All posts tagged: Vang Vieng

Balloons over Vang Vieng, Laos.

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Every sunrise and sunset, a white or a yellow hot air balloon can be seen floating low across the sky in Vang Vieng. On our final morning in Vang Vieng, the yellow balloon was ours. It was the first time any of us had been ballooning and what a way to say goodbye. We got off to a scary start as the balloon threatened to tip over, but once the 12+ men let go, we shot straight up into the air. We were in the air for about an hour total and about 15 minutes into the ride, the sun rose over the mountains…Pictures are better than words right? Ballooning Highlights: Watching the sun pop up over the mountains. Ballooning Tips: Just do it! Take a camera.

Eating in Vang Vieng #3

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The following day was we continued to celebrate M’s birthday at a local Thai restaurant for breakfast. We had Tom Kha Gai and pineapple fried rice and enjoyed an amazing view. Overnight, the river was stained a terracotta colour. The locals said it was the first time it had it had happened and the rumour was that some construction upstream had caused it. In any case, we were glad that we weren’t tubing in the river that day. A shop in town carved figures from stone and also personalised them with a stamp on the bottom. We got our company logo carved into an elephant figure for only about $20 including the personalisation. He carved the logo backwards from a sample of our business card and it was ready to pick up later in the day. What a legend! Lunch was only ok, but at least the view was good. My laap was way too spicy and the green chillies were finely chopped and resembled the green beans which were also finely chopped. The Koala got …

Eating Vang Vieng #2

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The morning of the second day in Vang Vieng we get a breakfast of an omelette and an American breakfast around the corner from our guesthouse. The bread in Laos is amazing. I’m not a huge fan of bread, but I like this. It’s hard on the outside and beautifully fluffy on the inside. When you break it open, steam rises from it. Tubing in Vang Vieng is not to be missed. Think of it as a pub crawl in the sun, on the river, between limestone mountains. Everyone on our Intrepid Travel group are up for tubing and The Koala and I also meet up with an old friend O, and his girlfriend, M. It was M’s birthday and what better way to celebrate than by tubing. We begin at a shop in town where we hire a tube each and go by tuk tuk to the starting point on the river. Then it’s up to you to float down the river back into town or if you don’t make it by the time …

Eating in Vang Vieng #1

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We left Vientiane in mid/late January and our group shared a large bus with another group of tourists. The 4 hours bus ride to Vang Vieng was pretty easy as the countryside is really picturesque. Rice paddies, cows, goats, children playing. At one point we drive past a long line of young monks. They are called novice monks when they are still learning and the procession was for a funeral. Vang Vieng is home for the next 2 and a half days. It can be lovely and peaceful and the surrounding limestone mountains can be seen from every part of town. This was the view from our guest house Kham Phone. One of the first sights we saw when we got to Vang Vieng was a herd of cows strolling through the town. They ate every potted plant in their path until they were chased away by unimpressed plant owners. Our first meal in Vang Vieng I had a yummy mango fruit shake and a chicken lao noodle soup and The Koala got a a bbq mix …

We are home.

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It has been an epic 65 days of traveling, eating, drinking, experiencing and adventuring with my husband The Koala. Along the way, we’ve traveled with friends and family, met up with old friends and made new friends. We visited 7 countries and stayed in 18 different places in south east asia. Brunei, Malaysia (Borneo), Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. It’s been exotic and surreal. Being back in front of my mac, in our lounge (looking just the way we left it) it feels like the last 2 months happened to someone else. In the 2 months we’ve been away, I “cooked” only 3 times. A half day cooking class in Chiang Mai, and if you count it as cooking, we had local BBQ where you cook raw ingredients at your table at a restauarant- we did this 2 times (Vang Vieng, Laos and Koh Phangan, Thailand). All other meals – I’m talking an average of 3 meals a day – were eaten out. That’s 192 meals right there! I didn’t photograph every single …