Luang Prabang, Laos

We flew from Hanoi to Luang Prabang on Christmas Day. We did some minor shopping for paintings and a tripod for the camera as we waited for the plane in Hanoi, and arrived in Luang Prabang just after the sun went down. As we taxied up to the "airport" (there was one other plane on the tarmac) we knew this place was gonna be AWESOME!

Here's the rundown.

Likes:

• Very laid back
• Extremely nice people
• Real culture
• COPE hospital (Vientiane)

Dislikes:

• Fees for EVERYTHING
• Bus ride to Vientiane
• Vientiane itself

Favorites:

• Food - Everything Sandwich
• Activity - Riding a motorcycle to Pak Ou Caves
• Sight - Kuang Si Waterfalls
• Phrase - Sabadoo

Biggest Disappointment: Pak Ou Caves

Village along the Mekong

Luang Prabang is a sleepy little town located where the Nam Khan and Mekong Rivers meet in northern Laos. This little town is a tasty blend of local and international cultures. The people here are friendly and treat you with a respect that is not often found in Asia. It was nice to be able to walk down the street and not hear merchants and vendors asking you to buy stuff all the time. In fact, the pushiest guy we ran across was trying to sell me some weed, and even he was cautious about coming out of the shadows. We really enjoyed roaming around town, meeting and talking to the locals, and learning about where the culture and architecture come from.

A main roads in Luang Prabang

Vientiane, on the other hand, was quite a different story. Perhaps some of our distaste for the Laotian capital was a side effect of the 12 bus ride we took to get there, but more on that later. The only redeeming experience we had in Vientiane was the COPE hospital. This hospital specializes in finding practical solutions to the physical problems created by land mines in the Lower Mekong. This hospital runs on donations and tourism and provides hope for those who have been injured by the residual effect of the Vietnam War. Cluster bombs and land mines are still being discovered and/or triggered forty years after the fact. Viewing the war from a new perspective had a significant impact on us. Perhaps the USA would have done better to let things work out on there own in Vietnam. But COPE hospital is active in helping innocent people recover from the damage caused by leftover munitions and giving people hope of a "normal" life. The only thing that could improve this project would be a Christian testimony. Unfortunately, communist Laos is not friendly toward the gospel and people are being persecuted in this country for their faith.

Wow, how can I continue this post after the weight of that paragraph. The next topics seem so banal and petty...but I will try.

Everywhere we went to in Laos, there was another person with a packet of tickets collecting more money from us. As an example, from Luang Prabang to Pak Ou, we paid for a motorcycle to ride to the parking area where we had to pay for parking. Then it was a short walk down to the river where we paid for a ferry across to the cave. Upon arriving at the cave we had to pay again to enter the cave. What started out as a cheap $2.50 visit turned into a $10-$15 tour. In most countries we would just walk past someone asking for money to do this or that, but the fact that they had tickets made it seem more believable. We couldn't complain too much because the fees were still quite inexpensive, but it was tiring trying to guess what extra fees we would run into and wondering if we were getting ripped off.

After a few days we tore ourselves away from Luang Prabang and took a bus down the road to Vientiane. This eight hour trip took us nearly twelve hours. We were moving more slowly than we expected to, and our drive shaft slipped out of the gear box about 2/3 of the way down the road. Our bus driver and his helper jumped out right away with their tools and started banging around underneath the bus and within an hour we were back on the road. This ride was the longest, windiest, most sickening ride I've ever been on. We were very thankful that we had opted for the flight from Hanoi to Luang Prabang instead of the 30 hour bus ride. This twelve hour ride was plenty long enough.

Putting the drive shaft back into the gear box.

Arriving in Vientiane we were met with full hostels and noisy streets. We couldn't find a place to stay and the party culture was in full swing. Our taste of Vientiane was instantly tainted and we couldn't wait to get out of there. We woke up the next morning, bought train tickets to Bangkok and went to the COPE hospital while we waited for our departure time.

Some of my favorite things in Luang Prabang were the "Everything Sandwich," the Kuang Si waterfalls, and Jen's pronunciation of the word "hello." The Everything Sandwich is a sandwich with...well, everything on it.

My sandwich chef and I

The bread is a small French baguette left over from the colonial days. The filling was whatever you wanted - vegetables, chicken or pork, sauces, you name it. It was amazing! The Kuang Si waterfalls are a chain of travertine falls outside of Luang Prabang. After hiking up to the top of the falls, we headed back down to the lowest pool for a refreshing dip.

Yeah, it was cold!

Jen just soaked her feet, but I went all in.

Pak Ou Caves are filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of statues of Buddha. Nobody is certain where they came from or how long they've been there.

This little guy was just too awesome to not catch on film.

I'll let Jen tell you how to say "hello" in Lao. (:

Overall we loved Laos and would definitely go back if given the opportunity. Personally, I rank it up with New Zealand in terms of natural beauty and the quality of people.

Yet another sunset picture. I'll give you one more, too!

Hanoi, Vietnam

We have been working overtime to get some traveling done before our precious blessing is born into our lives. So over Christmas vacation we took two weeks to tour Southeast Asia. Our trip started in Hanoi, Vietnam where we spent Christmas day before moving on to Luang Prabang, Laos. After Laos we took a train down to Bangkok, Thailand where we stayed just a few hours before busing east to Koh Samet. We got a little sick there and stayed in bed for a couple days. Upon recovering from the bug, we took another bus, and a tuk-tuk, and a bus, and another tuk-tuk to get to Siem Reap, Cambodia where we finished up the whirlwind tour. It was an awesome and awesomely fast trip and we have a lot to tell you about.

This post is just about northern Vietnam (as you can tell from the title). Let me give you a quick run down.

LIKES:

- Cheap prices for a nice hotel

- Beautiful lake in the middle of town

- People were quite friendly

- Lots of French architecture

- Countryside tour included a bike ride through the farmland

DISLIKES:

- Vendors and merchants were REALLY pushy

- Crazy drivers

- Many gated buildings and inaccessible places

- Crossing the street

- Constant noise

Favorites:

- Favorite food - pizza at a local restaurant

- Favorite activity - waking up with my wife on Christmas Day

- Favorite sight - Hanoi Hilton

- Favorite phrase - "No, thank you"

Biggest...:

- Disappointment - cold weather and Hoa Lu

- Realization - the country is not bent on international destruction

We were really happy with our hotel. It was a big room with a large jaccuzi tub. The toilet wasn't in the best place, but overall the room was really comfortable and was in a great location for us to jump into the sightseeing. The staff, like most other people we encountered, were really friendly and helpful. They took great care of us not only IN the hotel, but they made sure we didn't get ripped off outside the hotel. They gave us estimates for taxi fares, told us how much street food should cost, and even helped us find flights to Laos for $30 less per person than travel websites could offer.

The overall feel in Vietnam was quite oppressive. Everywhere I looked there were guards. Most of the buildings we walked past on the street were gated, blocked, guarded, and/or fenced. There were officers everywhere even though there was very little reason for them to be there. The country claims that the government is for the people, but there are an awful lot of places the people aren't allowed to go.

One beautiful aspect of the country was the presence of French architecture. Many times you would find French buildings directly adjacent to dismal communist buildings creating a striking contrast between celebration of democracy and practicality of socialism.

It seemed that the construction workers knew how to build one type of house which was a narrow, deep and tall (usually 2-3 stories) row house. This type of house is extremely practical in the city where it can cost more than a several years' wages to purchase enough land to build. But this same architecture could be found far outside of the city as well even if it was the only structure in eyesight. The floor plan didn't allow for windows on the side of the house in the city, and they were absent in the country as well.

Walking in Hanoi was a dangerous undertaking. Generally, if you had the green light in a crosswalk you were pretty safe. The trouble was that there weren't many regulated crosswalks. For the most part they were a "go at your own risk" type of crossing. It was very much like playing Frogger. You had to time your steps to avoid the motorcycles and bicycles as they swept in front of and behind you. Jen hated it and just closed her eyes and prayed everytime we crossed the street. I kind of enjoyed it. With all the motorcycle and automobile traffic the noise level in the city was at a noisy constant. It took a while to get used to.

Here's a video of a 5-way intersection next to our restaurant one night.

The Hanoi Hilton was a revealing experience that I will not soon forget. The museum now is just a minor portion of the original site but it was big enough to give us a feel for what life was like for the US bomber pilots who were detained there. Obviously, the state government is not going to allow any negative propoganda, so we had to take what we learned with a grain of salt. But they painted a very bright picture of the lives of the prisoners in this camp.

They were given clothing, food, articles for hobbies, activities to do while being detained, and taken care of very well. I haven't studied this very much from a US perspective and I would love to find out what the prisoners actually thought of the prison camp. This was certainly no Hilton, but it looked pretty good for a prison camp.

My biggest misconception going into Vietnam was that it was a Communist country that was hell-bent on hatred and destruction. That perception was undoubtedly planted in my mind by some middle school social studies book, but it was there nonetheless. However, the people there are not at all like the people I've met from other oppressed countries. They didn't avoid eye contact, they weren't suspicious of everybody, and they weren't afraid to speak to the foreigners. They are a quite religious group of people with a significant number of the population proclaiming to be Buddhist.

Overall, the country was very fun to be in. They love the money that comes with tourism and the idea of capitalism has a foothold in their economy. I've heard that it's even stronger in the south where US forces spent a lot of time and effort to save the people from being overrun.

The third day we were in Hanoi, we decided to take a tour to the countryside to see the site of a really old temple and some caves. The temple was called Hoa Lu and was an incredible disappointment. The official in charge of rebuilding and maintaining this "relic" should be sacked and tortured. It was not at all worth anybody's time, even if temples are your thing.

When we finished wasting time at the temple, we jumped on bicycles for a one hour ride through the countryside. The destination was a body of water that runs through three caves. This particular ride was pretty sweet, not so much for the caves, but for the boat drivers and the mountain goats. We saw a dozen or so goats in places on the surrounding mountains that we could not have gone. And the boat drivers had this amazing ability to row with their feet! I can't imagine how many trips it takes to get the hang of that.

We loved being out in the country, far from the noise of motorbikes and cars and the throngs of people buying and selling.

She looks pretty good eh? Hard to believe she was four months pregnant here. What a trooper!

We had a great time in Hanoi, but somehow we were ready to go after just a few days. Perhaps that's because I'm not a big shopper and we tend to shop in cities. I'd much rather see the pure untouched culture of the country instead of the capitalist or communist-tainted cultures of the cities. And I have a strong feeling that these are the reasons we loved Laos so much.

I'm gonna pull a away and leave you with this shot of the sun going down over Tam Coc.