Sad to say that this is my last post for my Laos Trip, this would make 43+ posts total. As for some of you, this might be a call for celebration because you might get tired of seeing, or more like overloading with my pictures from Laos. I think pictures don’t lie, as you can see I had a great time in Laos and Thailand, and would love to do this again, but just not anytime soon.
I think the best time that I had was at Boun That Luang, it is such a beautiful ceremony and I had never seen anything like this before in my life.
The most beautiful town that I visited is Luang Prabang, such a charming place and I do miss her already.
The most beautiful picture of a Lao boy that I took is one of the students at Dannavieng Elementary School, I think this picture is worth a thousand words.
I didn’t have a place to post this car, but I saw this at the street in Vientiane and thought it looks cool. It even has a Lao flag painted on its roof.
I wish I had more money, and regret that I didn’t bring (as many of ) these Lao ethnic bags back with me.
The worse time that I had was the bus ride to Pakse, we took the 10:30 AM local bus leaving Vientiane on November 18, 2008, and only cost us 120,000 kips ($14) per person. There is no bathroom on the bus, and bathroom breaks were along side of the road, look for the best bush if you can find one. Then when we got to Savannakhet, the young bus driver took a side job and decided to make a detour to drop a few girls and their flea market goods off at TalatSao (Morning Market), which bus are not allowed in this area, it is a Tuk Tuk zone.
We were chased down by a local police officer who would not take bribery, and had to park in the dark alley 3 times just to drop some of the items off. We must have wasted almost an hour before we got back on the main road again. Then there were 3 passengers left, a man, my dad and I, and the driver decided that he didn’t want to go all the way to Pakse, so he chased down an express bus that was heading in the same direction, and told us that we had to take that bus. He woke me up in the middle of the night, I was disoriented, but got off the bus, waited for our stuff, and got on the bus that was parked behind our bus. We got to Pakse at 2 AM, and there were no Tuk Tuk and we had to call our relative to come and pick us up.
Then the next morning, we were sent on a wild goose chase, I was asked to visit a great-grandfather who is 94 years old that wanted to see a picture of his great-granddaughter. The lady told me the name of the person that he stays with, and when I called the number given to me, it has been disconnected. I didn‘t think much of it since I knew her name, but after searching high and low, I realized that asking around for a person is not as easy as it seems because Pakse is not that small, but I’m happy to say, mission accomplished, I delivered the picture.
The best hotel that we stayed was at Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel, a bit pricey, and it cost us $170 per night for a standard room, but we thought it’d only be for 1 night, and we would be coming home the next morning.
But as you had already known, they decided my dad needed to see the protest live, and you heard the rest of my story.
Till we meet again on this road.
Nye Noona 
Ginger,
It was an adventure some of us might not get a chance to experience. Now they are part of your memories, the good, the bad, and the worst. Many years from now you can look back and share the memories with family and friends all over again. 😉
Dallas, I think blogging about our trip is a great way to share with friends and family members, it’s a cheaper way to share photos for sure. 🙂
BYE BYE Laos Post!! Ginger I am going to miss the Laos post!!!!Thanks so much for working so hard on these post, I loved the pictures and enjoy the post! Once again, thanks so much for entertaining us with these great post!!! Til your next trip, I’ll miss the Laos post. For now I’ll enjoy all your future post!!
ascandaloussin, you’re welcome. I jumped around a lot on my posts because I didn’t keep a journal or a diary. I guess since I had never kept one, and it’s hard trying to now, but the stories are mostly from the photos and my memory, and it’s lots of fun writing it, now only if I get to do this again soon. 🙂
Hi Ginger,
This must have been the trip of a lifetime for both you and your dad. I loved seeing all your photos and reading your travel stories too.
A while back, before we were busy with our own families and other stuff… I got to take a road trip with my brother. We flew to Chicago and drove to NYC. And then later in the year, we drove our trusty little 1989 Honda from San Francisco to Vancouver. It was worth every mile too. The Pacific NW trip is still one of my best trip ever, especially driving along the Oregon coastline.
I think in the future, I like to take the same trip to Laos too. 🙂
Salat, wow, that’s a long trip from San Francisco to Vancouver, we only drove from NYC to Toronto in 1993 and that was quiet a drive for us.
This is the trip of a lifetime for my dad and I, and I think some of my sisters wished that they had gone with us, but I didn’t give them much notice (my bad) and my dad made up his mind in the last minute when he found out that I was going. I think it’s an eye opening experience for him, and a very positive outlook of things and it’s nothing like what people told him at all.
I’d love to see you take the same trip to Laos, at least once in a lifetime for any of us that left there when we were little. 🙂