finally....after quite a hiatus.....

Laos....a land of beauty...we finally arrived! What a ride! We found a nice little guesthouse in Luang Probang and decided to grab some breakfast. Cailin asked if her bagette could be toasted and so the lady just grabbed it off her plate, toasted it, and brought it back carrying it in her hand! Having been in the food service industry for many, many years, I found the situation quite humorous! What would Johnny Carinos do to me if I did that to a guest! I'd probably be looking for another job!  I had a bagette with Edam cheese on it....I wondered if it came from my uncle Monte's cheese factory!
This was the lovely view from where we sat and ate breakfast. (I'm hoping you noticed the HUGE spider!)


Laos appeared to be much more poor than Thailand, yet we found it to be more expensive, which I thought was interesting. Either way though, it was still very cheap. Instead of taking the long bus ride we did, we had wanted to take a 2 day boat trip down the Mekong River. Unfortunately, we couldn't because the river was so low and dry. The reason is because China wants to keep the water for themselves and so they are building all these dams up north and that is why there is a shortage of water down south in Laos. They have 5 dams right now and want to build 14 total. I think that no one is stopping China because they can't; they are too big of a power house.  

Chelsea and I had a conversation about the fact that in Thailand and in Laos, you always see soo many people just sitting around. And it's not that we think they are lazy, but we both agreed that we would love to sit and chat with some locals and ask them what their days usually consist of. Could they be doing something to make their lives better? Do they choose to make just enough to get by? Or are they happier and better off because they don't have all the things, the accessories and the lavish lifestyle that we surround ourselves with daily? I was told the village people live off of $1 a day. Maybe that's enough. They wash their own clothes, they grow all their own food, they make their houses out of the nature around them....so they have clothes, food, shelter, and their families.....is their more to want in life? It intrigues me very much. While eating at a restaurant they had some literature on the back which I found interesting. One of the questions stated: "If the locals live on so little, why is everything expensive for you?" It said that the only things made local are basic farm crops, handicrafts, wood products, textiles, cement, electricity, beer, cigarettes and softdrinks. Absolutely everything else must be imported. The road to Luang Probang wasn't even accessible until the 1990's. Anything "modern" costs 2 to 10 time as much as in a developed country. Local inflation averages 15% and the cost of rent has increased 1500% in 3 years. Yes you read that number correctly. Intriguing facts I thought!

Later that day we found our way to this incredible waterfall. Notice the amazing color of the water.

There was this crazy rope swing by one of the areas where you could swim...it took me quite a while but I finally got the courage to do it!

We got up early the next day and took a long tail boat ride a few hours down the river to head to a cave. The scenery on the ride was fabulous, but the cave was nothing to write home about!

We saw alot people, like in this next picture, the whole boat ride and we were never quite sure what they were doing. It appeared as though they were sifting through the rock and sand....looking for gold?

The boat driver stopped off at this little village where we got to roam around for a while. There were many, many shops with their handmade products such as scarves, jewelry, whiskey, etc. This picture shows just how low the river is. The water used to come up to the green bushes.

This is another picture showing how low the Mekong Delta is. This has caused quite a few problems for the Laos people.

The caves are places where old buddahs are disposed of. There were hundreds and thousands of buddahs everywhere inside the caves!

We got to celebrate Cailins birthday while in Luang Probang. The evening consisted of a wonderful Italian meal and ended with bowling! It was quite surreal to be bowling. I felt like I was in a dream the whole time!  The bowling was quite fun and enjoyable....and not just because I won both games!  The next day we took a great bus ride to Vang Viang. Unfortunately I was a bit nauseous because of the crazy driving...but the view was worth it. One of the reasons that I loved northern Laos is because it was SOO much cooler than Thailand! I actually got a bit chilly....it was a great feeling!