LUANG PRABANG

Luang Prabang is a lovely city located in north central Laos, on the Mekong River, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I heard so many nice things about it and I am excited to be here. Well, I should say I WAS excited to get here until I got here! Once I arrived in Luang Prabang I was disappointed: too many travelers and way too many tourists, and fairly expensive guesthouses :(  In case you wonder what the difference between a traveler and tourist is: well, basically, tourists stay shorter periods of time, have more money, and often book packages in advance. And therefore prices go up where tourists go. If you’re in a place with travelers only, it’s usually cheaper. Often places get “discovered” by travelers first and once the tourists find out about it and it becomes more easily accessible, prices go up and the place loses its charm, sort of. Anyways, so here I am trying to find a decent but not too expensive guesthouse – all day long

Also all day long I keep running into people I know: Doris & Wolfgang, Anand, Alex and Tuamo, the couple from Gran Canaria, the 2 Swiss girls, Adam, etc. It’s quite funny: although you’re in an unfamiliar place in a foreign country you keep running into familiar people. It’s nice to be part of this traveler’s community

At the end of the day, I eventually find a decent guesthouse in a good location with a nice room, private bathroom and hot shower – no window, though. How needs a window, anyways? Windows are overrated I pay 80.000 kip ($10) instead of 100.000 kip.

At my guesthouse I met 3 Thai female tourists, Pook, Ouy, and Doomm - they speak English pretty well (Pook studied in Australia) and we have a very nice and interesting conversation. I haven’t met many Thai travelers so far. Not counting the sex tourism – a Thai women “traveling” with a Western man. Actually, I must say it’s quite nice to have gotten away from that; it was getting on my nerves a little bit after while in Thailand.

In the evening I stroll through the lovely Hmong night market and end up having dinner from the food stalls at the other end of the night market – with 2 Dutch couples and 1 guy from the UK. Nice dinner

PS: I can’t believe it’s Christmas in one month. Traveling here in this warm climate makes me forget what season it is…

Arriving in LAOS :)

So I crossed the border from Thailand into LAOS with no problems – it was really easy in fact: walking to the border, getting an exit stamp from the Thai emmigration office, taking the “ferry” (actually a longtail boat) across the Mekong river for 40 baht ($1), walking up the stairs to the Lao immigration office, filling out two forms (visa application & arrival/departure form), getting the 30-day-visa first (forgot how much it was, I think around 1200 baht/$35 + 1 picture) & then the entry stamp at the next window, changing money at the next window (they take baht and dollars, but not euros) and then walking up the hill to the main street looking for a guesthouse. I check out a few guesthouses mentioned in the lonely planet but am a little disappointed. It seems once gueshouses are mentioned in there, the prices go up and the service down. So I find a new way about picking guesthouses: as there are so many, I just check out the ones NEXT to the ones mentioned in the lonely planet. They are often better and also cheaper So I stay at the Huay Xai Guesthouse: for a room with TV, private bathroom and hot shower I pay 50.000 kip (= 1 euro, a little more than $1). There I also meet the quiet couple who didn’t talk to anyone on the bus yesterday: Marion from France and Lee from the UK; they are really nice and later I end up having dinner with them

After checking into my guesthouse I walk around the small town – first checking out the GIBBON EXPERIENCE. This was recommended to me by Louise whom I met on Ko Phi Phi and it really sounds amazing: you stay in a treehouse for 3 days and 2 nights and during the day you go zipping through the jungle. I’m SO up for that!!! I LOVE FLYING, so this is going to be a lot of fun for me

Later I stop by a school and – you know me – curious as I am and being the teacher who I am I can’t resist to take a look: there are a few teachers and the principal sitting in the courtyard. Talking to them I find out it’s an elementary school during the day and a private school teaching English in the evening from 4:30 pm – 7:30 pm. I tell them that I’m an English (and Math) teacher, too, and ask them whether it’s possible for me to watch one of the classes. They are really nice and invite me to come back tomorrow at 5:30 pm. I will! I’m excited

On the way back I meet Adam, whom I met at the Gibbon experience office earlier as we both signed up for the same trip on Wednesday. He’s having dinner and I join him. He’s from the US (West coast) and seems like a decent guy. A little later Marion and Lee walk by and join us, too. It’s unbelievable how easy it is to meet travelers and to have company for a meal. I hardly ever have a meal without talking to someone (mainly other travelers)! It’s really nice At the beginning of my trip I used to think that I’ll just write in my journal while waitng for a meal, but now I barely ever get to write in my journal in a restaurant because I end up talking to other travelers… Southeast Asia is a really nice place to travel for so many reason

Thunderstorms and visas

I slept really well But when I woke up this morning, I decided to find myself a nicer and friendlier guesthouse. I started off with having breakfast at a small place at the corner of Soi Rambuttri and Soi Chana Songkhram: fruitsalad with muesli & yoghurt and thai tea. Only after I ordered I remembered that it might have been better not to eat fruits right away, but too late. And I had also brushed my teeth with tap water this morning. I just keep forgetting to use bottled water all the time… Anyways, the breakfast was delicious, altough I didn’t know all the fruits that were in my fruit salad The tea had an interesting reddish color and with milk it turned orange. But it was good. While I’m sitting there enjoying my first breakfast on my trip around the world watching people, I hear a voice: “Bettina, Bettina”. Who on earth is calling me on my second day in Bangkok? I haven’t met that many people yet. Turns out that it’s Sylvester, Sepp & Peter in a taxi on the way to the airport. How nice I sort of feel at home here already.

Checking out more rooms in the Khao San neighborhood wasn’t worth it! Same problems as yesterday – see entry there. I guess the Rambuttri Village Inn isn’t that bad after all – for Bangkok standards. So, I’ll stay here and the only thing that really bothers me is that there is no common area to meet people. It turns out, though, that meeting people isn’t a problem at all:

After deciding not to look at any more guesthouses I eat at Prakorb’s restaurant on Khao San Road. Not before long the couple on the table next to me starts talking to me: Emanuela (the woman) and Simone (the guy). They are from Italy and very nice. It’s the last day of their vacation, they show me pictures and recommend an island all the way in the South (West Coast) of Thailand. After they leave I stay to write in my journal. Around 3:40 pm we hear thunder and it becomes windy. All of a sudden Thai people start running around like crazy – covering  their stalls (selling food, clothes, etc.) with big plastic covers. 3 minutes later it rains, no, sorry, it POURS!!! For about 30 minutes the thunderstorm with heavy rain, lightning and thunder continues and then it’s over – just as suddenly as it started. I wonder if this happens every day around this time?

It’s time to get some information about visas to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It turns out that the information I get is a little inconsistent. I know at this point for sure that I need a visa for all three countries and that the visas are issued for 30 days.

1) LAOS: It seems that you can get a visa for Laos at the border at arrival. One travel agent said they only issue 15-day-visas there, the next one said, no, the issue regular 30-day-visas, the next one said, she is not sure and to get it in Bangkok to be on the safe side. Well, I also checked the internet and I’m pretty confident that I’ll get a 30-day-visa at the border (Chiang Khong – Huay Xai). I’ll try

2) CAMBODIA: You get the 30-day-visa at the border, but not all borders it seems. The border I want to use between Laos and Cambodia (the only one between these two countries: Voen Kham – Dom Kralor ) seems to be closed sometimes, or an unofficial border, and I am not sure at this point whether I can obtain my visa at this particular border. I could get it in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, I think. Here in Bangkok it would take a few days and I’m not really keen on staying here that long.

3) VIETNAM: For this country you definitely cannot obtain a visa at the border! You must get it in advance. The problem is that you need to give the exact dates! So what I’ll probably do is to get it once I’m in Phnom Penh. Once I’m there, I should have a pretty good idea about the dates I’ll be in Vietnam.

Visas to these countries can be processed in Bangkok within 1 – 5 days; the faster you want it, the  more it costs ;-) Furthermore, there are slight varations between travel agencies.

And last but not least: I got myself a Thai sim card for my cell phone today (the instructions where mainly in Thai, but the last page had a brief English information) – mainly to make calls in Thailand. But in case any of my friends want to call me, I’ll email you my phone number It works; I texted with Veronika in NY The only problem is that my battery is pretty old and only last for 1 day…