Christmas break was a relaxing vacation in Luang Prabang, Laos. My friends and I were excited to see a new culture and landscape.
Laos was absolutely beautiful. We spent 2 days on a river boat traveling through the mountains of Laos before arriving in Luang Prabang. While there we enjoyed the town on the river, an elephant camp out in the hills and cycling to a little textile village on Christmas day.
We made wonderful, meaningful connections with vendors, students (in an English practice center that we volunteered at) and children. While in Chiang Mai I don't usually experience the tourist culture. My area of town is very Thai, which I appreciate greatly. So I don't know if my observations of Laos are tainted by that. But it seemed that vendors and tuk-tuk drivers in Laos were much more pushy than Thailand. A simple "mai bpen rai" (no thank you) was not sufficient to alleviate their hollering for our attention. Additionally we were not greeted by the constant smiling that Thailand is famous for. We noticed almost the second we stepped into Laos that we were no longer in the Land Of A Thousand Smiles.
We did, however, meet many wonderful people. Many of them spoke Thai and were delighted to hear about our lives. The students we met were anxious to tell us of their homes and have us visit them at work (usually as waiters). The children we met were kind and unabashed, very different from children in the hill tribes of Thailand or even the shyness of children in Chiang Mai.
We did observe that backpackers are very loud (the main backpackers lodge was next to our guesthouse), especially when they get free whiskey all night. Additionally Laos roosters have a very unique, loud and constant crowing. They take a break in the evening (just to let you fall asleep) and then they start up again at about 3 AM. Jing jing (really!).
