2/12/11 05:34 pm
Photos from our trip. I'm shy to take pictures of people. I should get over that!
2/12/11 05:27 pm
Finally uploaded new Tet vacation pictures to Picasa, around 300 of them.
I didn't bring my notebook with me on our trip to take notes. We started out in Vientiane, Laos and stayed a couple of days. We stayed at the Princess Hotel. haha. It had good reviews on Agoda.com. It was the nicest place we stayed in during our trip for about 50 dollars a night. They had really good rice soup for breakfast. I liked that since I usually feel sick from traveling. It's funny that I travel quite a bit now when I really don't love it. I'm training myself to handle it. It takes Dramamine. There's not a ton to see in Vientiane. We went up inside an old tower, looked at the president's palace and ate at the same restaurant two nights in a row since we liked it so much the first night. Next we took a bus ride to Vang Vieng, a big backpacker's town about 3 hours away from the capital. The bus was so packed, Derek had to sit in a plastic chair in the aisle, not a great start to our journey. Some guy also was so eager to get off the bus, he started to push a little when we arrived in Vang Vieng and Derek snapped at him to chill out and be patient. The weird dude said he'd be looking for Derek while he was in town (to fight), so that made me a bit scared. What a jerk.
We were really hungry on arrival and stopped at a restaurant. Most of the restaurants in Vang Vieng are outfitted with long benches and pillows carrying backpackers watching Friends or Family Guy dvds. We saw about twenty restaurants with the same scenario. They mostly serve the same foods too.. a few Asian dishes and about twenty "western" dishes. I ordered Pad Thai with tofu and I got stir friend noodles with tofu, egg and KETCHUP. Now I was sorely disappointed with the food and scared this old hippie was going to jump out and beat us up.
A big attraction in Vang Vieng is tubing. I would say it's the only attraction, other than the beautiful scenery surrounding the town. I did love this and the clean, crisp air we don't get in Ho Chi Minh City. Walking around town we noticed a lot of the younger folk who went on the tubing trips were wasted, stumbling around, cussing and looking for a banana pancake (another popular Western snack on the backpacker's trail in Asia). We decided not to tube, because we didn't want to go with these people. Maybe we are too old now. Besides we can tube whenever we want in Arkansas.
After about a day in Vang Vieng we started for Luang Prabang, a five hour bus ride up and down huge mountains with bumpy roads. I was really proud of not getting sick on this ride. A tuk tuk driver took us to a guest house after arriving and it reminded me a tree house. Our room was about 70,000 kiep a night (10.00 usd). The tuk tuk ride was freezing. I'm glad I brought a jacket to Laos, southern Vietnam is never as cool. We spent several days walking around LP. It's a beautiful charming, old-world city. The Mekong and Nam Khan river meet here and they look so much cleaner than rivers in VN. There are farms along the rivers rather than buildings. Laos has a lot less people then VN too. We were able to ride bicycles around and not feel like we were going to be hit by motorbikes and buses. I loved Luang Prabang. The people are laid back and don't hassle you at all. I could look through the night market and touch everything without anyone asking me to buy anything. I got a pretty purse made from an old tribal (Hmong?) skirt and gifts for my family. We decided to save ourselves the 8-9 hour bus ride and flew back to Vientiane for about 90 bucks a ticket. After one more night in the capital we headed to Cambodia. Derek and I stayed in Phnom Penh a couple nights before heading to Siem Riep to see Ankgor Wat. I liked how the older colonial buildings are better preserved there than in VN. The press is free there as well. I don't think in VN you could get away with saying certain things in print, but Cambodia prides itself in its freedom of press. We stayed along the Sisowath Quay in the Indochine 2 Guesthouse for about 25 dollars a night. I don't see this in VN as much, but in Cambodia I noticed some older creepy men with Cambodian girls that just looked too too young. I guess the age of consent there is only 15. yeesh.
The bus ride to Siem Riep was a smooth, easygoing five hours. We watched funny Khmer karaoke videos. I saw women selling grilled cockroaches and grub worms on sticks during our rest stop. Ankgor Wat was amazing of course, but we weren't expecting to see it in such disrepair. In photos I had seen it didn't look so bad. We hired a tuk tuk driver to take us around the park for the day for about 25 dollars. Our tickets to the park were 20 dollars for a one day pass.
Maybe some day people won't people to walk all over the ruins. That human contact, and all the exhaust from buses and motorbikes isn't doing much for the preservation of the park.
A bus ride back to Phnom Penh and a short 40 minute plane ride brought us back to Saigon and another Lunar New Year is over! People were still celebrating when we got back to the city. Kids playing in the street and adults chatting or playing cards on the sidewalk.