Another day, another bizarre hotel pickup

Laos never seems to disappoint. Today, we headed to the town of Luang Prabang by bus - again with a hotel pickup. Unlike in Vientiene, a van arrived at the scheduled pickup time. What was unexpected was that the bus stop seemed to be a very fair distance from town as we had driven for about 15 minutes!

We started to wonder if this pickup was indeed different and if hotel pickup in this case meant that this van was the bus! Upon asking the driver if he was driving us to Luang Prabang he simply replied "Yes".

The hotel pickup that wasn't

I'm now in the small town of Vang Vieng in Laos. It's a very tourist orientated town with pretty much the entire town dedicated towards tourism in some way. We're only here as a rest stop on our way to Luang Prabang which is still another 7 hours or so bus ride away (it took about 4 hours to get here from Vientiene). The place does have nice scenery. The photo below is one I took at sunset from the balcony of our guest house. The rock formations are something I am expecting to see in Hạ Long Bay rather than here.

The funniest thing though happened this morning. Over here, when you buy a bus ticket, they generally include a hotel pickup. This usually involves a tuk-tuk going around picking up passengers to take them to the bus station. This time wasn't quite the case! A guy did come over but just walked off once he got our attention. We followed him thinking we would eventually reach a van or tuk-tuk but this never occurred. It was dawning on us the further we walked that this wasn't really the pickup we thought it would be and that Laos really was different to the rest of South East Asia!

The city Asia forgot

Vientiene, the capital of Laos is nothing I expected of a capital city. The place is so quiet and devoid of life! We arrived in the afternoon in the supposed heart of town, only to find that the place was quiet as a mouse. There was the occasional scooter passing by, and a few backpackers here and there in search of food. But apart from that, the place was quiet.

Mind you, it was hot at the time, and I am guessing everyone was doing as this tuk-tuk driver was doing and having a siesta! The funny thing is he has setup his tuk-tuk perfectly for it!

We eventually did find life the next evening however it did take some time to find the people!

Only in Asia

It's funny how when you really need the impossible, Asia has a way of delivering!

We were walking back to our guest house late on our last night in Siem Reap. We had an early morning flight to Vientiane, Laos the next morning. On our way home, I remembered that we still needed to get a passport photo made for Gwen so she could get her Laos visa. It was about 9:30pm at the time and most shops were well and truly closed for the night.

Whilst we were figuring out our options we managed to stumble upon one shop that was still open (for reasons still unknown to me) and the staff agreed they would do the photos (after checking their watches). They directed us to the back of the store, where I assumed there would be an area to do the shot. There was instead the staircase up. Confused we climbed up 2 stories and into a full blown photo studio!

In there, with all the lighting we both had some photos done. And what was even funnier was the staff later proceeded to photoshop the images to ensure we appeared at our very best!

What to do with a drunken sailor

We went to Tonle Sap (the biggest lake in Cambodia) to check out a floating village. Our ride to the village proved to be much more interesting than the village itself!

For some reason, our boat driver was driving incredibly slow (to a point that our guide kept telling him to speed up). The problem then became clear when the driver hunched over the steering wheel and spewed all over his own feet!

We did manage to get to the village (and damage the boat while mooring). However the driver was in no condition to continue onwards.

Our driver passed out

I have to say that I do feel for him - I've tried the local rice wine that they drink here, and it gives you one hell of a hangover!

Here's an interesting photo from the floating village. It was quite touristy and the below girls were trying to get money for posed photos with their snakes.

Girls with snakes

Angkor

We went to see the various temples of Angkor over a couple of days. Here are some pics I took while I was there.

Even the monks were taking photos!

Ta Prohm Temples

Macaroon Madness

Seems like I will never escape them - this was from my first day in Saigon!