Laos!

Laos is one of those places where not many people back home have heard of or visited.  Although it's right in the middle of Southeast Asia, it is quite unlike the surrounding countries.  Laos lacks the traffic/noise of Vietnam, the tourism of Thailand, and the epic temples of Cambodia.  It's a quiet, peaceful country that you can easily spend lots of time in, lazing around and admiring the natural beauty.

Our first adventure in Laos was the Gibbon Experience (which John and I had done 2 years ago).  You are taken by truck into the Bokeo Nature Reserve (aka jungle in the middle of nowhere) where you live in a treehouse for 3 days, only accessible by zipline.  The whole experience involves hiking and ziplining high above the trees in the jungle.  The 7 of us (John, Greg, Will, Angela, Brittany, Alex, and I) shared a treehouse with 2 lovely people from Switzerland, Simone and Sasha.  We stayed in treehouse #7 (the best one in my opinion!) again, and had a great time!

Dinner in treehouse #7

At night there were some huge spiders around the roof of the treehouse, so you have to tuck your tent/tarp thing under your mattress when sleeping so nothing gets in!  Food in the treehouse is basic, but tasty.  You get it ziplined in to the treehouse by the guides.  In the morning, you can hear the call of the gibbons which live in the jungle.  They have a weird call that sounds sort of like a car alarm.  We spotted them far away in the treetops, but they moved quite close to our treehouse since we were very quiet in the morning!

John zipping out of our treehouse!

I'm glad we got to do the Gibbon Experience again.  It was mostly the same since the last time we visited.  I highly recommend it to anyone visiting northern Laos!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of our trip in Laos was spent in Luang Prabang, a beautiful town on the Mekong River.  After finishing the Gibbon Experience, we took a horrible night bus ride which was something like 16 hours to get there.  The town has a strong French influence and there is not much traffic (only tuk tuks and some motorbikes).  The streets are lined with gorgeous flowers and lovely shops and cafes.

On the first day in Luang Prabang, we visited the Kuangsi Waterfall.  This place, less than an hour away from Luang Prabang, is like something you'd see out of a fairy tale.  The trees around the waterfall are so green and lush, and there are many unique flowers growing nearby.  The waterfall is multi-tiered and the water is a brilliant blue.  You can go swimming there, and even swing into the water on a rope, Tarzan-style!  It was our second time visiting Kuangsi, but this time was even better since there wasn't any rain and the water was more clear.  There were also a ton of butterflies flying around.  This sounds a bit cheesy, but it was magical!  I'm glad we got to visit it again.

Kuangsi Waterfall

The evening was spent at the night market in town, which is the best I've ever seen.  I bought a bunch of stuff there for not a lot of money.  I wish I could have bought more, but there is no way I could have transported everything back to Vietnam!

Our second day in Luang Prabang was spent hanging out in town.  I woke up early to watch the monks' alms procession.  They walk down the road and receive sticky rice offered to them in their bowls.  It wasn't too exciting, but I'm glad I set the alarm to wake up for it (5:30 am).

Monks in the morning!

We had breakfast on the Mekong River and decided to charter a boat to take us on our own little cruise around.  The scenery was stunning and the ride was very peaceful.  After the boat ride, we made our way to Tamarind, a restaurant that came highly recommended to us from fellow travellers.

Stunning boat ride down the Mekong River

At Tamarind we got to try some delicious Lao food.  Some people ordered water buffalo and said it was amazing.  John got a pumpkin soup and chicken-stuffed lemongrass, and the rest of us tried the "make your own wraps" and a dip platter.  To drink, I had an iced jujube cooler which was very interesting/refreshing.  I also had an iced Lao coffee which was so delicious!  I'll definitely make another visit to Tamarind if I'm ever in Luang Prabang again.

Make your own lettuce wraps at Tamarind Restaurant

After lunch, we climbed up the big hill in the centre of town - Mount Phousi.  There is a spectacular view from the top... if you're ever in LP, you have to go there! 

View of Luang Prabang from Mount Phousi

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The final night bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vientiane wasn't as painful as the first (only 9 hours), and at the small Vientiane airport we saw a familiar face.  When checking in, I looked over to see... Charlie from LOST!  Can you believe it?  We were all so surprised, and we HAD to go talk to him.  Charlie (aka Dominic Monaghan) was also on the Lord of the Rings movie.  Turns out, he was filming some nature documentary in Laos and was headed to Vietnam to continue filming.  He ended up being on our flight (sitting in first class).  I'm not going to lie, I was a bit nervous thinking about how he was on the flight with us since the whole TV show LOST is about a group of people who are on a plane that crashes and ends up on a mysterious island in the middle of nowhere!

With "Charlie" from LOST!

It was a random ending to the trip, and luckily we landed safely and avoided being LOST.  A fun trip with a great group of people!

Chiang Rai + Golden Triangle & an afternoon in Burma!

On Sunday we got back from our last big vacation of the school year.  We had a week off work which came at a great time!  This time, we were travelling with a big group of people (7) but everyone got on well and we had a blast!

After leaving HCMC and hitting up the Subway at the Bangkok Airport, we flew to Chiang Rai in northern Thailand.  This was the first time we'd ever been there.  Chiang Rai is pretty small, but is not without the delicious Thai food that I've come to love.  If I ever moved to Thailand, I'm pretty confident that I would eat pad thai every day and not get sick of it.

On our first full day in Chiang Rai, we rented motorbikes to drive to the Golden Triangle area (the region where Thailand, Laos, and Burma all converge into an imaginary "golden" triangle).  It took almost 2 hours to drive there, but the road was great... straight, not much traffic, and lovely scenery.  The actual place where the 3 countries meet is somewhere in the water accessible by boat.  We didn't end up seeing that, but we decided to drive to Mae Sai, at the border of Thailand/Burma instead.

Upon arrival in Mae Sai, we parked the bikes and proceeded to walk across this concrete bridge over to Myanmar, aka Burma.  We got stamped out of Thailand, brought our passports to the Myanmar immigration office, took photos, and paid some money to receive a Myanmar entry permit in exchange for our Canadian passports (which were held at the office, ready for pick up when we departed the country).  The whole process was easy and pretty cool because we got to officially visit Burma (country #26)!  We could have stayed within the specified geographic region of Burma for 14 days but we only stayed for the afternoon.  If you want to travel to other parts of Burma, you need a proper entry visa which you must arrange in advance.

The Burmese border town of Tachileik was interesting.  There is a decent market right near the border entrance where we went shopping.  After spending some Thai baht in the market, we decided to hire tuk tuks to bring us on a touristy trek around the city.

The first stop on our tuk tuk ride was a Burmese restaurant.  Actually, it wasn't officially part of the tour, but we were so hungry that we asked the drivers to bring us to somewhere good to eat!  We were the only people in the restaurant, and were served an interesting and delicious meal.  We got a complimentary plate of vegetables, as well as dill soup.  At our table, we ordered papaya salad which was vinegary and much better than the papaya salad in Vietnam in my opinion.

The next stops on the tour were a temple (not too exciting), and then the Wat Phra That Doi - a golden stupa on a big hill overlooking the town.  Around it were statues for every day of the week.  Some people at the temple showed us how to do the water ritual at the Sunday statue (it was Sunday).  You make a wish 3 times, then pour water 3 times over various parts of the statue.  It was interesting!

Wat Phra That Doi

 We also opted to visit the Karen long-necked women tribe, which was a total tourist trap.  It was interesting to see the women wearing gold rings around their necks.  The rings weigh their shoulders down so that they appear to have really long necks (a symbol of beauty).  I felt kind of awkward at the village since it was pretty obvious that they were just trying to get money from tourists!

Karen long-necked tribe village

The afternoon in Burma was a unique experience that none of us expected.  I still think it was pretty neat that we got to visit a new country!  Only 4 more to go before reaching 30, and only less than a year to do it.  Do you think I can do it?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On our final day in Chiang Rai we drove the motorbikes to the White Temple.  This is a temple unlike any I've seen before.  It has a very modern design, as it was built in 1997 and still under construction.  Inside the temple is a mural with characters like Spiderman, Batman, Neo from the Matrix, etc.  On the outside it is totally white, and leading up to the entrance are sculptures of hands reaching up along the pathway... kind of creepy!

White Temple

After visiting the White Temple, we hopped on a local bus for the 2.5 hour ride to Chiang Khong, the city on the border of Thailand and Laos.  You visit immigration, go through, and buy a ticket for a boat that will lead you across the river to Laos, where you disembark and apply for a visa on arrival.

Keep reading for part 2 of the trip... Laos!