Travelling in Laos are rough, literally and figuratively. We decided to leave our beloved Luang Namtha for Luang Prabang. We had two choices: day or night bus. Normally, we opt for night bus, but somewhere in hour 4 of: bumpity, bumpity, bump, bump, hard right, hard left, hard right, hard left, shift position 1, shift position 2, shift position 3, I believe I said, I don't know if this was the best life choice. We maybe slept for an hour or two max on the night bus. However, when we spoke with two Americans who we had met in Luang Namtha and with whom we had reconnected in Luang Prabang about their day bus journey, it sounded like we had made the right choice. Basically, the road just goes around a mountain with sheer dropoffs on all sides. It sounds like something that would make me both car sick and paranoid.
Luang Prabang is a lovely Buddhist city on the Mekong River, but it's not our Luang Namtha! We honestly didn't do much except enjoy the city where we could, hang out with these Americans Nat & Mary at night, and get our Vietnam visa. There is quite a lot to do. Luang Prabang was the seat of the Laos empire when Laos finally carved itself out as a kingdom of its own. It has waterfalls, caves filled with Buddhas, cliffs filled with Buddhas, and is a UNESCO world heritage site with its 25 temples.
However. but you can feel the slow change of commercialization and tourism in this town. It's filled with families of tourists. The Laos here really are struggling with knowing they can make more money off of you versus giving you the actual real price they want to give you. You see it at accommodations where the owner goes too quickly go from 120,000 Kip to 100,000 Kip without waiting a microsecond. The arts and crafts market feels like they are professionally produced crafts - not crafts made by the villagers themselves. The homemade Lao Lao whiskey, which supposedly sometimes is bottled with a bird inside, is on display bottled with all sorts of snakes, scorpions, scorpions & snakes, etc. It just is the Laos you know Laos is probably going to transition through over the next 10 years, but hope it doesn't.
We also made the decision when we started travelling in Laos that, as we had read the roads are rough, that we would only visit only Northern Laos and work our way to Hanoi. Thankfully, Luang Prabang has a Vietnam embassy. At 11:00 a.m. I realized that the embassy closes from 11:30-1:30 for lunch. Quickly, we hightailed it the 15 minute walk to the embassy, only to walk in at 11:15 and be told that the cashier was already gone, and, could we come back at 1:30. It was probably 100 degrees Fahrenheit plus humidity outside, so we killed time around the embassy for 2 hours. Finally, when 1:30 came, we re-entered the embassy only to wait for 30 more minutes for the cashier! Then, when the cashier finally came and we went to pay him, we had to give him 2 USD worth of Kip to make up the rest of the total owed for the visa. The total amount of Kip was 17,000. He told us we owed him 120,000 Kip! We walked him through the money and he realized his error. Cal me crazy, but perhaps if he can't get his accounting correct after a 2.75 hour break, maybe he is just ill-suited for his job!
Next stop: Phosavan
Luang Prabang is a lovely Buddhist city on the Mekong River, but it's not our Luang Namtha! We honestly didn't do much except enjoy the city where we could, hang out with these Americans Nat & Mary at night, and get our Vietnam visa. There is quite a lot to do. Luang Prabang was the seat of the Laos empire when Laos finally carved itself out as a kingdom of its own. It has waterfalls, caves filled with Buddhas, cliffs filled with Buddhas, and is a UNESCO world heritage site with its 25 temples.
However. but you can feel the slow change of commercialization and tourism in this town. It's filled with families of tourists. The Laos here really are struggling with knowing they can make more money off of you versus giving you the actual real price they want to give you. You see it at accommodations where the owner goes too quickly go from 120,000 Kip to 100,000 Kip without waiting a microsecond. The arts and crafts market feels like they are professionally produced crafts - not crafts made by the villagers themselves. The homemade Lao Lao whiskey, which supposedly sometimes is bottled with a bird inside, is on display bottled with all sorts of snakes, scorpions, scorpions & snakes, etc. It just is the Laos you know Laos is probably going to transition through over the next 10 years, but hope it doesn't.
We also made the decision when we started travelling in Laos that, as we had read the roads are rough, that we would only visit only Northern Laos and work our way to Hanoi. Thankfully, Luang Prabang has a Vietnam embassy. At 11:00 a.m. I realized that the embassy closes from 11:30-1:30 for lunch. Quickly, we hightailed it the 15 minute walk to the embassy, only to walk in at 11:15 and be told that the cashier was already gone, and, could we come back at 1:30. It was probably 100 degrees Fahrenheit plus humidity outside, so we killed time around the embassy for 2 hours. Finally, when 1:30 came, we re-entered the embassy only to wait for 30 more minutes for the cashier! Then, when the cashier finally came and we went to pay him, we had to give him 2 USD worth of Kip to make up the rest of the total owed for the visa. The total amount of Kip was 17,000. He told us we owed him 120,000 Kip! We walked him through the money and he realized his error. Cal me crazy, but perhaps if he can't get his accounting correct after a 2.75 hour break, maybe he is just ill-suited for his job!
Next stop: Phosavan
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