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South-East Asia

September 2014 - March 2015
  • Claire and Karsten
A 182-day adventure by Claire Read more
  • Claire and Karsten
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  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia
    1

    Bolaven Plateau

    December 14, 2014 in Laos ⋅ 🌙 0 °C

    Since we still don't ride motorbikes ("just rent a motorbike!"), we decided to go on a one day tourist tour in a minivan in order to see the main attractions of the region east of Pakse. On yesterday's programme: waterfalls, coffee/tea plantation, villages. The two first were nice - especially the 120m one or the one in Tad Lo where we definitely understood why many backpackers choose to linger - and Claire loved the espresso she tried at the plantation! The village however was somehow quite disturbing. We had no guide, so the driver just told us to leave the van in two different villages (traditional for one thing or another) with no more explanation. So you have a bunch of tourists walking around the village, watching people living, taking pictures. We felt pretty uncomfortable as if we were in a human zoo...

    Today was a bus day. The local bus is stopping all the time for various reasons, as expected, but we were happy to find out that there is air-con, each passenger has his own seat and they played Transporter 1 & 2 between karaoke videos. Although the movies were synchronized in Lao, Karsten was happy enough, as the transporter still kicks ass!

    What we didn't expect were the 10 hours total it took, the stops for up to one hour for no apparent reason and tons of women swarming the bus with eggs of all sorts, fruits and half a chicken on sticks.    Read more

  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia

    Kong Lor

    December 15, 2014 in Laos ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    We had another travelday as we made our way further north to the small village of Kong Lor whose surrounding nature we'll go explore tomorrow.

    But today we didn't use a coach but travelled like the locals do - or at least almost. We took a songthaew from Tha Khek, for which we probably overpaid a little. That means of transport is basically an open pick-up taxi in form of a large tuktuk where you can hop on or off along the way. We were lucky cause our ride was unscheduled and probably unlicensed so we had the vehicle to ourselves for most of the way. Usually they are filled to the last spot.

    The best part of the trip were the landscapes through which we passed. Absolutely breathtaking and not only because we rode behind an ammonia truck for 10 minutes. Karst-shaped rock formations through which the beams of the setting Sun were falling, interesting vegetation and a mesa (=Tafelberg).

    We probably won't have too much time to explore much of it but it was already worth it just taking the ride here.    Read more

  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia

    Kong Lor

    December 17, 2014 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 6 °C

    We had planned on hiking extensively in this region but we had to cut our visit to central Lao short in order to get to Vientiane. There we are now, standing in line and waiting in halls cause Claire needs a Thai visa if she wants to enter by land and stay longer than 15 days - which she does.

    So we had only time to visit THE attraction in Lao, the Kong Lor Cave. You rent a boat with up to 3 people, put torches on your head - makes taking pictures difficult - and drive into the 7 km long cave through which the local river runs. After being awed by several giant rooms you get off the boat and can walk through an area where the stalakmites and -tites are illuminated. Then you get back into the boat and drive for another 40 minutes to get to the end if the cave. That thing is just gigantic! There are rapids in the cave through which your captain has to steer. At one point he headed full speed right towards a wall just to rip the boat into the right direction at last second. Like this he had enough speed to get the boat literally up a stoney step.

    The most beautiful thing is when you get out of the cave n the other side and get stunned by the landscape again. Definitely worth a visit, this cave!

    On the way to the capital a little girl in the bus was just constantly puking for like 7 hours. And then she just dangled a clear plastic bag full of barf from the hanger on her seat for everybody to see. Lovely!    Read more

  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia

    Vientiane

    December 20, 2014 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    As said before, we didn't have too much time visiting the capital of Lao PDR since we had a couple of appointments. But, quite frankly, there are more interesting cities in SE Asia. We saw a couple of Wats, the presidential palace and their version of the arc de triumph which they describe themselves on a plate inside as - and I quote - "from distance even less impressive". Besides that, there are tons of embassies, the biggest one being of Brunei, and pompous governmental buildings, as it befits a socialist dictatorship.

    However, there are a gazillion nice restaurants with great lunch offers - we had an AYCE buffet for 2,50 EUR each - and bakeries with decent croissants but no cinemas to see the Hobbit. Also, the traffic is nothing compared to other big cities. It is far less and far more orderly than in Phnom Penh or Saigon for example. Nice for a change!

    The second night here we went for street food - including a trip to the night market trying different bits here and there. Excellent sausage (on a stick ;) - with an Irish/French couple and we couldn't help but notice how differently you approach people while travelling. They had been at the tourist information the same time than us. Then we saw them again on the bus to Vientiane and that was clearly enough for both couples to strike up a conservation. Imagine that in Germany/Belgium. They would be more like "yeah, I'm gonna sit over there". But while on the road this is necessary of course or you wouldn't meet anybody. And it is quite nice that way!

    In other news, it is almost winter here. Being only at 28℃ during the day, temperature drops to like 17 during the night. So COLD!    Read more

  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia
    2

    Vang Vieng

    December 23, 2014 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Now this town is something different. Absolutely packed with tourists and they don't come for the once again stunning landscape. To make perfectly clear to you what this town is about, as soon as you get out of the bus, there are people shoving a voucher for a free drink in your hand. And in the evening, when you go collect this free drink you realize that the bar across the street has free drinks from 9-10 PM. And a bit further down the road from 10-10.30 PM. And everywhere they have the equipment for beer pong or flip cup. Thus, there is a ton of party tourists here. And for the hangover induced lazy day the following morning there are a handful of bars showing endless reruns of Friends. Vang Vieng used to be famous for the drugs floating around - one was allegedly able to get pretty much anything - but government seemed to have successfully ended this. We weren't even asked if we wanted to buy anything,

    But if you look beyond the party stuff, the town has a lot to offer. After we collected a number of free drinks the first night, we slept in the first morning - Sunday - and decided to head to the blue lagoon and the nearby cave. To get there one could rent a car, tuktuk, bikes, quads and even go carts - so, naturally, we walked. 7 km at noon in the blazing sun. Smart move clairsten, smart move. But once we arrived we could hop into the lagoon with seriously cold water. Very refreshing. After that we explored the cave which was really nice and huge, but nothing compared to Kong Lor really. In the evenings we stilled our slight craving for Western food with a steak for 3 EUR. That should do it for the next 3 months again... ;).

    The last day we went for a hike to a waterfall through the mountainous area around the town. That was really fun cause the trip not only included walking up and down steep paths but also climbing over rocks, dipping into the waterfall basin, wading through a river a couple of times and walking through dense, 2m high grass. But another sign that most people aren't here for this kind of activity was the fact that we were the only ones to have booked said trek.

    More popular are kayaking and tubing, where you rent an inflated truck tyre and just float through the river. Seems to be quite relaxing but we chose to rather go hiking in the end, which was a good decision as the nature was absolutely beautiful!

    So, we really enjoyed our time in Vang Vieng and absolutely recommend it. Just get a guest house a little bit outside the city centre ;).    Read more

  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia
    1

    Luang Prabang

    December 24, 2014 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all had as a nice day as we had with a handicraft course, free tuktuk rides, a murderous massage and an excellent dinner!

    P.S. Dunja, we hope the pictures answer your question!

    P.P.S. this clearly should have been uploaded on the 24th but we did have some trouble with the internet ;).    Read more

  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia
    1

    Nong Khiaw

    December 26, 2014 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    We have been pretty lucky so far as our plans never really have been derailed by sicknesses. But now we are sitting in northern Lao and we both caught a heavy cold and are pretty much strapped to the bed. It has been bloody cold during the last couple of days (night temperature around 10℃, windy, and we don't have the comfort of a heating ;), so that probably didn't help. We hope to be in better shape tomorrow to be able to go even further north. The village we are trying to get to is said to have one of the most spectacular karst formations surrounding it. But if we don't make it, it is pretty darn nice here, too!Read more

  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia

    Muang Noi

    December 27, 2014 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    Today we said "down with the sickness" (OK Nat, what band?) and took the boat to Muang Noi anyways. We knew we wouldn't be able to do the nice treks around the village, but we spent a lovely day watching the scenery in a cafe.
    The boat ride here was very scenic with mountains on each side of the river, water buffalos drinking and going for a swim, pigs wandering about, local fisherman taking care of their business and little boys doing the Gangam Style. Brilliant!

    Tomorrow it is already back to Nong Khiaw but not before we spend some more time in our hammocks and freezing half to death at night.    Read more

  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia

    Luang Prabang

    January 3, 2015 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    OK, we haven't been writing in a while so first of all, happy New year to everybody! We did recover from our colds in time to be able to celebrate new years properly! Great thing was that Nancy and Perinne from Brussels are on vacation in Thailand and Laos and made it to Luang Prabang for new years aswell, which was great!

    So together we went in the evening to eat Lao style BBQ in the lovely Lao Lao garden who welcomed us with a free shot! After downing that one and a couple of beers, we continued to the utopia bar which is a great place to relax during the day. For the party they turned their volleyball field into a dance floor and had a giant burning man some time after midnight. So that was cool! At 3ish we decided that we wanted to go sleep now but where held up at a private party in a shop of like 20 people with the host being super excited to have so many guests! That was really fun and we ended up in bed around 4.30.

    So naturally, we didn't do much on the first!    Read more

  • Claire and KarstenTravelerSouth-East Asia
    1
    2

    Luang Prabang

    January 3, 2015 in Laos ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    Now on to the other stuff that happened:

    Back from Muang Noi we stayed one more night in Nong Khiaw, in the same guesthouse where we left our luggage for the short trip up north. From there we took the local bus - read soengthaw - with 20 other people to Luang Prabang. Not a lot of space to stretch out in this one ;). After arrival we checked into our overpriced guesthouse. The city was just full. Almost all accommodations were fully booked.

    On the 30th we did some sightseeing and checked bars for new years eve. There we ran into a British girl we had met on Don Det who was with a bunch of great Australians with whom we spent that night and also new years.

    The highlight - sightseeingwise - came on the 31st when we headed with Nancy and Perinne to the Kuang Si waterfalls which are absolutely fantastic (we have started to watch the BBC documentary series "Last chance to see" about endangered species with Stephen Fry on YouTube, so imagine us saying fantastic with a thick British accent!). Pictures can't really capture the colour of the water which was a bright blue. Of course we went for a swim although the water was bloody cold. But it was so cool bathing in those waters!

    After recovering from our hangovers we finally had our cooking class in Lao cuisine! It took place outside which was really nice. We were 15 people with only 3 cooking stations but since we cooked 5 dishes everyone got to work with the wok in front of the watchful eyes of teacher and group. But we again learned a lot of great stuff but as always it remains to be seen what of it can be reproduced at home!

    And in the latest news: coming back to the hostel on the 30th after our unexpected evening with the Australians, we saw a mysterious mail from Claire's mother: "around 16h" - followed by the encyclopedic description of the name Finn. We directly skyped with Claire's parents to know all the details about our new born nephew, and it is then that we noticed that we were actually quite drunk ;) Claire is obsessed with the baby and tries hard not to watch his pics and pronounce his name more than 10 times a day. It is tough for her ;)    Read more

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