All pictures were taken either on my Canon EOS with Fuji Velvia film or Maha's point-and-shoot with Kodak MAX 400. It is simple to tell which is which since the Velvia has much darker, deeper colors, and the people look dark and awkward on the Velvia. Also the Kodak film is badly scratched and dusty since the negatives sat loose in my hand luggage on the trip back to the US. All film was scanned in on my Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 film scanner.
To see larger versions of any of the pictures on this page, just click on the image.
We arrived at the Vientiane airport in the morning. After getting our visas, we left the airport where we were greeted by our guide and driver, and Maha was presented with flowers. First, we were dropped off at our hotel to check in. We stayed at Settha Palace each time we were in Vientiane, a very elegant, comfortable hotel done in the French colonial style common around Laos (although not commonly done this well).
We had lunch at Tamnak Lao restaurant, a very nice Laotian restaurant where we were served a set meal with a variety of vegetarian and meat choices. This was the first of many Laotian meals.
After lunch, we drove up to see the Buddhist stupa That Luoang, the most important religious building in Laos and its national symbol. The orignal structure dates back to the sixteen century, but it has been rebuilt several times since then. Laos is 60% Buddhist, and most structures of any architectural significance are some sort of Buddhist religious building.
Next we changed some of our money into Kip, the Laotian currency. At the time of our trip, the largest denomination of money regularly used, 5000 Kip, was equivalent to a little less that $0.50. Since we changed $40, we ended up with a very large stack of Kip. After changing our money, we were dropped off at the fountain at Nam Phou place near the center of the city and went on our own to explore the city on foot. Although Vientiane is the capital of Laos, it is still small enough that most of its sights can be easily reached by walking (other than That Louang, which would be a bit of a hike). We saw several landmarks in the city and spent some time browsing through the market.
This is the Black Stupa (or That Dam). One guide told us it covered the hole of a dragon that used to protect the people of Vientiane. Another guide later told it was a memorial to fallen soldiers. The memorial explanation seems more likely to me, but I still prefer to believe the dragon story since it seems much more interesting.
Dinner was at the Khua Lao restaurant, another very nice restaurant. The restaurant had a performance of traditional Lao music and instruments with some tradional Laotian dancing. Maha is shown here with her meal. Typical Laotian meals involved tearing off a piece of sticky rice with your hand, forming it into a ball, dipping it into some dish, and then eating it.
The next morning we woke up early and drove to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a little city along the Nam Xong river in the mountains of Laos. Its is probably the most touristy place we went to in Laos as far as the proportion of tourist to natives goes. Still it does not approach the commercialism and overcrowding of the tourists traps in the west. Laos is still very new to tourism and few people have discovered it, although this is changing over the past few years.
We stayed at Thavonsouk Bungalows, probably the nicest lodging in the area. Its not the Four Seasons, but it was quite comfortable and had a great view. This was the view from the balcony of our room.
After lunch, we went for an afternoon of kayaking. We kayaked down the Nam Xong for 3-4 hours, stopped to explore one of the many caves in the region, then returned to our bungalow to relax before dinner.
We ate dinner at our hotel's restaurant, the Sunset Restaurant. Below are a picture of the view from the restaurant during the day and at sunset.
On one rest stop on the drive we saw a few of the native children dressed up in their traditional New Year's festive wear. Each girl was paired with a boy, and they were tossing balls between them as some sort of social activity. Maha tried to talk with the little girl shown below. Since we don't speak Lao, there wasn't much communication, but the girl was friendly and did allow us to take her picture. In general, we found the children in Laos to be extremely friendly, with children everywhere yelling "Sabaidee!" (the Laotian greeting) whenever they saw us.
Upon arriving in Luang Prabang, we checked into El Calao which had a very nice room and another great view from its balcony which overlooks the Mekong river. El Calao is French for "hornbill" and the bird is seen in many of the decorations around the hotel.
Luang Prabang is perhaps the cultural capital of Laos. It is a quaint town with lots of shops and restaurants. There are many arts and crafts and the best restaurants in Laos are supposed to be here (although we weren't impressed with any of the ones we went to). All of Laos has French parts to it due to many years of French rule, but this is probably most obvious in Luang Prabang. Baguettes, crepes, and the French language are very common throughout the country, but even moreso in Luang Prabang.
In the afternoon, we explored the city on foot. Like Vientiane, the city is small enough that you can visit most of the sites in the city on foot. While exploring the city, we saw several wats and a couple markets. We tried bargaining for some woven wall hangings, but we're pretty sure the shop we bought them from got the better of us.
The Nag is a snake-like creature that is featured prominantly in much Laotian art and architecture. Below is a picture of us standing next to a rather large Nag statue.
In the heart of Luang Prabang is Phou Si ("holy hill") which has a Buddhist stupa That Chomsi at the summit. It offers a great view of the city. Below are a picture of the view from the top and a picture of us at the summit.
Wat Xiang Thong is probably the most important wat, architectually and historically, in all of Laos. It was originally built in the 1500's. This wat was very close to our hotel so we saw it on our way back from seeing the city. This picture shows a group of monks doing their evening chants (with a few tourist taking part as well).
We ate dinner at the hotel that night. We tried some more western dishes (hamburger, fries, spaghetti) to give us a little break from all the Laotian food we had been having, but we found that they weren't done very well.
This day we took a boat up the Mekong from Luang Prabang to go see the Pak Ou caves. The morning started cool with low clouds covering the tops of the mountains, which made for a chilly ride, but sun eventually came out around noon and warmed things up. Low morning clouds and afternoon sun was pretty much the pattern for all the weather during our trip.
Along the way we stopped at a village to see how they made wine from sticky rice.
The Pak Ou caves are filled with hundreds of Buddha statues. The main cave is down by the river and then there is an upper cave you can visit if you walk up the path.
Across the river from the caves is a village and a large rock face. We ate lunch by the village and stopped to take a few pictures of the rock face. I know there are some who set up routes for rock climbing there, but it is rarely used for that.
This is Maha modelling the hat she just bought at the village.
There was a shrub near our lunch spot attracting a swarm of butterflies, but this was the only one I could get to sit long enough for me to take a picture of it.
After returning from our boat ride, we were driven to see the Kouang Si Falls. I was surprised to find the falls much more impressive than any picture I had seen of them. They are very tall and are made of many levels and smaller falls. Unfortunately, I was not able to capture their magnitude or beauty any better than the other photos I had seen, so if you really want to see what they look like, you will have to go to Laos.
After seeing the falls, we stopped by two more villages, one that made paper by hand and one weaving village. All this made for a busy day, so then we went back to our hotel to relax.
A nightmare day! Originally we had planned to fly from Luang Prabang to Luang Namtha in northern Laos. Then we were informed that there was no flight that day, so our travel agent said he would arrange a driver for us. The travel agent gave me a time of 4 hours. I should have known better and done my own research to find out the length, but instead it turned out to be a 10 hour drive over the worst roads we experienced in Laos. To make matters worse, the driver for this section of the trip was not our normal driver. He was a very bad driver, and we had gotten quite nauseous by the end of this long, grueling trip.
Fortunately, once we got to Luang Namtha, we had the Boat Landing Guest House to greet us. It was very nice, clean, and cozy place and was great for relaxing after our drive. Again we had another nice view from our room, since our room was a bungalow on the Namtha river. The Boat Landing Guest House has to be one of the better run guesthouses maybe in all of Laos. Rooms are bungalows done in traditional Laotian style with stilts and woven bamboo walls. They are tastefully decorated; the art on the walls, the bedspreads, the curtains, the lampshades, and almost everything in the room is traditionally Laotian. Their restaurants menu is quite large, covering a large number of tradional Laotian and regional dishes, while explaining them all very well for the common tourist unfamiliar with the dishes. And unlike many restuarants in Laos, they offer a large number of vegetarian dishes, which is good for Maha. They definitely cater to the "eco-tourist" offering tours for hiking, boating, or even mountain biking.
The next day we did the day trek offered by the Boat Landing Guest House. The trek started through some rice fields.
The trail then turned into the hills and through some dense, wet jungle. Our guides pointed out many of the plants that the local villagers use for medicinal purposes. Maha was enjoying the trek until the guide pointed out the leeches that would periodically attach themselves to your shoes. None of them ever made it to our skin, but Maha was worried nevertheless. Eventually we walked out into a clearing with a little shelter. Here the guide tore off a banana leaf and we ate lunch with our guides in the shelter. Lunch was excellent. It was probably the most authentic Laotian meal we had during our stay in Laos. At least it was the only meal that we actually ate with Laotians. We ate a number of entrees whose name I do not remember, but two of the more memorable foods included boiled bamboo and rattan (yes, like they make furniture with).
After lunch we walked through more open areas, more exposed to the sun which kept the leeches away and Maha felt much better. We went through one village where we stopped for a while. Apparently it is etiquette to stop in some villages so that the villagers will not think you are evil spirits passing through. Not wanting to worry any of the villagers, we stopped for a while to rest. We were treated very cordially. We talked with the village chief for a while. He gave us some gifts that his villagers had woven, and we shared some of our snacks with him. Then we taught the chief some English, and he taught us some Lao for a while.
The final part of the trek involved climbing a nearby hill to the That Poum Pouk stupa. It was destroyed by a bomb in 1966, but nearby villages are now working to restore it. You can see the ruins in the foreground and the new stupa with the pink primer (at least I hope its primer and not the final color) in the background.
This was one of the few days in the trip that we got to sleep in. After lunch walked to the airport for our flight back to Vientiane. The guesthouse had already checked in our luggage and picked up our boarding passes. The Luang Namtha airport was a bit of adventure in itself. This was our first experience with Laos Aviatian. The Luang Namtha airport is a small single-story building smaller than most American houses and consisted mostly of just one room. There is no security or x-ray. You just walk across the runway to your plane and hand over your hand-written boarding pass.
We eventually made it safely to Vientiane with no problems at all. We were greeted at the Vientiane airport by a guide we had arranged for who was suppose to help us buy a traditional Laotian outfit for Maha. (See more of this on December 22.) She took us to the city market and showed us some of the outfits there.
We walked back from the market to the hotel stopping by Patouxai. While there we climbed to the top to see the view.
For dinner, we ate at the Nam Phu Restaurant, a romantic French restaurant, around the fountain in the center of town. It was very good food and was a nice change from the Laotian food that we had been eating so much of.
Early morning flight to Pakse. Pakse was a small airport (but not even comparable to Luang Namtha), but very clean and modern and nicely decorated, with an observation deck and air-conditioned restaurant. Upon arriving in southern Laos, you noticed an obvious difference in the landscape. It is not so mountainous as many of the parts in the north we had visited, and the vegetation did not seem to be so lush green. And it was noticeably warmer.
Our first day in the south was spent in the Bolevan Plateau, a plateau famous in Laos for its agriculture, especially its coffee. Our first stop in the plateau was Tad Fane, the tallest waterfall in Laos. While driving to Tad Fane is hard to believe that any tall waterfall could exists around that location since it seems so flat, but as you walk toward the waterfall and very deep, lush green canyon appears before you with the waterfall. Unfortunately, there is really only one viewpoint for the waterfall and there are no hikes offered to the base so I really wasn't able to take a photo with a creative camera angle. This falls is only a small blurb in most guidebooks of Laos I have seen, but I thought it was really very impressive and beautiful. I think if I were to plan my trip again, I would probably spend more time here hiking around and seeing the canyon. They have some decent looking bungalows (at least from outside they look decent) and they offer several hikes including a day hike that goes to 6 different waterfalls.
Next, we drove to Tad Lo. This was Maha's favorite day of the trip. This is another place with a great view. We had a bungalow right on the falls. Maha enjoyed relaxing on the hammock on the balcony while watching the water. After lunch we went to play in the falls. It was a hot day so the cool water felt good. Maha mostly relaxed in the pools around the water, but I swam over and climbed on the falls as well.
There was another falls equally as large a little upstream from the falls our bungalow was on. We hiked up there, but we didn't take any pictures since we already had a lot of pictures of waterfalls.
For the first night in the trip, we slept under mosquito net. It probably wasn't necessary at this time of year, but I just thought it looked cool since I had never slept anywhere with mosquito net betore. The sound of the falls was very loud in the bungalow as we slept, but quite soothing and relaxing.
That morning we ate breakfast at the Tad Lo Resort restaurant. I normally don't have coffee, but I tried it that morning. Bolaven Plateau coffee is extremely cheap in Laos, but is one of the most expensive coffees in the world market. So I figured I might as well take advantage of it while I had cheap access to it. Unfortunately I'm not really a coffee drinker, so it just tasted like coffee to me. Maybe someone with a more refined coffee palette would have been to appreciate it more than me.
Our next destination was Si Phan Don, or Four Thousand Islands. Near the southern border of Laos, the Mekong river widens to around 14 kilometers. In this section of the river lie this set of tropical islands. We first arrived at Don Khong, the largest island of the group, where we ate lunch. After lunch, we continued onto Don Khone where we were to spend the next couple days. It is a pleasant little island lined with palm trees. There are no cars or paved roads on the island, just bicycles and a few dirt paths.
We stayed at Auberge Sala Done Khone. The room was not as nice as any of the other places in which we stayed, but the room was clean and simple and the staff was extremely helpful and friendly. We had another nice view from our room, but maybe not as nice as some of the other places in which we stayed. The biggest problem with the room was with the beds. Notice the arrangement of the beds in the picture below, two single beds! Not exactly what one is looking for on a honeymoon. We quickly rearranged the furniture in the room so that the beds were adjacent, but it still was not the same thing as a double bed.
Really the biggest problem we had on Don Khone was the heat. It was really hot the days we were there, and there was no air conditioning in our room. So we spent most of the day relaxing and trying to avoid the heat, but in late afternoon when the sun had gone down a bit, we decided to go out and walked to Somphamit (Li Phi) falls.
We woke up very early this morning because we were hoping to catch a sight of the rare Irrawaddy freshwater dolphins. These dolphins are in the river by the Laos/Cambodia border. In fact, our boat stopped on a Cambodian island where our driver got out and made some sort of deal with the Cambodian police. We used this opportunity to get out and walk on Cambodian soil although we didn't have a Cambodian visa. After the deal with the Cambodian police was completed, our boat went out to see the dolphins. There are very few Irrawaddy dolphins left, especially in that portion of the Mekong, but we were quite fortunate to see a large number of surfacings by the dolphins, including some very close to our boat.
It was another very hot day, so for the rest of the day we just relaxed in the room.
In the evening we partook in a baci ceremony, the Laotian ceremony for new beginnings. The ceremony is performed for births and weddings and even sometimes when someone buys a new scooter. Since we were newlyweds, we thought it appropriate that we partake in one of these ceremonies while we were in Laos. Early in the evening some of the hotel staff came over to our room to help Maha with her hair and makeup and her Laotian outfit. They did an excellent job of giving her the Laotian look, and Maha made a beautiful Laotian. Unfortunately, the lighting in the pictures show an awkward tint to her face, but this is merely an arifact in the photos and was not there that evening.
When we arrived where the baci was to take place, I was surprised to see the large number of people from the village that had shown up. I was expecting only our guide and maybe a couple other hotel staff people, but there were quite a few people there. In the baci ceremony, everyone sits around a large flower arrangement, and the village elders make wishes for us in our new life. For each wish they make, they tie a string on your wrists. Some of the elders will tie a string around each wrist and some just one wrist. By the time the ceremony was over, we had a large number of strings on our wrists. (The superstition is that the blessings will come true if you leave the strings on for three days. I kept mine for three days, but they became too bothersome for her after a day, so she removed them).
After the ceremony they brought out a lot of food for everyone in attendance, and we had a big feast with the villagers. After dinner, they allowed us to take the baci flower arrangement back to our room with us.
Our trip was drawing to a close. We left Don Khone and went to see Khon Phapheng falls. It is the largest waterfall in southeast Asia, as far as the amount of water goes. The falls itself is not visually impressive since it is not very tall, but it is a lot of white water.
After seeing the falls, we drove back to Pakse where we ate lunch and went to the airport. We ended up at the airport about 5 hours before our flight, but we had nothing else to do. There were only two flights out of Pakse that day, and because we arrived so early, the airport workers assumed we were there for the Phnom Penh flight, and started to check us onto the flight without even checking the destination on our boarding passes. They even stamped our passports as having exited the country. As soon as we pointed out what happened, they had to run around to make sure our luggage wasn't going to Cambodia and that our passports got fixed. Eventually we made it back to Vientiane.
Had a morning flight out of Vientiane, but before we left I walked down to the city market. I spent the rest of my Kip on a kataw ball. Its a woven wicker ball that is used for games throughout Laos, as well as Thailand and Malayasia. The form of the sport we saw most commonly in Laos was somewhat like volleyball without hands. Players will use their feet and heads to knock the ball back and forth over a net. It looks extremely difficult, but it is very entertaining to watch. Sorry, no pictures.
This picture is of sunset over the Mekong from Luang Prabang.
Last updated: January 6, 2003