Katie and I came up with thist list while waiting for... our train, a cab, bus? It's a list of things we learnt while traveling around Laos.
-Kopchai means thank you. Kopchai lailai means thank you very much.
-Sabaidee means hello. Everyone says this to each other.
-Laos P.D.R = Laos: Please. Don't. Rush.
-Lao lu: field dwellers
Lao camu: midland
Lao mu: mountain dewllers
-There are 4 different tribes in Laos.
-The people in the tribes are a mix of all different Asian countries.
-There is no common language due to this. The most commonly spoken one is Lao-lum.
-BeerLao is the native beer. It's mascot is a tiger. It is good and cheaper than water in many places.
-Oh my God in Laos = Oh my Buddha
- Vietnam = friendly neighbour.
Thailand = boundary issues (espescially with the border).
-Fish- a lot of bones when eating it.
-The Mekong River is a brownish/orange. It is not blue.
-Sai = left, hao = right, bai = forward, tui = backwards (at least this is with elephants).
-Few cars, almost everyone drives motorcycles.
Showing posts with label laos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label laos. Show all posts
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Day 7- Biking Around Luang Prabang
So today Katie and I decided to rent bikes after our extremely peacful breakfast at Utopia. We tried to copy the Eat, Pray, Love advice of just sitting and doing nothing, I was pretty bad and just wanted to read my book (The Secret Histories by Donna Tart - it's really good!).
So we biked around the little peninsula. It's almost a little island surrounded by the Mekong River but not quite. We looked at some more temples. They are all just so detailed and incredible, it's ridiculous! And there are SO many. After a while we couldn't go into them anymore just because we felt like we had seen so many.
We grabbed at a little local place by the river and then biked back home (hoping to avoid the looming rain cloud). Thankfully we made it just in time and it started pouring down right after we got inside. So we took this time to take our first shower in about 3 days (swimming in waterfalls and the Mekong River counts doesn't it?).
After the rainstorm walked across the Communist bridge (there are a bunch of communist flags here, we don't know why, I should probably look that up). It was super high up but had a great view of the river. Thankfully it was cooler right after the rainstorm. Then we went off biking again!
So a little later, after returning the bikes ($2.50 for the day!) we went and grabbed dinner. I must add this is after having a brief snack (rice spring rolls for me, a croissant for Katie), additionally we had a couple of beers- it was our last night. Also we had walked down through the night market (we made this rule that we have to walk through the whole market before we bought anything- so we didn't buy the first things we saw). We happened to stumble upon this place called the Coconut Garden, which had been reccommended in the airplane magazine. It was pretty yum, my favourite part was when this stry cat just came and sat on me and fell asleep! I felt like all the animals loved me, espescially because earlier that day this dog was following us all through the city. So fun.
Ok so we allowed ourselves to go to the nightmarket one last time, with a set budget (which of course I went over - but only by like $3!). I bought two shirts, and two bags. It's all so adorable and cheap, you just want it all! But a succesful day all in all of finally exploring Luang Prabang.
So we biked around the little peninsula. It's almost a little island surrounded by the Mekong River but not quite. We looked at some more temples. They are all just so detailed and incredible, it's ridiculous! And there are SO many. After a while we couldn't go into them anymore just because we felt like we had seen so many.
We grabbed at a little local place by the river and then biked back home (hoping to avoid the looming rain cloud). Thankfully we made it just in time and it started pouring down right after we got inside. So we took this time to take our first shower in about 3 days (swimming in waterfalls and the Mekong River counts doesn't it?).
After the rainstorm walked across the Communist bridge (there are a bunch of communist flags here, we don't know why, I should probably look that up). It was super high up but had a great view of the river. Thankfully it was cooler right after the rainstorm. Then we went off biking again!
So a little later, after returning the bikes ($2.50 for the day!) we went and grabbed dinner. I must add this is after having a brief snack (rice spring rolls for me, a croissant for Katie), additionally we had a couple of beers- it was our last night. Also we had walked down through the night market (we made this rule that we have to walk through the whole market before we bought anything- so we didn't buy the first things we saw). We happened to stumble upon this place called the Coconut Garden, which had been reccommended in the airplane magazine. It was pretty yum, my favourite part was when this stry cat just came and sat on me and fell asleep! I felt like all the animals loved me, espescially because earlier that day this dog was following us all through the city. So fun.
Ok so we allowed ourselves to go to the nightmarket one last time, with a set budget (which of course I went over - but only by like $3!). I bought two shirts, and two bags. It's all so adorable and cheap, you just want it all! But a succesful day all in all of finally exploring Luang Prabang.
Day 6- Elephants
So today Katie and I rode elephants!! We took the hostel's truck to an elephant camp where we first rode on the back of an elephant named An. We sat in the weird chair thing and got to wear the traditional pointy hat things, it was so much fun though. It really felt like we had gone back in time. Of course my hat fell off after we went past some branches, ooops.
After that we pet the elephants some and then walked to the village nearby. It was right by the Mekong River which we took a boat over to visit the Pak Ou Caves. The caves had thousands of Buddha statues in it, it was really quite amazing. We climbed up a billion stairs to the upper cave, my legs were killing me from trekking! This cave was slightly bigger but I still preferred the one we saw yesterday!
Took the boat back over to the elephant camp and had a delicious meal of chicken and rice mixed with eggs. So yummy, I ate the whole thing. Also tried the fish as a part of our 'try everything (in moderation)' vow.
After lunch we rode the elephants again but this time without any chair. We sat on it's neck and we got on by climbing up it's back. So crazy! Also, elephants are much more hairy than you would think, and the hairs are pretty itchy. So we each got our own elephant this time and rode into the water! We went down this super steep slope, I seriously though a) the elephant would slip b) I would fall off and c) this completely would not be allowed in the US.
It was amazing!!! We were in the Mekong River riding elephants. They would dip their head all the way under- getting us completely soaked head to toe. Then we they kept spraying us with their trunks. This family of a father and two young boys were with us. The boys were just jumping from back to back of the elephants like it was no big deal. They kept getting mad at my elephant because it wouldn't listen. Katie's was literally throwing her off. So I went on to Katie's and it was impossible to ride! It would put it's head under- so we were a little more than waist deep, then it would start thrashing side to side making it impossible to stay on! I don't know how many times we fell off. It was so unbelievably fun though.
We then (while dripping in our wet and soaking clothes) walked around one of the close by villages. The village specialized in making scarfs and rice wine. A woman gave us some testers of white and red rice wine- very unusual tasting. We said no thank you to the 50% alcohol one. Dean (pronounced like Dee-en), our local tourguide then showed us how they made the rice wine- which I will explain in more detail later!
After that we pet the elephants some and then walked to the village nearby. It was right by the Mekong River which we took a boat over to visit the Pak Ou Caves. The caves had thousands of Buddha statues in it, it was really quite amazing. We climbed up a billion stairs to the upper cave, my legs were killing me from trekking! This cave was slightly bigger but I still preferred the one we saw yesterday!
Took the boat back over to the elephant camp and had a delicious meal of chicken and rice mixed with eggs. So yummy, I ate the whole thing. Also tried the fish as a part of our 'try everything (in moderation)' vow.
After lunch we rode the elephants again but this time without any chair. We sat on it's neck and we got on by climbing up it's back. So crazy! Also, elephants are much more hairy than you would think, and the hairs are pretty itchy. So we each got our own elephant this time and rode into the water! We went down this super steep slope, I seriously though a) the elephant would slip b) I would fall off and c) this completely would not be allowed in the US.
It was amazing!!! We were in the Mekong River riding elephants. They would dip their head all the way under- getting us completely soaked head to toe. Then we they kept spraying us with their trunks. This family of a father and two young boys were with us. The boys were just jumping from back to back of the elephants like it was no big deal. They kept getting mad at my elephant because it wouldn't listen. Katie's was literally throwing her off. So I went on to Katie's and it was impossible to ride! It would put it's head under- so we were a little more than waist deep, then it would start thrashing side to side making it impossible to stay on! I don't know how many times we fell off. It was so unbelievably fun though.
We then (while dripping in our wet and soaking clothes) walked around one of the close by villages. The village specialized in making scarfs and rice wine. A woman gave us some testers of white and red rice wine- very unusual tasting. We said no thank you to the 50% alcohol one. Dean (pronounced like Dee-en), our local tourguide then showed us how they made the rice wine- which I will explain in more detail later!
Friday, August 20, 2010
Day 5- Trekking and Waterfalls
So I'm pretty behind, really need to get up to date on my photos, promise I will soon! Currently sitting outside of our hostel in Laos eating Pocky for breakfast (we had their omelette yesterday but it was just so greasy!). Yesterday was amazing. We went on a 5 hour trek to go and see the Kuang Si waterfalls. Before starting we went up to see some of the remote villages in the mountains which were completely surreal.
We had to pay a man so we could walk through his forest, the man was smoking something in this huge cylinder and his eyes were very very red.... questionable. Apparently it was just tobacco though. Ok have to go, already but overview of what we did:
-hiked through rice paddies
-almost got attacked by a snake
-saw buffalo swimming in the water
-went to a cave that basically had no end
-walked along the very edge of the waterfall in the water!
-climbed down the waterfall (with me falling 4 times)
-swam in the waterfalls
-saw some bears
-got back to Luang Prabang and went to our favourite place Utopia for dinner, a margharita, and beer.
- made new friends from Denmark and England then went to bed!
We had to pay a man so we could walk through his forest, the man was smoking something in this huge cylinder and his eyes were very very red.... questionable. Apparently it was just tobacco though. Ok have to go, already but overview of what we did:
-hiked through rice paddies
-almost got attacked by a snake
-saw buffalo swimming in the water
-went to a cave that basically had no end
-walked along the very edge of the waterfall in the water!
-climbed down the waterfall (with me falling 4 times)
-swam in the waterfalls
-saw some bears
-got back to Luang Prabang and went to our favourite place Utopia for dinner, a margharita, and beer.
- made new friends from Denmark and England then went to bed!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Day 4 - LAOS
hello all my favourite people! Last night was actually quite fun, considering we were sleeping in the Bangkok airport! Katie and I scouted out some seats and slept there until about 5:30am. Then the Bangkok Airways desk finally opened so we could get our boarding passes. With them we were allowed to sit in the Bangkok Airways lounge which was nice - free wireless, coffee, tea, snacks mmmmm. We did some 'household chores' of catching up in our journals. They put out all this traditional Thai food and Katie and I tried all of it (all part of our "try-everything-to-an-extent-while-traveling-asia"). Needless to say we were not great fans.
Had some breakfast and we even reviewed some Chinese! Not as bad as we thought it would be! Then we headed to the plane which was so mini and colourful! We had some wine on the flight, just because we can. The views were amazing, just miles and miles of rolling green hills and mountains. After a couple of hours we landed in Laos, which is gorgeous!
Had some breakfast and we even reviewed some Chinese! Not as bad as we thought it would be! Then we headed to the plane which was so mini and colourful! We had some wine on the flight, just because we can. The views were amazing, just miles and miles of rolling green hills and mountains. After a couple of hours we landed in Laos, which is gorgeous!
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