Thailand: Chillin hard on the Mekong

Enjoying the train ride!

I'll be honest, I had never heard of Laos before I went there. When my adviser had first said we were going there, I had to look it up to make sure it actually existed. I looked further into the country to see what kinds of things we might be getting into. I had to check a couple sources when I saw that it was 8,000 Lao Kip to $1! I was later told that Laos was the cheap version of Thailand… Wait a sec. I thought Thailand was the cheap version of Thailand. Surely enough, Laos proved to be a hair cheaper than Thailand--No complaints there! The whole week was a fun, but a fast and exhausting blur! Laos was beautiful and home to hands-down the bumpiest roads I have ever been on. Hello to non-existent shocks.

The adventure started on Saturday night when we took an overnight train to the border. It was my first time on a train but I really enjoyed it! It was a sleeper train so it was very comfortable fortunately.

SUNDAY

Nothin' like it to start the day

Bright and early on Sunday morning I was awoken by a loud “Gooood mo’ning!” from a lady-boy with a 5 o’clock shadow and a scrunchie on his(?) her(?) wrist. We had ordered breakfast the night before called “American Breakfast” it said we would have 2 eggs, 2 sausages, and toast. What we got was 2 very questionable eggs, 2 hot dogs, a piece of bread. It was a less desirable way to wake up with an empty stomach. The trek to the border began with everyone's favorite way of getting around: a Tuk-tuk ride! After a long and boring process to get our visa for Laos we headed toward the country's capital Vientiane!
For a capital city Vientiane was a smaller city, but then again this was a less populous country. Pi Mi a Lao native and good friend to Pi Pao took us under his wing to show us around his country and help us out with the language barrier. Like everyone else, he was extremely nice and welcoming. We went on a boat tour of Vientiane's dam. The spirally building below was going to be a hotel, but through the construction I suppose they decided it was a bit dangerous and a bad idea, so they just stopped.

Hidden in the mountains

Well, breathtaking.

The Dam

Pi Mi on the far left took care of us the whole week.

The long day ended when we checked into our hotels (hot water finally!) and had an awesome dinner at a really fancy restaurant. After all that all us students walked down the sidewalks for the night market and discovered a magical little place called Sabaidee Coffee. (Sabaidee means 'hello' in Lao). It puts all respectable ice cream shops I've ever been to, to shame. They had about a 10 page menu complete with different fruit shakes, colorful sundaes, and parfaits. Yum! Oh yeah, they had tons of coffee too. The best part was the 16,000 kip price of most of it. A whopping $2 to fulfill all my childhood fantasies of a world made out of ice cream.

My sundae named "Cool Sundae". Cool!

Ice cream AND coffee.

MONDAY
The next morning we woke up early(ish) and headed out WatPrakeo, Wat Simoung, and the Thatluang monument. This was a temple and a house where a lot of monks live that Pi Mi himself actually designed. (He's an architect.) Beautiful of course as always.

Perfect day for temple picture taking

The whole gang of course!

After that we went to the main square in Vientiane to the Victory Gate. Another beautiful monument.

We climbed to the top. Another million stairs

Looking down.

Climbing stairs is FUN!

A not-so-quick lunch later was more adventuring. We went to a UXO museum also called the Cope Center. It was a museum to build awareness of cluster bombs still hanging around from the Vietnam War. It was extremely moving. Did you know that Laos is the most bombed country in the world? It still has large areas of land that are extremely dangerous because active bombs are hidden on the ground still that haven't gone off yet. A lot of people that live out in the country by these areas aren't that educated about the damage that these bombs can cause, or aren't even aware of the threat.

Demonstration of how the cluster bomb works.

TUESDAY

Back on the road. This time we were headed to the Khammoun Province.This was a totally opposite experience from the city.

We stopped at a small village

They fed us good.

Is this not adorbs??

making basket weaving look easy. It isn't

Our finally destination took us to Thakhek city. It wasn't actually a city. It was a village tucked far off the road in the middle of the mountains. It was truly beautiful. We stopped at a cave on the way where we befriended a cute monkey! Unfortunatly my camera died at this point so I have no photos at this point! I'll try to steal someone else's from the trip. Finally going further into the mountains we got to the ecolodge that we would be staying at. It was like a village you see on TV. Very small all wooden and hardly any electricity. We quickly met all the cute village children and I think it was love at both sight for both parties. They were amazed by us, and we thought they were just so cute. They loved our digital cameras and had little photo shoots of each other.

Sooo cute! I can't get over it!

Rosie was quite popular

Nivid, she was my protector from mean little boys!

I feel like I say "and then we had a huge delicious meal" a lot in this blog, but I can't help it! That's always how things go here! They made us this huge dinner we all gathered around and ate. They then welcomed us to their village with a traditional ceremony. It might sound weird but they have this tree-like thing made out of flowers on a silver tray and then you would hold a ball of sticky rice and something that was basically a kit-kat in your hand. Then the two elders of the village tied a white string around your wrist and said something in Lao. Then you had to take a shot of Lao-Lao (Whiskey) or Beer Lao for the weaker of us (Me). We went around until all the strings were gone. We were all tired so we slept out under the stars on the porch of the ecolodge.

WEDNESDAY
This was the day of our 10 kilometer hike. We trekked through caves! I felt like I was in a movie. Unfortunately my camera was dead, so I only have a couple pictures of the whole day. :(

Rosie modeling the mountains

First cave of the day

We trekked for a while then stopped for lunch right next to a water hole to swim. It was freezing! part of it was in a cave too, so that was neat. Like I said though, too cold. The night ended in Savannakhet province at a guest house.

THURSDAY

Leaving Laos we visited a sustainable farm in NE Thailand. It was cool because they used things from nature to take care of their crops. They used frogs for pest control, and water. Animal waste was fertilizer. Of course what trip to anywhere in southeast Asia wouldn't be complete without them feeding us a delicious treat!

Black Sticky rice w/coconut! yum!

Rice Paddy

FRIDAY

Last day of the field trip! As much fun as it was, I was exhausted. We visited a handicraft center in Khudnakham. They make ceramics, carvings, paintings, and a bunch of other little beautiful crafts. They let us paint our own ceramics!