Vientiene in Laos was a great place, warm, sunny and we even managed to locate a fab restaurant serving a cheese board with wine. Bob enjoyed the kids playground and Steve and Sarah got back into running and exercise down by the river, Amber just enjoyed the food - and the Christmas shopping!
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| Kids enjoy the playground in Vientiene |
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| A glass of French wine and some spring rolls in Vientiene |
From Vientiene we arrived in Luang Prabang on the morning of Christmas eve and headed to our accommodation.
Just Outside Luang Prabang, The
Zen Namkhan Boutique Resort, booked by us before we left the UK, was to be our ‘luxury
Christmas retreat’. Our accommodation was a small bungalow set in the forest
overlooking the Namkhan river. Unfortunately the first couple of days it was
absolutely freezing at night and with an outdoor restaurant and no heating in
our hut, it was no fun to say the least.
We were snuggled up in bed by 9
the first 2 nights!
We did enjoy our Christmas
morning opening presents, albeit very small ones that would fit in our luggage
or that could be consumed.
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| Presents on Christmas day |
Leaving the resort after 4 days
we then headed into Luang Prabang town itself where we would stay until the new
year. From here we booked a couple of tours, a combined elephant ride/boat trip
and waterfall visit and kayaking down the Namkhan and Mekong to visit some
caves, both of which were fantastic fun for all of us. Steve, Sarah and Amber also
did an Asian cooking course at the restaurant Tam Tam Cheng with their Masterchef which was very educational and we got to eat our
efforts afterwards.
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| Temple and night market in LP |
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| LP food market |
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| Fried chicken head anyone? |
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| Mahout Amber rides the elephant |
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| Steve and Bob with Mahout driving - Steve keeping his Birkenstocks dry! |
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| Feeding time after the ride |
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| Amazing waterfall |
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| Bobby braves the water |
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| Chef extraordinaire |
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| Kayak crew |
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| Lunch by the Pak Ou river |
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| Fantastic scenary on the Pak Ou river and hopefully no crocs! |
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| Unbeleiveably Sarah and Amber manage to work together in the Kayak - Milly and Em, where are you?! |
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| Drinks in the back of a pick up on the way back from Kayak tour |
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| Nice way to travel, fully air conned (bit of a mix up with our return transportation meant a lift back in a truck with a local bloke - much nicer than a mini van anyway! hurrah! and it was full of beers) |
Luang Prabang was very relaxing
place to be, small, easy to get around and very pretty with lots of temples and
old French style houses. It was a little disappointing culturally as it was all
too geared up for the tourists with every other building a travel agents,
restaurant or guest house.
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| Outside our GH in LP |
Phonsavan, our next destination ,
was a different place altogether with a few dusty streets and many
Russian style flat top buildings. The reason for our visit here, as is most
other tourists, is to see the Plain of Jars.
Phonsavan is in fact a new city
built after the war the original capital of the province being completely
destroyed by US bombing during the ‘
Secret war’. The whole area was heavily
bombed during the war and is full of unexploded bombs and mines although they
are gradually beginning to clear these. Plus heavy use of ‘Agent Orange ‘and
Napalm destroyed most of the trees and vegetation so not much will grow in the
contaminated soil . Fortunately the3 tourist sites have been cleared although
you must stay on the marked trails.
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| Best not to go beyond the white markers! |
The sites are also full of large bomb
craters and although many of the
original jars must have been destroyed there were plenty remaining and intact and
were quite a spectacular sight. Here are a few pics, any time any wants to see more pictures of jars , let me know!
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| Indeed it is a Plain of Jars! |
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| some jars bigger than others - no one know what they were for - some way over a tonne |
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| The jars sites were remarkably empty of tourists - Mark and Lyn from Oz behind Sarah |
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| Amber makes a spoon out of aluminium recycled from old bomb parts |
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| Bob has a go too |
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| What's in here? |
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| and here |
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| Bobby had a great day climbing on and in as many jars as he could |
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| Kids climb in a wrecked Russian made Tank |
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| Unexploded Ordnance but hopefully diffused! |
From there we headed back to
Vientiene again for a quick stay - then by overnight sleeper train across the
border into Thailand and onto Bangkok.
