Pictures and final thoughts

I've been going through my pictures over the past couple days and have started uploading them in their original size/resolution to my flickr account.

You'll find them in a new set I called Asia Trip 2006. I moved the old pictures (and severely downsized) to anoter set called Asia Trip (old). For those interested, I've already sorted through and uploaded all the pics for Hong Kong and Bangkok. I should also upload the rest of the Thailand pictures before the day's out.

In regards to my pictures, I have to agree with some of you that some do look quite good. The pictures I liked best were the more random pictures I was taking earlier on of people and random things. I'm a little dissapointed I didn't continue doing as much of that later on on my adventures. I didn't know how well they would turn out, and they take quite a bit of effort to produce on a consistent basis. But, lesson learned as they say, next time, I'll be more consistently trigger happy.

Finally, I really like how my night/dusk shots turned out with my limited photographing talent. I'll definetly be looking into improving that aspect of photography.

As far as further updating the blog, other than making quick updates in regards to the status of my uploaded pictures, I think there's not much reason to keep it up... well until the next trip...maybe.

Hope you enjoyed reading as I went along, maybe I gave someone to itch to go check out the amazing region that is South-East Asia. If it's so, than I conclude that that the work that went into this blog was well worth it. So long everyone...

Adventure over? ... not quite!

As my plane was lifting off the ground from Don Muang International airport in Bangkok, I thought that the adventure was finally over (especially as I got on the plane 10 minutes before takeoff).

Well, I was wrong...

The flight home was extremely long and uneventfull. The plane landed at JFK airport on time at 9:00PM wednesday night. So far so good, or so I thought...

By the time I boarded off the plane, I came head into a really long line at customs. This took 1.5hrs to get through.

I managed to make my way to the Port Authority bus station in Manhattan 10 minutes before my bus was heading off; only to find that the bus was full and I was going to have to wait until 8:30AM the next morning.

So here I was; 12:30am; exhausted (over 30hrs without sleep by this point); and needing to kill 8hrs in Manhattan (of all places). Not to mention staying awake too!

So I ended up wandering around downtown New York City for over 7 hours, in the middle of the night. The city itself looked quite cool. There's something soothing at seeing Time Square deserted at 3:00AM. I even found a tour guide (or he found me) to keep me awake for a couple hours, I paid him 7$ for his efforts.

So I managed to catch the bus at 8:30AM, and made it to Montreal by 5:30PM. A little late, a hell of a lot tired, but home in one piece...

Finally going home...

Well, the time has finally arrived to be heading back.
My flight departs in just over 2 hours from Bangkok. I have over 20 hours of flight and 8 hours of bus ahead of me. Great fun.

My original impression of Bangkok was very unfavorable. I must say that my second foray in the city has been much more positive. (Hence the lack of updates since I arrived, been a little busy)

The food here is great, great cheap sushi (what else does one need?), great farang (western) food, and of course, great Thai food. I've also this time around been lucky (and motivated!) to experience a bit of the famous Bangkok night life, definitely well deserved.

Finally, for you shop-aholics out there, Bangkok is heaven, period.

That's it for now, and as long as some crazy buddhist extremists don't decide to hijack the plane, I should be back in Montreal Thursday morning.

See you all soon!

P.S. I will upload new pictures as soon as I get home. I will also start re-uploading the pictures in their native high-resolution starting this weekend.

Le Francais de Tha Kaek

IMG_2962, originally uploaded by Benji99.

This and many more posted to my Flickr account.

Proche de la fin...

Well folks, got less than a week to go before I have to board my flight home in Bangkok.

I'm currently still in Pakse, just came back from spending 1 day in Champasak where we saw the pretty damn impressive Wat Phu. This religious temple was built betweem the 8th and 13th centuries by the Khmer empire (same peeps who built Angkok Wat in Cambodia).

I also did quite a bit of motorcycle riding around the area. Checked out a couple impressive falls. The scenery that is seen by motorcycle is also very impressive.

I've uploaded a bunch of new pictures (but none of Wat Phu, yet), didn't feel like tagging them properly, so I just tagged them as New Batch. You know where to find them.

So far, it looks like I'll be leaving Pakse (and Laos) tomorrow, and will be making my way quickly to Bangkok to do some shopping before I come back. Like for example, I need to buy a new pair of glasses, as my old pair was involved in an "accident".

Finally new pics

Picture 014, originally uploaded by Benji99.

Just uploaded pics of The infamous Plain of Jars, Phonsavan and Vientiane. You know where to get them, enjoy!

Traffic

Picture 466, originally uploaded by Benji99.

This picture gives a good idea of who exactly rules the road in many parts of Laos...

Tha Kaek Part II

We arrived back in Tha Kaek, in the middle of a thundershower no less.
We spent quite a few more days than we anticipated, 5 to be exact.
We of course spent more time with the french-laos family.
We also got invited to a wedding that our guesthouse's family was hosting for a family member. We got officially introduced to Lao-dancing, trippy to say the least!
Finally, on the night we were parting with the family, Chris and I decided to buy them a bottle of Johnny Walker. We didn't anticipate we would have to drink the whole bottle with 3-4 others. Let's just say I had quite the headache for the next couple days!

We then left for Pakse, more to come soon, and pics!

Savannakhet

A few days late, I know... :)
Spent 3 days in Savannakhet with Chris and Claudia.
The town turned out to be pretty depressing overall.
It is blessed with a good quantity of surviving french buildings, but most of them are in pretty bad shape. We all got the feeling that that this town used to be a lot more important and lively then it is now.

This was also the first town in Laos where we definetly noticed beggars, I don't know what's so special about Savannakhet in that regard, but they didn't seem to exist elsewhere. Strange.

At the end of our time in Savannakhet is when we parted ways with Claudia, she was heading back to Bangkok. Chris and I were heading back to Tha Kaek for only a day or 2.

Around Sam Neua

Picture 402, originally uploaded by Benji99.

Here's another shot that was just posted to my flickr account, enjoy!

Nong Khiaw at night

Picture 322, originally uploaded by Benji99.

Finally more pictures!!!!!
Check out my flickr account for more!

Tha Kaek, the time of my life, and important news

As planned we headed south from Vientiane to Tha Kaek, which is a roughly 4 hour bus ride south along route 13. Along the way, I was once again joined by Chris, but were also joined with Claudia. She's german in origin, but currently living/working in Switzerland. I had personally previously made her acquaintance when I headed north on my own from Luang Prabang.

We then searched and found a guesthouse, which led us to goal #2: Find motorbikes!
We walked around for over an hour, finding nothing interesting.

This was until we noticed a foreigner on a motorbike, so we instantly thought he might have rented it, so we flagged him down.

This is how we came to meet Marc, Alyne and their amazing family.
Alyne and Marc are both from French, but Alyne is of Laosian decent. They met in France and were in Laos (along with many other members on the family from abroad) on vacation to visit Alyne's very large family.

These people were absolutely stunning, first they wasted their entire afternoon first finding a motorbike rental shop, then in helping negotiating a price. They were even able to exchange money for me (it was Saturday, the banks were closed, and I was out of kip).

The next 3 days were perhaps the most exciting days of my life, the entire family embraced us three almost as if we were part of the family. They showed us around the region. They got us to try all sorts of amazing foods that we can't find in restaurants around here, but are still very typical of the region. There was some heavy drinking (they love their Beerlao and Black Label Johnny Walker whiskey), and we could only refuse for so long. And when it started, well, you need to hold on!

One of the uncles had this "special whiskey", nobody is quite sure what's in it (and I have feeling we don't want to know), but it was the strongest most atrocious thing I've ever drank.

It was also interesting to see that this family (the local laosians) were abviously quite afluent. They owned very recent 4x4 trucks or SUVs, all paid cash (there is no credit in Laos. And one of the uncles was getting a house built with 11! bedrooms, each with a private bathroom. They only had 2 children.

They've invited us to go back on Friday for the grandmother's birthday, and it looks like Chris and I will be attending. This also means that I've decided to make a drastic change in my travel plans. I've decided to stick to Laos for the remainder of my trip.

The reason for this are three fold: First, I was realizing that I would need to skip a whole lot of the south, because my Laos visa expires on the 6th. Second, I was realizing that my time in Cambodia was also going to be very limited and I would need to miss many things. Thirdly, all of this would make me have to move to fast, I'd much rather at this point relax a lot more and take my time.

Finally, I'm not in Savannakhet for a couple days to relax before we head back to Tha Kaek to re-join the family. The town here has a lot of cool decaying french buildings. It also has high-speed internet cafes. So I PROMISE I will upload some pictures before the end of the week.