Sunday, 13 September 2009

Laos

Scenery can be a bit repetitive in countries that primarily farm rice. This is a rice field



This is a funny dog



This is the cheapest accommodation I've had so far, less than 1 english pound per night. Fairly basic though...


I caught a fish on the Mekong. Check it out! I put it back as probably wouldn’t have been so great for dinner



There's something I don't understand about this Buddha as it appears to have a swastika on its chest. I just googled it though and believe it represents the Buddha's heart. Still looks odd

Vang Vieng, very famous on the backpacker circuit around SE Asia. I won't explain why


The old kings palace in Luang Prabang, now a museum. Relatively unremarkable for me apart from one room that had a collection of good will gifts that other countries had sent to the king. Fine works of art from China, Japan, Russia etc, then I came to the Australia gift. A boomerang! Maybe you had to be there but I found it funny. Also, the american gift was a piece of moonrock from the first moonlanding. I read recently that the Netherlands had analysed this exact same gift that america had given them and it turned out to be just a piece of old wood. I wonder whether the gift sent to Lao would be any different. I wasn’t allowed to take photos





I took a 2 day river boat up the Mekong to the Thai border. I really enjoyed this trip, really relaxing and I was able to see more countryside than most other transport would allow




The men in Asia are not afraid to get close to each other


And just in case anyone ever wondered what a drowned rat looks like





No comments: