Judith
and Mark D. flew out Sunday 13 July on
their South-East Asia Adventure. I can't believe that was two weeks ago today. Communiqués from them are best described as sporadic but newsy when they come, mainly email
from Judith and pictures on FaceBook by Mark who seems intrigued by local advertising.
They
spent their first week in Laos.
Email
from Mark, Monday, 14 July:
Our
second flight was cancelled. And so we were unable to make our third one.
We
have purchased new tickets and should be only 1 day behind.
We are
currently waiting for our flight to Kunming (China), and then on to Vientiane,
Laos.
We'll
shoot you an email when we get there.
Mark
& Judith
Sent
from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network.
Saturday
19 July we got this email from Judith:
Hey
everyone!
We are
in Laos!
Getting
here was a mission, it was supposed to take 31 hours but ended up taking around
50. We had 3 flights with 2 stopovers. Unfortunately our second flight was
cancelled so we then missed the third :-( we were able to get a flight to
another airport (Kunming, in southern China) the next day and then to
Vientiane, Laos.
 |
| Tuk tuk |
The
airport itself in Vientiane was a shock, it was so small and old it almost felt
like an airport from the 60s for small planes only. And completely surrounded
by rice fields! The city is pretty awesome. Cars park anywhere and everywhere,
temples on every corner, stray dogs and cats by the dozen, people offering tuk
tuks everywhere, and delicious and cheap food. We stayed at the Funky Monkey
Hostel, a really sweet place. Checked out the must sees in the city as well as
Buddha Park. The road to Buddha Park was crazy, dirt road, insane potholes
(busses don't go there anymore), but it was also really interesting to see the
living conditions just outside the city.
 |
| Vang Vieng. See photo attribution below |
We
arrived in Vang Vieng yesterday. The trip was beautiful and we've heard that
the next stretch we're doing is even better! Mountains, tropical fauna, rice
fields, photos don't do it justice. We're staying at Pans Place Guesthouse and
checked out a couple caves today that were cool. To go to one of them we rented
a semi automatic motorbike and drove there, 7km. The ride there was probably
better than the cave. Endless beauty! We're heading out to Luang Prabang
tomorrow where we're gonna stay 3 nights.
The trip is 7 hours long, windy, up
and down, but beautiful. I'm really hoping to avoid motion sickness but it may
be inevitable. The heat hasn't been too bad. Our hottest day so far was feels
like 44. Here in Vang Vieng it's cooler, 25 degrees and raining a lot.
Hope
everyone is doing well!
Judith
and Mark
 |
| Courtesy Mark D, FaceBook |
 |
| Courtesy Mark D, FaceBook |
 |
| Courtesy Mark D, FaceBook |
Thursday,
24 July; email from Judith
Hey
everyone!
We
have now left Laos and are en route to Hanoi, we crossed the border into
Vietnam at 730 this morning. The bus ride is over 24 hours and is our first
sleeper bus! The seats are recliners and from head to toe are about 6 feet in
length. The change from Laos to Vietnam is quite drastic. Laos is full of windy
roads, potholes, and hills while Vietnam has been pretty flat. The views in
Laos nicer though. Also a lot of construction (and infrastructure) in Vietnam
so far.
We've
had a great time in Luang Prabang! The city is beautiful, it's actually a world
heritage site, so there isn't much growth but more restoration and preservation
of the city proper. The outskirts are still pretty poor though. Our first day
we checked out the city and a nearby waterfall. The night market is huge and
you can get all you can eat from food stands for $1.40 (we didn't, lol). There
are also a lot of monks in the city (most young, not sure why).
 |
| Definitely not Judith and Mark |
Our
second day we took an elephant tour which was super fun. After riding in the
elephant seat we got to bathe the elephant in the river which to our surprise
actually consisted of playing with the elephants where they try to throw you
off into the water and you try stay on. The drivers had a lot of fun getting
the elephants to throw off tourists! We then went bareback on an elephant on a
short trail. My adductors are still super tight from all the gripping that day.
 |
| Also not Judith and Mark |
Our
third day I think was actually my favourite. We did a half day "rice
experience" where we went to a local rice farm and they taught us all
about rice farming. We participated in all the steps of farming rice and it was
a lot of fun. They're a working farm and do the tourism thing in the morning.
They are a community farm with 7 families participating and the extra income
from selling veggies and the tourism program goes to helping some kids go to
school who can't afford it otherwise. Look up Living Land Farm "riceexperience" on google! (My description does not adequately describe how
great it was).
Hopefully
we'll be arriving in the next hour and I will send this when we next get WiFi.
Hope
everyone is well!
Judith
and Mark
Stay
tuned, watch this space, but don't hold your breath!
Photo of Laos Landscape in Vang Vieng CC BY-SA 3.0
