Tag: Southeast Asia
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Unexploded Ordnances in Laos
Visiting the Laos Unexploded Ordnances Center in Luang Prabang is a sobering experience. Per capita, Laos is still the most heavily bombed nation in the world. Even now, one person almost every day is injured or killed by unexploded ordnances in Laos – sometimes by a bomb that has been there for fifty years. During…
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Khàwp Ja̖i Lãi Lãi, Tamarind!
Khàwp jai lãi lãi means thank you very much in Laos (sounds to me like hop jie la lie – but then again, I got some laughs so that might not be right!). Tamarind is a delicious brown lumpy thing that tastes waayyy better then it looks. Also, the name of my new favorite restaurant…
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Ock Pop Tok Is A Fun Thing to Say
Ock Pop Top means east meets west, which is actually a good title for this entire trip I think. It is also the name of a social enterprise that seeks to empower women through their traditional skills, as well as promote Laos textile design. We made our way to one of their store fronts in…
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Laos Pals
After breakfast this morning, we hopped on bicycles and went for a cruise in Luang Prabang. We ended up at the library, where kids and teens can show up to practice English with tourist volunteers every afternoon. We were just kind of checking it out before lunch where a young guy struck up a conversation with…
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A Two Day Trip Down the Mekong in a Slowboat
It rained all night, hard and heavy. We went to bed early, and then got up early to by boat tickets. It was still raining, but we figured they must travel in the rain all the time so no sweat! We were a couple hours early, so we stowed our bags on the boat and…
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Michael Jackson, The Predator & A Border Crossing
The last thing we did in Chiang Rai was visit the White Temple. We asked guest house lady to call us a taxi, but she asked one of her employees to do it instead! Which was fine with us. The White Temple was … interesting. It is not that old, in fact it is still…
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Crazy; or The Day I Finally Switch to Eating Freedom Fries
Going to visit a hill tribe was something we discussed quite a lot before we made our decision. The popular places are these “tribal villages” where members of six different tribes all live together – a one stop shop for the tourists, if you will. Reviewers said that they were driven or walked through the…
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Making Moves
We found ourselves this morning at Angel’s Secrets again. This time, fresh orange juice and a beyond delicious chocolate croissant for me and a smoothie and oatmeal for Mom. Still my new favorite place! We planned to bop around town a little, but we saw a severe weather alert for northern Thailand and decided to…
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Cooking! And Eating! (and eating and eating…)
This morning we had breakfast at my new favorite little restaurant. It was called Angel’s Secrets, and I had some fab French toast and tea. Mom had some coffee with a jasmine tea chaser (which apparently is customary in this part of the world) and a delicious fruit parfait. Yum! It was a cute little…
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Have Trunk, Will Travel
After our tiger experience, we put some research into finding a suitable elephant experience. We discovered the Thai Elephant Conservation Center outside of town. Many reviewers who went there had it arranged by a tour guide service, but not us! We hopped on a, um, vibrant bus and told the ticket seller, the driver, and…
