flamebouyant
Kennel Legend
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2016
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I think the ATM issues were still a thing when I was there a few years after you now that I think of it. Im pretty sure that I had to take enough money to last my time there from memory. I took a boat down the Mekong for 2 days to get to Luang Prabang, had a ball. Just drank beer and listened to people play music.I'm pretty poor with the memory of place names. There was another place I really liked near Pai who's name I can't recall, the big drawcard was that it felt less touristy at the time than many of the places I'd been to already. In part I'm going to blame the copious amounts of really cheap pot and alcohol I consumed during those three months for not remembering place names. But in part it was because I saw a hell of a lot of places while there too. I don't recall trying the Laos Laos, tried snake wine in a few places but I didn't get sick at all while I was there. I was pretty careful to follow the advice to only eat at busy street food stalls even if it meant waiting longer to get food. My mate spent three days on the toilet and one in hospital because he always tried to avoid waiting for food by going to dicey vendors.
It's a pity that they didn't have facilities to get money as I'd have liked to spend a bit more time in Laos. It was nice to actually be somewhere that hadn't been developed into such a massive tourist hub already. We left Cambodia till too late in the trip to see as much as I'd have liked as well. would like to have gotten a three day pass to Angkor wat to see some of the lesser visited temples if I'd planned anything at all. But seeing some of the war remnants in Cambodia was sobering after living a party existence for the best part of three months. It's quite an eye opener to walk through a room full of photos of people that died based on the fact that they were intelligent and potentially a threat to pol pot.
The waterfalls of Luang Prabang were stunning!! They were the reason I wanted to go there as I have always been drawn to waterfalls.
I did a few days in Vang Vieng, and then took the bus to Vientiene (with armed "guards") so I could fly to Cambodia. So I didn't see a lot of laos.
Angkor Wat blew my mind!!! Absolutely epic!!!! I rented a bicycle and left at 4am to ride all around the temples. I still didn't see them all. If I had my time again I would have spent days there photographing them!
The killing fields and genocide museum were horrific. I never learnt of Pol Pot in school, it was only once I had arrived in Thailand that I found out about it all. Insane to think it was possible.
Vietnam was amazing too!!