Photography in Laos

I just look through the camera and press the shutter, and its the kids, the grandparents, the families, the lonley man, all of them who are not aware that im capturing the miliseconds. Thats why i liked my Sony Camera so much. Small and handy, can be easily hidden and opened, take the picture without making noise and move on.
Generally I take too many pictures, i find it amusing the expression that some people have in their eyes. When its time to go through the pictures I go too quickly, just rotating them and not looking at the details. A few days ago I found this picture that I took in the Bolevan Plateau in Laos. And I realized I had never gone into the details of all the pictures I took that day. That was a fun photographic day, so much fun that both my batteries ended up dying...We went village by village and market by market looking at the different living styles. I remember these kids quite well. The one in the middle playing with his tape which later fell, the girl in the right smoking and smiling ... They are probably still in that small town which I cant remember its name.

So today we did some touring aroudn the bolovens plateau, serioulsy one of the poorest of the region...i took too many picture leaving my camera with no battery...I love the lao houses, their style is really cool.....The driving thechnique is also intresting..you drive through the middle of the road and you pass the trucks and busses in curves with no visibility. You just have to press the horn to let anybody know coming in the opposite direction that they should move! In the road you see cows chickewns, goats and pigs...Just reduce your speed and press the horn if they dont move, that is the chnique.


Anyways.... wish i coul.d upload more but computer is slow.

Well so i wanted to put some pictures up...lets see if you can at least see a
Yesturday trying to get the tuck tuck on the ferry......

Us and our taditional fruit shakes....

SABAIDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!(hello!)

Im officially the person who has taken the most pictures 877 of the four of us. I think some of you arent going to be suprised.... i mainly go crazy when i meet people and kids and start taking pictures. I have a lot of memory and im not taking it with the highest resolution so im having lots of fun with my camera...just dreaming of getting a better one soon.Today we went to CHampasak and from there we went to Wat Phou which is also a UNESCO site..it is ruins of a "temple"and its very famous..we went there by boat. And when i mean boat i mean something made out of wood that when someone would move a bit it would move from side to side. I didnt really like it,although i enjoyed the views for the 1.30 hour ride. We then took a tuck tuck to wat phou...on the way back we also had to take a tuck tuck all the way to paxe..That meant we had to cross the river. We did that with a ferry. Which i dont even know how to describe. THe feery had ppl and trucks and cars on it, and hmm it was made out of wood and a steering wheel and some chains....Thanks god that we were just going to the other side. As our tuck tuck tried to get on the ferry it ended up with the wheel stuck ont he water. It seemed that it was uanble to put the wheel on the wood between teh land and the boat. So there you have didac and a bunch of people pulling the tuck tuck backwards. FInally the engine started again and they put the tuck tuck in that "ferry"...Tommorrow we are going on a tour around this area. As all tours this one will leave early in the mornign. I dont think we have ever woken up earlier than 8am and we dont go to slee to early either...Im looking forwards to twommorrow as seeing villages involves seeing people which involves picture time!! :)

Chob Chai for reading and byebye!!

Luang Parabang

I really liked Luang Parabang and its monks walking up and down the city constantly. The place was quite small and we kept bumping into the same tourists over and over and over...quite funny. The polish group that came with us from Vang Vieng to Luang Parabang we met them every single corner of the city. The city is part of UNESCO and its quite charming with two rivers going around it and surrounded by mountains. You can see monks everywhere and at 5.30 in the morning they go through the city and ppl give them rice...really nice thing to see. IN the afternoon there are some craft markets. Me and didac bought pants there..pants taht serioulsy look and when compared are much bigger than the ones i generally wear. And yet they dont really fit me...Strange!With didac i climbed up the mountain and we saw some nice view of the city and the river. We then met a monk and we were trying to ask him a question but he didnt really understand us so he ended up opening up a temple just for us. Really coool! The ppl here are so calm,relax. Its as if they have been stuck in a moment. We had dinner by the river and were able to catch the last open restaruant..yeah!Eating at spanish time didnt really work! Miquel and Didac also rented a bike to go aroudn the city..my legs were still hurting me from the trekkign so i decided against it...Instead i just fell asleep....Seeing how pressed we were for time we decided to head to the south of Laos to Pakse in an epic 22 hour journy. First Luang Parabang to Vientiane was an 9 hour ride. Were we once again met some true idiots. The people behind me didnt want to open the window. Of course there was no AC as promised...so after 6 hours and two tries by Anna to open our window i got pissed of. I went up to the guy behind me and told him i watned to open teh window. If they were behind and didnt like the air we could change sits. Oh,turns out he didnt understand..fine i told him in french. Now he needed a better excuse..and he found one. He claimed that if we changed sits we would crash cuz he was supersticious. Really pissed off i finally got to change sits when we reached the next city and someone left the bus, leaving two empty sits in the bus by a window!Alas!.We had already been 6 hours with no air. We then reached Vientianne and had to wait 3 hours and swtich bus but we got a super cool VIP bus with super conffy chairs! Unfortunately we also got someone who wouldnt shut up and who thoguth the army was a great place to go to and socialize and have parties. Seriously some ppl in this trip that come on our busses are driving me nuts! ANd thy tend to always be from Israel..is this a coincidence?? Finally met an entire group of catalan ppl ...all in luang parabang!

6th of august Vang Vieng to Luang Parabang

Oh..what a great day infront of us..we were ment to do about 250km by minibus to Luang Parabsng the old capital of the empire...Well to do this trip we decided to go by minibus with 10 ppl rather thnhan by bus as the dirfference is only of 2 dollars and its 3 hours shorter...Well nobody would think the trip would be amusisng and indeed it wasnt..It took us 6 hours..all by mountain road, all paved but making a lot of curves...at somepoint i felt very dissy..but got over it quite quickly. Well the views were really stunning..all the way..green and limestone rocks and mountains. Passing villages...we were traveling with 4 polish ppl who had also been on our bus from vientianne to vang vieng..they were nice butthere were also 2 irsraeli girls who ewere really bitches..alwasy complaining being rude etc. At the end they didnt even want to pay the tuck tuck from the bus station to theguest house area..reall bitches. Quite fun to observe and critizice ...anyways. We are now in luang parabang its full of monks around and temples..there is veray any electricity and its really cool...there are two rivers here one of them the mekong ..great views but again not enough time to be around...No comment!Im so coming back. Today i met the first catalan ppl, for the rest i havent metany spanish. And a lot of dutch..they are always so loud..this girsl behind me now are driving me nuts..but they are just saying theri duuu doeiiiiii so i hope they will be leaving NOW! Anyways its time to leave and get bitten up by mosquitos ..bye bye!

5th August

Now this computer is quite slow in typing so ill do my best to explain how our trekking went. Well we woke up 1 hour before the pickup to have enough time for breakfast,but once again that was not enough time...we were going to be picked up by9:30 and at 9:25 we were getting our food!Grrr at 9:34 we russhed and we got picked up. hahah in the tuck tuck there were already a group of 6 south koreans. One of them started talking to us..hilarious dude who was intrested in our young ages and later made us play a game about who we liked better of our group. Did Anna like me,didac or miquel better? Who did miquel like better? Unfortunately the south koreans went kyaking during the day and we went trekking...It was the 4 of us and two guides..so a very personlized tour. Things started very beautifully, and well it lasted like that for the entire day except for a couple of times. First of all...we had to cross a bridge that passed over the river. The bridge had to be passed one by one...it was quite long and extremly narrow,made of bamboo sticks some of which were missing and you had to hold to a metallic holding rail which in some parts was almost broken. Youc ould see the water current of the river running very quickly it was scary..but having seen miquel do it it meant i could too...once in the other side of the river we started to walk and walk and walk through the rice paddies. We eventually reached a cave..it was so dark we had to build a fire to actually get in. Even so it was sooo dark..first the guide fell,then miquel,then didac..it was my turn to fall but anna and i were strong enough not to fall hahah! Well i started to hear the water current in the cave, by the noise i could see that we were approaching a river and i wasnt happy. I did not want to swim in the dark in a cave in a river..i didnt even know the guide so i wasnt trusting him too much. He stested the water and came out to tell us that the water current was to strong. Yeay! we were going back...unfortunately we had to trek p the mountain and down the otherside. It was very steep and the worst it was muddy..i still dont know how the guides managed to walk up..they were only wearing flip flops. The best of all the coolest thing was that in the entire day we only met 1 couple ..we met a few lao ppl who were crossing the mountains with wood and fruits to sell in vang vieng but that was about it! The tranquility was amazing...now here was the worst..it wasso hot it felt like a sauna. After 5 minuts of walking we could have undergone a face cleaning our pores were fully open due to the heat and humidity. Miquel got very burned and cant really carry his backpack anymore ...today my legs are quite sore of all the ups and downs of yesturday. As i sayid the path was very very muddy and it was full of limestones so they were extremly sliperry. After lunch ..they cooked for us some veggies and meat and brough some fried rice..very lekker! We got to swim in the river as they prepared us some food!! we continued..we headed into the jungle, the plants were massive. By now everyriver we had to cross we had to walk through it. It was very refreshing ...lovely! But again the mud made us all end up brown...however the walk was worth it we reached a waterfall in the middle of the jungle..it was just the 6 of us and the water. The current was strong but really nice..its just hard to describe. You could see the clouds and we were feeling it was going to rain any time soon...Im a really slow walker when it comes to up and down hills...so i had one of the guides help me most of the time. He didnt speak much english so all he would say was BeCarefull..hahaha..im still hallucinating about their flipflops.Towards the end we had to walk downstreem for about 15 mintues it was really cool. Eventually we had to cross back the river we had crossed by the bridge in the morning.We had the option of crossing swiming or by kyak. We all decided we would swim. I promise you, you dont know how strong a current can be until you are in it. We jumped and the current took us down down down. We kept trying to go diagonally. Anna and Didac continued walking for 20 mintues through the rice patties till the car. MIquel and I went with the other guide kayaking downstreem for 10 minutes...And the rain started right when we reached the guest house. Although at the end we all made it through we all passed the exit way and had to somehow walk up streem on the side of the river. In Vang Vieng i didnt get to do tubing which was a real pitty. You get tractor wheels and you go down the river..we just need more days....But i now realize how dangerous the current can be..even if you are a strong swimer its quite crazy!

4th August - Trip to Vang Vieng

Once again up at 8am to have breakfast. Then the bus pikcks us up to go to Vang Vieng. The bus is meant ot leave at around 10 but it seems that there are too many people. Solution?Yes there is a solution. The bakpacks of the 7 left over pepole are placed at the end of the bus aisle. And the 7ppl each come on the bs with a plastic chairs and sit in the bus aisle. With the bus fully packed we embark towards the north to Vang Vieng. Where is the promised AC in the bus?Well this consists in keeping all windows open and every now and then opeining the door of the bus. We have a toilet stop and sto once so a lao person that goes with the driver can give some sandwithces to someone. Our tourist bus finally arrives in Vang Vieng.The trip has been okay except when the bus had to go uphill which he could only do at about 2km per hour. We find new and lovley guesthouse and go runniing to get some lunch. Laater we take a tour of the town. this is the backapcker sanctuary its all made for us. All the restaruants are open air and they all show movies-family guy or friends..its nuts. The town on ly has one main road, and a few streets. The main road is full of restarusants with western food, prices are still super cheap. We have been arguing about our trip. We want to see a lot and geting from one place to the other is already taking us a lot of time. Three of us think Lao will be much better than cambodia, while one of us prefers cambodia. We have set a date by when we want to have crossed the border...unfortunately we will not be able to go to as many cities as we wanted...Its hard to believe this country is in this planet. Many places dont have electricity,its really remote and yet save. Everybody seems to respect you and in terms of backpacking its a paradise due to its beauty and prices. We went for dinner in one of these touristic places in Vang Vieng where they were showing family guy non stop. That made a conversation with Miquel impossible as all he could do was stare at the Tv.....I have also found some shops that cell full boxes of DVD series and im considering buying some such as 24, lost etc...but not sure yet. I dont want to carry them for my entire trip. Also everywhere you see the logo of BeerLao. Its everywhere, in every single bar, in the stadiums in the trucks in the guest houses...Beer Lao..!! Tommorrow we are going trekking and tubing and waterfall watching...so now its time for bed!!!

p.s. humidity is killing!

3rd of August - Vientianne

We wake up by 8am to visit all there is to see in vientiane. because they have wierd schedules we got to wake u early. By 4pm evrething will be closed..our first stop is breakfas. As always it takes a while to get it prepared . second stop is the morning market . We all end up buying some thing, be it a t shirt, bracelets or decoration object. we then head to wat tat luang. its the most important religious monument of Laos. it is there that the most important buddhist monk of laos lives. The place is beautiful and uncrowded. Although we encounter some tourists its as if we are in a forgotten land. only a few of us are rumbling around after taking a million pictures we head to another temple the wat chan and end up in a western restuarant for lunch. Turns out we find the restaurant was also mentioned in our guide. we quickly engulf our food and drink our milkshakes and then head to the national museum which talks about lao culture,revolution etc..Its an old but intresting museum full of propagand. 1 hour left before all the places close so we go to the most sacred temle of laos. wat simuang. This place is beautiful and once again qute empty. after observing a monk during 20 minutes anna miquel and i get "venerated" (hmm however that is called..)by the monk. He talks in Lao and puts a bracelent in each ot our arms and throws holly water in our head. Didac doesnt do it and its a really bad idea. When dinner time comes we all get delicious food. Instead, didac who had until now always had the best food gets the worst!! hahah After that visit we pick up our passsports with the visa for cambodia. And at some time during the day we also end up at wat sisaket. This temple is full of buddhas of all sizes. We hadnt been able to go there the day before cuz it was 4.30 and it was closed.The walls ohave little caves each of which hold two budhas. really nice. the night ends in vientiane having dinner at a little cafre by the main road by the mekong. Then we head for dessert to a french restarant. ITs hard to belive this is the capital of a country. Its so quiet and tranquil country. Tuck Tucks here are for 6 ppl more o ror less so we can always travel together. The country seems so save and the people frindly. there arent too many lights in the streets. Many places are oriented for backpackers and its hard to imagine how this would be with out them. round 800,000visitors come to Laos every year. A lot less than neighbouring Thailand. The landscape is beagufil with the mekong river, limestone ountains and very green jungles,waterfalls,lakes a dn caves. This palce has 14,000km of roads of which 80% are unpaved. Making it very unhandy in the rainy season...NOW!

August 2

Im very frustrated as my previous entries all got deleted so i had to rewrite them. in addittion the entire bloger page is in Lao and so its getting complicated..

By 8am this morning we are ll awake. anna calls bac asleep shortly as didac miqnd and i follow the trins path in our thailand-laos-cambodia map. Eager to arrive we eatch town after town after town but our station never seems to arrive. Finally we arrive at Nong-Khati...with about 3 horus delay...take a tuck tuck that takes us to a place where they say they will arrange visa,bus etc...Bullshit we dont want that...Tuck tuck takes us to the border and we leave officially thailand. With a bus we cross the fridnship bridge and arrive at the lao border. We order our visas which in 10minutes are ready. We then cue and get our stamps...We then take a taxi to our guest house. Lao seems different, poorrer and relaxed. But without poor people begging. It seems laid back. As we are driving moonson rains hit again,but by the time we reach the guest house the rain has finished. Everything is upside down in the taxi. The gears are the otherway around,the stearing wheel is the other way aroudn...freaking wierd! The luggage fits all in the trunk! Amazing!So we are paying 4 dollars per night per room..looks like a good deal! We head for lunch...hmm lunch we are starving...we order stuff and after 30 minutes they come to tell us they dont have some of it. Fine change orders...after an 1 we get our food! Finally...We then head to the bank and change money. Oh lao money is nuts! 1 dollars is 10,000 kips..so imagine how many millions we have now! Its honestly hard to put it in your wallet!! Well..we visit some temples or attempt to but they all close at 4pm...So we arrange our visas for cambodia where we will be in a couple of weeks...We will have to cross through the river so its better to have the visas by then. We then just head to the mekong to take a few pictures and play card games and drink Lao Beer...thats what everybody seems to be doing just chillin..this is what this country seems about chillin...Nobody here comes running behind you asking for money or wanting to bargain..They are all smiling. The capital of the country only has 120,000 ppl..it looks like a town! And the adds you see everywhere are about Lao Beer! Hilarious!Tommorrow will be the day to see the market and the temples, they open at 8am...The traffic is not condense,but the the law of the biggest rules, the biger you are the priority you have...Crossing the streets can also be an adventure, but so far we are alive..And now, time for dinner!