Feb 28, 2008

Laos (Ian's Diary)

Seth and i been traveling in Laos for the last week, from the Capitol City of Vientienne to Vang Vieng to Luang Probang. These city names are impossible!

so far we have met travelers from, All over america, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brasil, England, Finland, Swedan, Norway, Holland, germany, france, belgium, ireland, Australia, thailand, veitnam, china, japan, korea, hong kong, slovakia, israel, malaysia, austria, italy, and thats all i can remember at the moment. There is a confluence of peoples here that i have never experienced before. The backpacking scene is definitely overrated, i dont want to come to laos to spend time with europeans in a european bar! although i am going bowling tonight...for the second time in southeast asia.haha.

Today i floated an hour down a river, or more like swam an hour down the river with seth. We ended at a bamboo bridge and dried in the sun for the walk home. Luang Prabang is a Unesco World Heritage Site, which just means its beautiful. There are over 40 buddhist temples in the town, and there is a confluence of rivers , the mekong and mukong. The center of the town is a temple on a hill.

A monk tied a bracelet around my wrist today, after i spent about an hour talking to him in english, he was studying english when i walked past on the riverbank. He gave me one "for my girlfriend" too. HA! Monks can't even touch women, or else that have a three day pennance of praying to the buddha, poor boys!

The people of Laos are beautiful and extremely nice. Seth and i were on our way to a bar, and askign directions. So we asked these three guys behind us, who turned out to be english students at the university. I asked one of them what they thought of the town being over run with tourists, and he said he felt proud, that people want to come to his hometown. And next, which happens 2 out of three times you ask directions in Asia, they sent us down the wrong road...

Seth is currently fighting the giardia in the room, i can't be in there for too long, the sulphur burps and terrible gas are too much to bear!

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions! Makes this much more interesting.