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.
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.
posted by Benji99 at 4:47 AM
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