Laos

December 5-10

dara / What a beautiful country! It is so peaceful and slow moving. We floated down the Mekong River to Pakbeng on the first night and then, Luang Prabang on the second night. The scenery is amazing! The country is completely untouched with thick vegetation and mountains off in the distance turning into rolling hills at the riverbank. The river is so calm and peaceful even with the jagged rocks off to both sides of the river. Near the jagged rocks, there is a nice combination of sandy and rocky riverbanks. The tribes are spread out as we traveled down the river, and it is miles between each of the isolated villages. It was fun to see the adults planting along the riverbanks in the sand and fishing off their long, narrow wood boats. Their kids are often playing near the water and waving to us as we passed. There is no better way to spend two days of traveling. We just floated down the river, only 50 km in total.

Luang Prabang (a UNESCO World Heritage site) was just as beautiful as the trip down the river. The city itself is an incredible mixture of Buddhist and French colonial architecture clustered together on a small pennisula between two rivers and surrounded by mountains. It is easy to lose track of days wandering around the city, seeing the night market, enjoying cocktail hour, catching up on our journals, going back to the night market again, sitting under the stars and drinking our Beer Lao.

The prices are fabulous! Jim & I found a great dark green duvet cover with matching pillowscases, shirts for Jim, pants for me, silk scarves and fun handmade bags. We will need to ship soon, since there is not going to be enough room in our backpacks. :)

Life is slow in Laos. We welcomed the break from the hussle of Bangkok and Delhi. It is the perfect place to see, to experience and to relax in this calm, amazing environment. We even went to Tad Sae Falls (a wide waterfall flowing through trees and over rock cascading into teal-colored pools of water). We climbed around on the rock and played in the falls. It was secluded, and we (our English friends, Dutch friend and us) enjoyed the waterfall.

It is difficult to be in Laos as Americans though. I did not realize how much we bombed them during the Vietnam conflict. Between 1964 and 1973, we conducted one of the largest sustained aerial bombardments in history, flying 580,344 missions over Laos and dropping two million tons of bombs, costing US $2.2 million a day. And even with this in mind, the people are warm and welcoming towards us. It is hard to listen to the personal stories of all the bombings back then. We even went to one of the historical sites, the Plain of Jars, in Laos. The Plain of Jars are large granite jars used for burials dated as far back as 2000 BC. It was their burial spot for cremations. There were alot of round craters throughout the Plain of Jars from US bombs.

We are off to spend the next couple of weeks in Vietnam. We are planning on celebrating the holidays with our English friends on the beach. Then, we will probably head to Cambodia for New Years. Should be fun!