Before coming here, I read a post by a well-traveled blogger, who declared her dislike of the town because, she said, it was like Lao Disney – too sanitized, too close to tourists’ expectations of a serene Buddhist town, too completely beautiful to be ‘proper’ Laos. Well, you know what? She may be right, but I […]
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This is the largest bookshop in Laos. Unfortunately, it caters to foreign travelers, and closed the week we were there! This is a country where most villages have never seen or possessed a book to read for fun. The only ‘real’ library is in Luang Prabang, where we stayed. No library in the capital, Ventiane. […]
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We saw moon bears when we were walking to a cool waterfall place. That is why I am writing about moon bears. The moon bears that we saw were really lazy. The place we went to is called Free The Bear, because it helps rescue bears from horrible places. The people who catch the bears […]
Continue reading →Laos was once not as poor as it is now. The poverty came with the communism. Once, it was ruled by the French, who also ruled over Vietnam and Cambodia. When the french left, Laos was divided into 2 groups, Royal Lao & Pathet Lao. Its first two attempts at a government failed and then […]
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In Thailand and Laos, elephants are being treated very badly. They are being used for insanely hard work, that is actually even hard for elephants and can cause them serious harm, and are also being used for tourists entertainment, which doesn’t sound so bad but actually it is. Some are also still being hunted for […]
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We went to a crossbow making place in a small village. We got a tuktuk there because it was really far from the place we were staying in. When we got there, there was an eighty four year old man who was our teacher. He could not speak English so a younger man was the […]
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I am sure that you have already read Luke’s crossbow post, about the time when we went and made our very own crossbows. Well, guess what, We went back and did knife making as well. We were in the same place but with a different craftsman. The metal was old steel that came from vehicles […]
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The place that we are staying, Luang Prabang, has a lot of temples, called Wats. Those temples are one of the things that make it so famous. We are staying just one road up from “temple street”, the road with about a million temples. It is a Buddhist center! This morning my mom and I […]
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Today we went to make rice. You can use rice to make a lot of things, you know. You can use the kernels to make food, but I guess you already knew that. Are they called kernels? I’m just going to call them kernels. Keep things simple. You can also use the plant part to […]
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This is absolutely, positively, the best, prettiest, most refreshing, most fun waterfall in the world. It is the clearest of blue-y turquoise, with at least 50 different layers and numerous deep, luscious swimming holes, staggered over 200 feet, and ending with a dramatically tall waterfall springing out of the mountain. Time to stop writing and […]
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