Laos

Chinese New Year (CNY) is the time of the year when you will find lots of tangerines on your desk at work, see lion dances everywhere and lots of red colored decorations, lanterns and flowers in shopping malls. If you're lucky you will get some ang pows too :) On 3rd of February 2011 the year of metal rabbit began. You can check the horoscope here;)
In Malaysia CNY means a lot of days off! First week of February had three public holidays and therefore I have decided to fly to Laos to meet up with my friend who was backpacking South East Asia.
I took AirAsia to Vientiane, capital of Laos. Basically in five days I managed to visit three places - Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang and Vientiane.
Vang Vieng full of wasted backpackers going tubing, doing flying fox and playing volleyball in the mud wasn't really for me. When we got to the river, my friend just said: Sodom and Gomorrah... hehe

Luang Prabang was definitely my favorite! Started sightseeing very early morning with watching how monks collect their daily food supply from people on the streets. No, actually, it started with tuk tuk driver trying to sell us ketamine before sunrise while police is still asleep. It was pretty funny :D

Luang Prabang is perfect to walk around on foot, see temples, French cafes and restaurants, views on Mekong river. The pace of life is very slow there and everyone lives in harmony. A really good place to relax and have some good food too.




Pictures from Wat Xieng Thong temple below

We also made some trips around Luang Prabang. First we took a boat trip with Mekong river to Pak Ou Caves, minivan to waterfalls and bear rescue centre. Bears were extremely lazy. Just lying in their hammocks and sleeping.

Water in the waterfalls had beautiful turquoise color!

Back to Vientiane. We walked around, saw some more temples, went to morning market, saw Patouxai (Vientiane’s Arc de Triomphe), had beerlao and it was time to head back to KL... I wish I could stay longer and I will definitely go back to see the southern part of Laos :)