Laos

 

 

 

 

Final thoughts of trip

Highlights:

1. Observing religious ceremony at Cao Dai Holy Temple outside Saigon
2. Going to the floating markets early in the morning in CanTho and ChauDoc
3. Seeing Stephen in Phnom Penh
4. Eating Pho and pumpkin blossom fritters
5. Seeing Angkor Wat
6. Watching Tony swing from a rope and jumping off Khuang Si waterfall
7. Mountain biking to the Poukham caves and swimming in the Blue Lagoon
8. Sunset over the Mekong river
9. Early morning parade of monks gathering their "alm", mostly sticky rice, from people in Luang Prabang
10.Cruise on Halong Bay
11.Watching the colorful ethnic women at the BacHa Hill tribe market near the Chinese border
12.A performance by the Water Puppets in Hanoi

Laos

 

 

 

 

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

Home !

A 10.5 hr. flight to LA followed by a 3.5 hr. to Atlanta and all went well, no problems.
So glad to be picked up at the airport by our son Colin, with flowers in hand!
Another 2.5 hr. drive home and thankfully fell into our own bed!
What a trip it was, a summery will follow and of course all the promised pictures!

Seoul (Incheon) Korea

We are in Korea on 10 hr. layover and were smart enough not to take the offered city tour, but instead take a day room at a nearby hotel and go to sleep for a few hours.
We were back at the airport, refreshed and rested by 3:30 pm to check into our long flight home to the US. What a change from Vietnam. What we saw of Korea, nice big highways, clean and not so many people. A very modern and beautiful airport too.

Hanoi, Vietnam

Anbother overnight train ride brought us back to Hanoi for a couple of more days of sightseeing and one overnight in our favorite little St. Joseph's Hotel. The highlight was a performance of the "Water Puppets". A very traditional Vietnames folk story telling art form, with a troupe performing with puppets numerous vignettes of daily life in the country side and ancient tales. It's all done on a pond which forms the stage. There are lots of dragons, turtles, fishermen etc. Very entertaining, with a live orchestra and of course all in Vietnamese.

Another sight we saw was the "Hanoi Hilton" actually it's the Hoa Lo Prison where the US soldiers that were shot down during the war, were held (including John McCain). It was of course very depressing and somber but interesting. WE also saw the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, including the actual Chairman Ho Chi Minh, very well preserved (embalmed) in a big glass case and guarded, that was incredible. Thousands of people filing by looking at him after 42 years of his death.

I want to ramble on, but have to go catch our flight home, we are in Seoul, Korea and a 10 hour layover! More from home, it was an incrredible journey,.

Sapa, Vietnam

A quick taxi ride took us to the Hanoi train station, where we boarded an overnight coach to Lao Cai. We could only get a four people berth, so we shared the cabin with a couple of Vietnames. It was a long 9 hr. train ride, but we managed to get some sleep and got woken up at 5am. In Lao Cai a bus from our hotel took us up the mountain to Sapa. The town is at 5400 ft altitude and is quite interesting. There are three different ethnic tribes represented there, the most prevelant being the Black Muong,not because of their color of their skin, but the color of their costums. We took a hike down the valley to the little tribal village named CatCat. The scenery was stunning, lots of terraced rice fields. The colors were not at their best, as we were at the end of the dry season. The rain will make them emerald green and is a sight to see, we hear. Unfortunately in the afternoon the fog settled in and we couldn't see a thing, it felt like being back in Highlands!!We did see Mount Fransipan, SEAsia's highest mountain at 10,312 ft.


This morning we took a 3 hr.bus ride down the mountain and up another to the Bac Ha weekly tribal market, one of the biggest of it's kind in north Vietnam. It was a sight for the eyes. Never seen anything like it. The women wore this multi layered very colorful costums to the market and were trading and buying anything from food to cows and plows and of course their handy crafts, which I was most interested in. The village was only about 14 miles from the Chinese border and the people were very similar in looks to the Chinese. The big tribe there is called the Flower Muong.
Now we are back in Lao Cai waiting for the night train to take us back to Hanoi. Then one more night there and home we go. I think we are ready for it!

Hanoi and Halong Bay

Thursday we flew from Luang Prabang, Laos to Hanoi, Vietnam. Much cooler temps awaited us as well as a light sprinkle, quite a change from the 95 degree heat in Laos. We found a great little hotel right next to the St. Joseph's Cathedral, where by the way, there was a five day long funeral ceremony for the just deceased Bishop of Vietnam. So the roads were total chaos, and from our room we could hear all the singing and eulogies piped out from loudspeakers on the streets. It was quite a scene. We were lucky with our hotel, the owner was Australian and he was able to book us our two day cruise on Halong Bay, as well as the train trip to Sapa. Both trips I had left open.
So the next day at 8am we were already picked up for the 3hr. drive to the Bay, where we boarded a nice old wooden Junk and settled into quite a nice state room. We set off into the Bay, which is part of the Tonkin Sea. It is about 606 suare miles and consists of more then 700 islands, mostly uninhabited. We sailed amongst the steep lime stone outcroppings, called Karsts, which was quite stunning. There are dozens of these cruise junks doing the same thing, but the bay being so big, that you never felt crowded. We also stopped at some huge caves as well as went from some sea kayaking, which we enjoyed a lot. Another scrumptious seafood dinner followed on deck as well as a refresing swimm off the ankered boat. We were only 15 passengers, and met some really nice fellow travelers. The next morning we leasurely sailed back to port and got off at noon.
That same night we took a night train ( 9 hrs. ) up to Sapa in the hill tribe country near the Chinese border. More about that next time!

Luang Prabang, Laos

We spent three great days in this beautiful northern Lao town, which is also Unesco Heritage town and has quite a quaint flair about it,not having seen so far in SEAsia.
The highlight was a trip to Kuang Se waterfalls, a series of cascades with turquoise blue swimming holes at the bottom and watching Tony swinging on a rope and juming in the water.
The other fun thing was an elephant ride in the nearby remote woods. The town itself had beautiful temples,one of the oldest one in Laos. We also witnessed the daily early morning parade of the monks, collecting their alms (people line up on the side of the street, giving the monks food). It is quite a sight, hundreds of monks in their pumpkin color robes.
Thursday morning we were off on a flight to Hanoi for our last leg of the journey.

Our hotel in Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng, Laos

A 4 hr. bus ride in a supposedly air conditioned bus, that was about 100 degrees, we arrived in Vang Vieng, a rather nontraditional Lao town, very hippyish, but a fantastic setting. We have a lovely room with an unbelievable view of these jagged mountains. This morning, after a very stormy night, our first rain and thunderstorms this trip, we set off for a 14 miles mountain bike ride through a beautiful valley to some remotes caves. There also happened to be a wonderful cool lagoon at the bottom, where we took a welcome swim after the big hike up to the caves. It's a very picturesque setting here and the river is clean and invites for swims.
Tomorrow we head off to Luang Prabang, another 6-7 hr. mountainous bus ride, but should be very scenic.

Laos

We spent another busy day at the magnificent Angkor Wat temples, this time on regular, non-motorized bikes, peddling about 15 miles in 94 degree heat. It was fun, but very tiring and I had a bout with the runs, so that was a challenge.
Today we flew to Vientiane, Laos, a 3 hr. flight. There is a beautiful monument, like the "Arc de Triomph" in Paris, built during the French ocupation. Already we noticed the change, a lot cleaner and dryer air, but still very hot. We're only hear for a night, the off to VienVang. a 3hr. bus windy bus ride along the river. It will be very mountainous. a big change from the flat lands so far.

Oh, a bunch of the pix that I thought were lost after I posted them, ended up on our old blog: www.longsouthamerica.blogspot.com in case you are interested. There may be some duplicate.

Angkor Wat temples

This was our first full day at Angkor and what a day it was. We were blown away by this expansive complex of ancient temples and buildings dating back to the 9th century with the most intricate stone carvings depicting battles as well as the history of the Siam kings of the Angkor period. The site is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site and many countries contribute to it's restoration and upkeep. It took us all day to cover about a fourth of the site, each building-ruin more interesting then the other. Just an amazing and totally mind boggling place. Definitely more then we expected. I will post some pictures to proof it.

Tonight we went for a Khmer food dinner in town, where part of the buffet menu was a faboulous show of local Aspara folk dances. What a treat (food and dance, all for $12. )

Just made it back to our out of town (dirt road) little inn, after hitting the night market for a few souvenirs). Our tuck-tuck driver waited for us on each stop and was quite happy by the time for our last ride, we think he got a little high on something waiting for us, so our little buggy just flew over the pot holes and he was laughing and talking to us in some funny language! Anyway, we got home safe!!