Sabaai-dee from Laos

I have some serious catching up to do here, and I'll do my best to maintain my patience as long as feasibly possible. The "A" key is sticking on my keyboard, and you don't realize how annoying it is to type until you experience the "A" key sticking for yourself. Take it from me. Okay, here we go...bare with me, I may get long-winded...

Tuesday night/Wednesday morning-- We took the night mini-bus to the Thai/Lao border. I've never had a problem with motion sickness in a vehicle, but I came pretty near to losing it on this trip. The term "winding" doesn't do these roads justice. Then, try riding them at dark, in a packed mini-bus, with a driver on a mission. Yowza. Nonetheless, we approached the border around 4am when suddenly the bus came to an abrupt stop. With the masses of rain Northern Thailand and Laos has had, many roads had flooded. This one was no exception. Our driver spoke no English, but it was apparent he was ready to give it a run. Luckily he didn't and chose to take the 1 1/2 hour detour instead.

Flooded road near Thai/Lao border

Mekong River outside its banks on Thai side of border







We arrived at the border just shy of 6am on Wed morning. There were two options of getting to our destination of Luang Probang--slow boat (refugee style, taking two days) or speed boat (6hrs crunched essentially into fetal position on an motorized aluminum slab charging down the river at 100 km/hr+). We chose option 1. Some of our passengers chose option 2. As I noted before, there is so much debris in the water with all of the flooding, causing serious concern for these speed boats and the uncertainty of what happens when this speeding ship hits a large tree. A few of our Irish friends found this out the hard way. Upon arriving to Luang Probang around 6pm on Wednesday, we ran into them on the streets and asked them how their trip was. We soon learned they had crashed after hitting a tree, their boat was flipped, and they were trapped underneath not only the boat but also several layers of trees and debris. Each admits they were lucky to make it out alive, despite losing everything. We also learned a Korean couple was killed the day before, and 3 Lao natives two days prior. Note to future travelers in SE Asia during rainy season: take the slow boat!

Packed on the boat! (Early on the route. Dozens more jumped on as we moved along the river.)

Scenery along the Mekong River, en route to Luang Probang, Laos.

Lao girl on boat, helping her mother sell food/beverages.








Thursday morning, Michael (Italian fella) and myself were up and on the main street in Luang Probang by 5:30am to watch a ceremonial event that occurs daily. The monks come out at sunrise to collect food for the day. Locals offer up rice, fruit, and other foods to them as they pass by briefly before heading back to the monastery for their daily classes and/or worship. Pretty interesting sight to see to start off the day....

Monks collecting food for the day
View looking down on Mekong River and Luang Probang from a hill temple.





Yesterday (Fri) a group of us rented bikes and set off for the hills. Before doing so, however, I should mention that I did something yesterday morning that I've been promising many of you for a long time. See before and after pictures below!


At 11:15 am....

At 11:45am...











Surprised? It feels good, I have to say. (Jason Harle, you're my idol.) Needless to say, I have a new place on my body to load up the sunblock!

Anyways, we rode about 17km through up and down terrain to reach the Tad Sae waterfall yesterday. It was one of the hottest days of the trip thus far, so a swim in the waterfall pools was much needed after becoming soaked on the trip out. The waterfalls were beautiful, but they came in a distance second place to some of the kids we met in some of the villages on the ride out. It's as if we were a parade coming through---kids came running to us, waving, yelling "Sabaai-dee" (Hello)---some of the most beautiful kids we had ever seen. At a roadside market, we had a quick English and Lao language session. We would point to items in the market (water, milk, etc)....they would identify the item in the Laos languagea, and we would repeat in English. It made for the best day of the trip thus far. It's clear the people here, especially outside the tourist arena, are the friendliest I've met on my trip.

Local boy who paddled us across the river to the waterfall...
Swimming in the pool beneath the falls.
Village kids swimming. Seeing outsiders seemed to be the highlight of their day.
They love their peace sign...
Skinny dipping at a young age...

Exhausted after the final uphill on the way back home...

Hope you enjoyed the show, thanks for reading, and we'll see you next time!