Laos in a nutshell...

Thanks to King Heihamoony and his 3-day birthday holiday, I was able to escape on yet another trip, this time to Laos. Also, thanks to Mr. Schwalbe himself (what a shout out :) he gave me some great information on places to visit in such a short time.

Laos is absolutely breathtaking with rolling green mountains and rivers which made for amazing scenic drives and photo opp's. Unfortunately, in the beginning of my trip on an overnight bus, my camera was stolen out of my bag while sleeping. But, fortunately, I was traveling with someone who was able to snap some photos of me and let me use her camera.

We started in the nation’s capital Vientiane, which wasn't as exciting as I expected for a capital city but there was still a good amount to see. We met two really nice girls early on and all decided to do a walking tour together. We embraced many sights like Patuxai which resembled the Arc de Triumph in Paris with a roundabout and all, saw many more Wat's of course, and my two favorites of the day were Buddha park which holds dozens of concrete Buddha in a variety of poses and That Luang, a gorgeous golden stupa reconstructed by the French which is said to actually hold a hair of the Buddha. It was one of the most beautiful architectural monuments I've seen in Southeast Asia. After that we enjoyed a delicious dinner by the riverside in a hurry because of a wind storm that came and jumped on our overnight bus to Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang is the former royal capital of Laos and declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1995. It's filled with a blend of French Indochinese architecture and Buddhist temples while sitting along the Mekong and Khan Rivers. It ended up being my favorite place in Laos. Golli and I rented moto's the first day and rode through rice fields, mountains and dusty villages to get to Kwang Si Falls. These limestone formations and sparkling turquoise pools of water were nothing like I've ever seen before. We hiked to the top of the waterfall and then relaxed afterwards at the bottom in the biggest pool and used the rope swing a time or two :) In the evening we climbed close to 300 stairs of Mount Phou Si, meaning Holy Mountain for the sunset because it’s known for the most amazing view of Laos.

Day two in Laos we set out to see the Pak Ou Caves, upper and lower. These limestone caves face the river and filled with various Buddha statues but to be honest, I wasn't too impressed with them compared to other caves we've seen. Afterwards, we took a one hour elephant trek through the mountain and rivers! It was quite fun, although extremely slow and you could imagine! I don't know how someone could do that all day long (there are also day trips). We then stopped at a weaving village which we were first greeted with free Laos whiskey tasting?!? I'm not a fan of whiskey at all, but the first two were fruit flavored so pretty tasty, and the last one burned my insides for probably about 30 minutes. I observed ladies weaving scarves and bought two from a really nice lady.

The next day we set out for Vang Vieng, boy were we in for a treat. We took a minivan with 10 others all very close to our age so it was pretty fun. I would say Vang Vieng is the spring break of Laos. Tubing down rivers with bars lined up for tourists to enjoy, some of the people we met stopped in Vang Vieng during their backpacking excursion intending to stay 2-3 days and have been there 1 week, 3 weeks and two guys even 180 days! I couldn't imagine as one day on this river was plenty for me, although a really fun time! Many tree swings and zip lines definitely added to the enjoyment. Also, (get ready Minnie) most restaurants and bars in this town played DVDs of Friends on repeat! So both evenings, we'd lounge in short tabled, cushion seating areas watching Friends episodes for 2-3 hours. Nice little American break for me :)

We then headed down to the last part of our journey to Don Dhet, a remote island of Si Phan Don a.k.a. 4,000 islands. We stayed in a bungalow for $2 a night! And spent our two days soaking up the sun, bicycle riding around and to the island of Don Khon to view some waterfalls and hidden beaches. This wasn't a place for any Laotian culture whatsoever, but a great way to end the trip by relaxing in hammocks and sipping delicious fruit shakes!