Just imagine all the doggy animals you never wanted to meet live... we had them all!! After 24hrs of traveling by night buses and tuktuk we arrived in Muang Sing, a bigger village at the utmost corner of Laos (at the border to China and Myanmar)... and somehow we found ourselves arranging an an overnight trip into the jungle (5 days of beach .. and we needed some adventure again ;-). And it was a tough experience - but extremely rewarding...Let's start with the tough part... Don't remember what was more disgusting, the leeches (Blutegel!!) slowly creeping up inside our pants sucking our blood, the large spiders sitting over our our heads in our little bamboo hut or the shouts of the guys "careful, big snake to your left in the bamboo trees"...
Compared to this, the living cockroaches (Kakerlaken) which our bus driver bought at the side of the street (a bus in Laos stops for that!) and placed them just in front of our nose were harmless (here they are considered a delicatessen, you can buy them fried on a stick everywhere!!!)
Besides these interesting encounters ;-) it was a truly amazing experience.
The landscape was stunningly beautiful, changing from neon green rice fields to dense jungle (our local guide cut our way free with a big Busch knife!!). The people are amazingly friendly and laid back (a scheduled tuktuk full of locals was waiting for us for 1.5hrs so we could reach the next city after our trekking tour - imagine this in Europe!!). But above all, we were deeply impressed by meeting the village people, who live in extremely basic conditions (more than 75% of the whole population have to life with less than 1 USD a day) and still seem to live a peaceful and happy life. This deep insight into a world as far as it can get from ours was just unique and left a lasting impression on us. And made us realize once more how privileged we are... and how little we actually have to complain or worry about...
After these intense days in Northern Laos we headed on a local bus south to the UNESCO World Heritage town of Luang Prabang. We instantly fell in love with this beautiful and still laid back town (they can't be bothered less by the crowds of tourists..) - young monks in bright orange robes walking the streets, cozy French bistros and architecture mixes with coconut palm trees and the Mekong river... and bright golden temples blinking at every corner. If we could have changed our (so-called "flexible") flight tickets, we would have stayed another week in this wonderful country. As BA is as inflexible as it can get ;-), the Southern part of Laos has to be explored on another trip.. we come back happily!!
No comments:
Post a Comment