wanderlust

Uploading pictures here is a bit painful, so I hope everyone appreciates the time it takes :)

New pictures of my first day in Luang Prabang here.

Sabaidee. I flew this morning to Luang Prabang, in the north of Laos. Wow. I am left speechless at the beauty of this little town (20,000 people!). In just a square kilometer or so, it manages to capture the charms of cities 10 times its size. The temples, the setting at the confluence of two rivers, and the mountains all combine to create a mystical world.

The people in northern Laos are very exotic looking too; that adds to the mystery. I am going to spend two days trekking up into the hills with a guide, of course; don't want to run into any UXO (that's unexploded ordinance, for the unitiated). UXO is a very serious problem here, as in Cambodia; I read somewhere yesterday that an average of one person per day steps on and activates a land mine.

Ok...well, it appears I will be unable to post any pictures in Blogger so I created a web gallery with Picasa.

Herewith, my new gallery.

I was attempting to upload some photos this evening; I even wrote some snazzy captions for them.

I then got a nice "We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request" note from Blogger when I attempted to upload. Bah. Bah. Bad sheep.

While I attempt to sort this out, you are welcome to e-mail me if you'd like me to send them the old(er)-fashioned way.

I arrived this morning in Vientiane, the capital of Laos; this small city of just over 200,000 people feels like stepping back in time. It's slow, lacks chaos, is full of temples and historic sites...something feels amiss here, compared to other capital cities in SE Asia.

I decided to see how far I could stretch a fiver. Turns out, you can go quite far on it. I shared a tuk tuk into the center of the city with a young monk and his grandmother; both put their hands on me and bowed as they stepped out. I was perplexed. Total: 1USD.

Then I withdrew cash at the only ATM in town that I could find. After waiting in line for 20 minutes (yes, it's that popular!), I withdrew 1,500,000 Lao Kip, which is 150USD. Lots of cash is needed here because there are very few ATMs, and acceptance of credit cards outside Vientiane is basically non-existent. Plus I had to pay Lao Airlines 665,000kip for my air ticket to Luang Prabang. Sigh. Easy come, easy go. Total transaction fee: 2USD.

I ate lunch at a local cafe and enjoyed a (at my request) mildly spicy green papaya salad, steamed vegetables served with a fermented crushed fish paste (tastes remarkably better than it sounds), and a large bottle of Beer Lao. Total: 4USD.

I went over my budget by 1USD so I walked back to the hotel. I think Laos is going to agree with me, and that's not just the Beer Lao talking. I have a plan of attack for taking pictures tomorrow; I will spend the day in the city, taking pictures of its temples and sights, and the beautiful people. The Lao are a mix of Khmer, Chinese and Vietnamese ethnicities and are very unique.

This morning (BKK time) I am flying to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. Here I will begin documenting some of the temples and other sights, before traveling onward via Lao Airlines to Luang Prabang, a world heritage city in the north of Laos.

No pictures to share just yet; please be patient :)