OWEN AROUND THE WORLD: October 2006

I am now in Louang Prabang, Laos part of the former French Indochina colony. It is a beautiful little town set on the bank of the impressive Mekong River which I had to boat down for two days to get here. There are lots of old buildings from colonial times sprouted around the city, and relics from the French dominance are everywhere. To send post you go to La Poste, there is an Ecole des Beaux Arts (see the pics below!). What is really great here though are the baguettes, the croissants and the pains au chocolat! They aren't perfect like the ones in France, but they are really close, certainly better than the imitations you can find in England. Yum yum!

It was a great move heading up north from Bangkok! Chiang Mai in the north is a pleasant little city, relatively developed like Thailand generally but hardly any traffic and much more enjoyable to visit. There are some nice temples although I have already overdosed on buddhas! What was really good was the jungle trekking. there are all sorts of little animals, butterflies and insects everywhere. Apart from avoiding the massive spiders, leeches were trying to climb onto your shoes and up your legs which certainly put me a bit on edge! It was also interesting to stop over in the villages and get some exposure to how the tribes there live, how they make rice. Perhaps most remarkable is that in these isolated villages without any road contact, each house has its own solar panel! Apparently the Thai King launched a project a few years ago to ensure that all village houses had a solar panel. I think its such a great idea. The King is so popular in Thailand. Everyone goes around wearing "Long Live the King t-shirts" and the general consensus is that the King organised the coup which is why it went ahead so peacefully... I also got to ride around on an elephant's head which was a new very uncomfortable experience! The trekking ended up with some bamboo rafting which was good fun. The group of 10 people was again pretty varied with people from Holland, Germany, France, UK....

From Chiang Mai I crossed over the Mekong into Laos. It is unbelievable what a difference a river/international border can make. On the Thai side the infrastructure is very sophisticated with big American style tarmac roads and big UVs everywhere. On the Lao side there are basically no roads, electricity is prone to cut out... Crossing the river feels like travelling back in time. The Lao people are incredibly friendly. I've been travelling with some other people and I think the agressive negotiation some of them use is actually a bit offensive to the locals... Here you really don't get the touts or people trying to rip you off that you do in other places.

From the border it was a two day boat ride down the Mekong to Louang Prabang. The views are very impressive, and it is great to see the little isolated villages along the way which are just some bamboo huts and not much else. From the boat ride a little group formed with people from Argentina, Spain, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Italy. Again there is huge variety and everyone has a different and intriguing little story to tell. Here in Louang Prabang apart from the temples and the town, there are some really beautiful waterfalls with layers of turquoise pools making up the water fall. It certainly feels like a setting straight out of paradise. I'll put some pics up with the next post. Tomorrow I'm heading towards Vietnam which I hope to reach in the next 4-6 days...

Reclining Buddha in Bangkok

Guard in Bangkok

Boat ferries in Bangkok

Thai dancers getting ready

The fasting Buddha

Riding on the elephant's head!

Nifty little rice irrigation system on the right

Spooky spider web

Rice fields...

Cow and calf

Packed lunch wrapped in Banana leaves

The bamboo hut in the jungle

A village house room... Talk about sleeping close to the fire!

Pounding the rice grains...

Solar panel next to a bamboo house

Butterfly

Massive spider

Jungle river

Bamboo rafting

Big waterfall (not the turquoise ones!)

Barbecue in your table, getting the ingredients ready

Cook it yourself meal in Laos!

Its about 20000 kip to the pound so you wander around with massive wads of notes!

Little boat on the Mekong

Monks travelling down the Mekong

Little kids selling stuff

The guide does not recommend the speedboats... This one crashed after a rock in the river ripped out the motor from the back

Tiny isolated bamboo village

Mekong landscape

Some kids in a little village - Laos has one of the highest birth rates in the world

The slow boats moored up

Food stand in Louang Prabang

Punishment drawings in Buddha temple... Spot the couple fleeing the rabid dogs by climbing up the thorned tree, with crows at the top waiting to peck their eyes out...

An impressive golden procession cart

Monks in the shade

Ecole des Beaux Arts

A little girl giving a saut à l'élastique display

Music at the monastery

River bank...

View over Louang Prabang

Link to previous post:

Bye Bye India

My last few days in India were really great. I spent a bit more time in Goa, reading on the beach and sampling every type of seafood available and then from there I moved on to Hampi, the former centre of the Hindu civilisation. The landscapes are really quite incredible, with huge boulders scattered everywhere like something out of Jurassic Park or the Flintstones. I saw enough temples there to last me a lifetime, and on the way there I got to have my tastier omelette in India made by some guy at a stand in a railway station en route from Goa to Hampi! There was one temple which was particularly amazing, which basically had thin stone pillars inside which would make musical sounds when you tapped on them.

From Hampi I headed to Bangalore to catch my flight to Thailand. Bangalore is definitely the most developed Indian city I was in, slightly more organised, big modern office buildings dotted everywhere covered with names such as Sun Microsystems and Siemens... You can feel it is a high tech centre. The strange thing is when I think about one day in Hampi, when we went biking around for a day, and arrived in this small village to find a blacksmith pounding away at some metal, making the machetes you could see the locals using in the fields. It was mad to think that this rudimentary scene was only 8 hours away from one of the world's hi-tech locations. I guess it is the typical sort of contradiction you get in India.

Getting to Bangkok was a real disappointment. It is quite a developed city generally, but one that is really overun with tourists. You can go to Boots, walk down streets packed with young foreignors and seedy looking men. It has certainly made me realise what an amazing place India is. Everyday there you see something literally unbelievable, just completely crazy, and it is just such a stimulating place to be in. In Hampi there was a sacred elephant which would bless you, (i.e. thud you on the head with its trunk!) if you put some rupees on the tip of its trunk. In Bangalore on one street you could see about 5 cars next to each other going in alternate directions. In Goa, you could sit on the beach and along would come the cows and the dogs to sit near you and provide some company! In India there is always something special to see, someone trying to talk to you, an overwhelming mix of colours to look at. Compared to that, Bangkok seems downright dull. If you head away from the tourist areas there are some nice spots, the food is generally very tasty and the people do smile a hell of a lot, but I'm looking forward to leaving Bangkok. I've got a night train tonight which takes me to Chiang Mai, and from there I'll be crossing into Laos.