There is one bus a day from Luang Nam Tha to Huay Xai–the border town near Northern Thailand. Keeping in mind what happened on my last trip, I went to the bus station one hour early. The bus was almost full by the time I arrived. Before we left more tourists arrived and locals were…
Muang Sing is known for it’s market because of the many tribes who trade there. Some people had told me it was amazing and others had told me it wasn’t worth the trouble. I decided to go and find out for myself. The Australian was back from her hike and decided to come along. One…
We got up early in Udomxai and had a fairly uneventful ride up to Luang Nam Tha. This time the bus was actually a bus–four sides, widows and a door. After we arrived my Australian friend and I walked around town trying to find reasonable accommodation. Everything seemed to be overpriced, hovering around the five…
Northern Laos isn?t the easiest place to transverse quickly. The roads are narrow, hills are tall and potholes numerous. A large group of people left Muang Ngoi at the same time as me and my friend. He left for the city on the first bus while I stuck around Nong Kiaw to wait for the…
North of Luang Prabang is a less-touristed area of natural beauty–mountains, caves and rivers. The roads in the north are either dirt tracks or poorly maintained one-lane drop offs snaking around the sides of mountains. I left Luang Prabang early in the morning to catch one of the two daily buses to Nong Kiaw–the closest…
As far as tourism in Laos is concerned, the town of Luang Prabang is it. It?s the only real attraction Laos has and many people fly directly into town from Thailand or Cambodia. My bus arrived in the late afternoon on the outskirts of town. The taxi I shared dropped us off on the outskirts…
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Internet connections in Laos are not spectacular and I apoligize for the long time in-between posts. I spent Christmas in Vientiane, Laos, and was there when the massive tsunamis hit South East Asia. The majority of travelers I have talked to in the past two months told me…
The road between Vientiane and Luang Prabang is now paved but the trip still takes ten hours on a winding path through the mountains. To break up the trip I stopped in Vang Vieng, a town with little to do besides look at the steep, rock-faced mountains. There are a lot of caves in the…
Wanting to be near civilization, or atleast a town with electricity, I hurried up to Vientiane on a night bus from Pakse. Arriving at 4:30am I only had to walk away from three taxis before I found one that would take me, for a reasonable price, to the hotel I hoped to stay at. Seeing…
On the way to Pakse from the islands I met up with a girl who convinced me to go with her to a little town with a waterfall in the East named Tad Lo. We had to stop for the night in a transit town name Pakse anyway, so we decided to make a quick…
The Southern part of Laos is often neglected by tourists as it?s much easier to enter from Thailand near Vientiane. But I found the area where the Mekong widens and makes way for 4,000 islands quite beautiful. I decided to stay on one of the smaller islands, Don Det, to relax and start my journey…