypical outfits. 

The last city that we stopped in was Vientienne which is the current capital of Laos. Vientienne was your typical big city and while there are a few things to see, it was simply just too hot for us to even go outside. During the day it was around 115 degrees with the heat index so while we tried to see the attractions, anytime we stepped out of the AC'ed hotel into the heat we would immediately be drenched in sweat. We did get out at night to see some of the city but everything closes at 11:30 in Laos so it was hard to do very much at night.

One of the few things we were able to get out of the hotel to see in Vientienne. 

Laos was a lot of fun for us to visit, especially since it was our first trip out of Thailand. It had a little bit of everything some of it good and some of it bad but it was definitely different than Thailand. The landscape was definitely beautiful and it was cool to see some of the French influence in a Asian country. But I cannot end this post without mentioning...Laos is a communist country. We did not know this before we visited and it took us a while to fully realize it. At first we noticed that all of the signs were the the same style. All of them for hotels/restaurants/stores looked like this just with the different store names. There was a national curfew for stores and hotels to close which was 11:30. But the hardest thing had to be the lack of chain stores like 7-11. Coming from Thailand where you can hardly walk down any street without running into one of them, this was actually a pretty big problem for us. While it was fun while we were there, I could feel the oppression lifted off my shoulders once we finally stepped back into Thailand. And our first quest once we got back in a free country was to stop at a 7-11. 

Hope everyone back home is doing good!

Cyrus and Paige

One of the perks of Laos: a different and better beer.