Step 3: Laos (from 11^th to 17^th)

About Laos. Laos is composed by 5.3 millions of people and 85%of them live in rural area. It was merely shelled during Vietnam war (“Laos earned the unenviable distinction of being the most heavily-bombed place on earth” from BBC article.). As it was a –strong- communist government tourists weren’t allowed to go in before 90s. Nowadays, it is still a communist one but government understood the importance –the opportinuty- to open its border to foreign firms and foreign people...good for us.

In the morning we crossed the Mekong river and I saw a Laos town for the first time. I had many first impressions: slower life, people less “aggressive” with tourists, the road wasn’t tarmac and dusty...

From there we took the slow boat for 2 days (the slow boat not the speed boat as in the Lonely Planet they say it is “at your own risk” because tourist died) with a night stop at Pak Beng. Afterwards we arrived at Luang Pra Bang.

Luang Pra Bang is the 2^nd largest town in Laos, after Ventiane the capital. As it was the former capital, it is filled with a fascinating array of magnificent temples, historic monuments and crumbling French colonial houses.

We stayed 4 days there, in order to ride a bike around streets, to see the beautiful Kuang Si waterfall and to swim there, to visit temples and musuem. We saw tremendous sceneries. We also spent 1 day in a cooking class in a restaurant to learnt Laos food....it was awesome. Saddly Matthieu was ill 1 of these days. We wanted to try local food, so we ate at the night market but one night he tried something he didn’t digest (=tourista).

We finally left by night bus to Ventiane (210km for 8h :-), VIP bus with aircon=windows that you can open, hole in the ground). We arrived at 6am at Ventiane and at this time NOTHING is open!!! So we waited to go in a restaurant, took a breakfast and slept on a chair. I didn’t like Ventiane. I didn’t find it nice, beautiful or interesting....I was quite excited by the fact that we would take the plane to Vietnam!!!

I really appreciated to travel in Laos after traveling in Asia because as french colonized it there are still some french stuffs: good baguette, vache qui rit, local talking french.