Going Places Where Most People Don't

Laos turned out to be one of our favorite countries in S.E. Asia. Mostly due to how friendly the people are there. It was also one of the most third world of all that we visited too.

We tried to take a bus from Chang Mai to the Laos border, but again there were no seats available for a few days. This is one of the challenges of no pre-planned itinerary, but we are ok with it. Bill was in a hurry, so we hired a driver to take us to the border. A bit more expensive, but a much nicer ride.

Once we were at the Thai-Laos Friendship bridge we checked out of Thailand bought a ticket for a bus ride across the bridge, then proceeded to go through the process of trying to check into Laos. Lucky for us, there were some young backpackers there who had a little information about the process. It took a bit of time so by the time we exchanged some money, got some more money out of an ATM, filled out all the paperwork and made it through immigration it was a little dark.

Next we had to get a taxi into town. A taxi here consists of a small pickup with a cage like structure in the back. I think we had eight people in the back. Some who were locals were standing outside the cage and holding on.

We got dropped off in town and followed the backpackers to a hostel. Unfortunately it was full. Or was it luckily, because we found a beautiful old hotel a few doors down with rooms available for the exorbitant price of $150000 kip, or about $7 US.

We were able to arrange for a boat ride the next day and we were all set. Now to find some vegan food to eat.

The next morning we started our two day journey along the Mekong to Luang Prubang. There were other ways to travel, but we thought this would be more exciting. And maybe it was. But it wasn’t that exciting.

There was a group of British backpackers who obviously thought this was a party boat based on the amount of alcohol they brough on board. The second day of the trip they were much quieter, and we eventually made it to Luang Prubang.

The next two nights we spent in the beautiful city of Luang Prubang.

And then off to the capital city of Veintiane.

Although we had planned two, we only stayed one night in Vientiane. It was busy and loud and we had heard this multi-day scooter trip through some outlying areas of Laos, and were excited about doing it.

They say the Thakhek loop takes three to five days. We took five. It was a fantastic side trip. A little scary at times on the little Honda scooter we were driving, but an amazing cultural experience.

Wow! That was an amazing side trip. In every small village we drove through, as soon as the kids could see that we were foreigners, they would smile and start waving and yelling “hello” or “sa-ba-de” Talk about making you feel good about yourself, or lifting your spirits. It was quite effective. And if we off the bikes, they would approach us to say “hello, where are you from?” They could say it so well you thought they must be able to speak English, but it didn’t take long to realize that was all the English they knew. 🙂 But I do believe they enjoyed the exchange almost as much as us.

We spent a couple nights in Pakse, before we headed off to Cambodia

In October 2022 we left on a grand adventure. Do We have any other kind? 🙂 We took off on what became a seven month journey around S.E. Asia that ended in Tokyo, Japan. I previously posted the final four and a half days of the trip. Now lets go back to the beginning.

Anna and I have quite often talked about traveling to Thailand and the surrounding countries, but had never put it into concrete plans. Just by chance one day while visiting Bill and Roxane back in early 2022, Anna noticed some travel books for Thailand and S.E. Asian countries in their possession. Of course Anna queried Roxanne for the reason. Roxanne explained the trip was a bucket list item for Bill, but she had no interest in going and Bill had no one to go with. You can see where this is going. Within minutes, Anna had agreed to the trip and started planning dates and locations. For those who don’t know, Bill is Anna’s biological father and Roxanne her stepmother.

The plan was to leave in late October, visit Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. And due to family obligations, Bill needed to be back before Christmas. Roughly two months for Bill. We didn’t have the same obligations, so our trip was open ended. I mean why fly all that way if you’re not going to stay a while.

I loosely kept a journal on an app called FindPenquins. It’s a great travel journal app and I’ve started using it more and more. You can expand all the pictures by clicking on them, or you click on “read more” and it will link you to my FindPenguins site, where you can…. read more. I’ve added more narrative in this blog which adds extra detail to what I/we put in the app.

Bangkok Here We Come!

We got to our hotel pretty worn out from the trip, but excited just the same. A Popular party road called Khao San, was just around the corner, so we had to check it out. Many massage parlors (legitimate), tourist shops and cannabis stores lined the four block long road. Also vendors were walking up and down the road selling bar-b-queued tarantulas, roaches and scorpions. Yum! Since we’re vegan, we didn’t try any 😉

Our first full day in town, we got to see a little more of Bangkok.

Our second day we had to check out of the Airbnb, but our bus for Chiang Mai didn’t leave till the evening. We stored our bags and found some things to do. We got swindled into an overpriced tour. The tour was just fine, but we got talked into it by a guy on the street and paid probably twice as much as we should have. Oh well.

That evening we were on the first of many overnight bus rides across S.E. Asia, and in the morning we were in Chiang Mai.

We explored a little outside the walled city and planned for our next day adventures. That’s where Bill went on a mountain biking tour, while Anna and I went to see elephants and stuff.

And that was about it for Thailand. Our next country on the list is Laos.

In May 2023 at the end of our seven months in S.E. Asia we tried to break up the long flight straight back to the USA. So instead of straight from Singapore to Los Angeles, we stopped off in Tokyo to split the flight time.