Laos

We made it to Laos, we cut this short by a couple days because the flights into and out of laung prabang dont fly as often as we thought and we ended up spending an extra night/day in chaing mai.

So far its been one of my favorite stops, the people are nice/friendly and not as aggressive in trying to sell tourist everything and anything they have which is a nice change at the markets which seem to take place every night/morning. Laos is such an interesting/beautiful place. We ran into an Aussie in Bangkok who spent 6 months riding around southeast asia on a Harley last year. I cant remember the exact number but i think Laos has had the most bombs dropped on it per square mile than any other southeast asian country and only 20% of the country has been cleared of landmines and the remaining bombs. So its wise to stay on the roads and not venture off into any rice fields here. The capital city is more of a small town, i think it took about 5 or 10 minutes to ride thru town on our scooters. It seems like we flew back about 20 years in the city and 50 years in the countryside once we got here. I tried to find a payphone to call home and had no luck. The hotel didnt think there was one in Luang Prabang. Sorry Mom.

We spent most of the day today just tooling around on some scooters we rented. Imagine riding a scooter with a space heater turned all the way up and blowing in your face all day and that may give you an idea of how hot it was on the roads. It took us an hour to go 30 kilometers b/c the roads weren't the best and weren't the straightest but once we got there it was worth the ride. The waterfall was amazing, and the water was actually pretty chilly. Around every corner there were kids riding bikes, playing, or walking to and from school but they all seemed to notice the two awkward looking foreigners ride by on there little scooters, Matt told me it looked like i was riding a miniature bike b/c my legs stuck out to the sides so much. Overall a fun/sweaty day in an amazing country.

Off to Vietnam tomorrow,

-Alex