Sawadee! and Thailand Round 2

Laos was absolutely awesome, and I'm still recovering a little bit from having to say good-bye this morning.

Arati and I just finished our travel "loop," and we landed back in Thailand today. We are now in the (highly acclaimed!) Northern city of Chiang Mai.

I haven't had a chance to write about our time in Laos yet (mostly because the internet was very expensive and I had a little bit of a camera/photo catastrophe the one time I did try to use it - don't worry, it was averted & the pictures were saved!), but Laos is absolutely going to hold a special place in my heart for a long time. I just might have to go back...soon, maybe?!

For our brief time in Laos (just 5 days), we remained in the city of Luang Prabang. Since we had done so much physical traveling while in Vietnam, we wanted to relax a little bit, and we had only heard bad things about the road travel in Laos. It worked out wonderfully, and I'm SO glad we got to take our time there and really soak up the magical town of Luang Prabang.

With arguably the cutest kids in South East Asia, constant smiles and greetings (Sawadee = hello), gorgeous natural beauty and architecture, great crafts everywhere, amazing shops and cafes, and some of the most peaceful and kind people I have ever encountered - what's not to love? In addition, the food was amazing and the there was not an ounce of stress in the air.

I truly don't even know where to begin, but maybe a list of highlights would be the best:

- 1 day of kayaking on a river, including eating rice/grilled fish on a stick (scales and eyeball included)/veggies from a local stand for lunch while playing in the sand with local Laotian kids

- getting stopped mid-morning run to join the line of women handing out rice to the monks as they collect their food

- eating at the vegetarian stand near the night market for only 5,000 kip a plate (less than $1); it was truly some of the most delicious food ever (especially the pumpkin!)

- going to a wonderful cafe called JoMa where they had pumpkin pie with WHIPPED CREAM and huge mugs of tea! (The owner came from Pennsylvania...figures) – it totally made my day

- running over one of the most rickety wooden bridges ever as the sun came up over the big golden wat on the hill

- crossing a (different) rickety wooden bridge to get to the artisan village with beautiful silk workshops and scarves galore

- playing with all of the adorable children at every opportunity

- hiking around a huge and beautiful waterfall until the rain stopped and then having a picnic lunch of a "Lao-style" sandwich stuffed with cheese, chicken and tons of veggies and waterfall mist

- visiting a photography exhibition called "Floating Buddha" with gorgeous photos of young monks on a retreat in the wilderness learning how to meditate (the photographer's name is Berger if you want to look him up)

- not getting hassled about anything: no pushy tuk-tuk drivers, no annoying tour guides, no pesky shop owners = bliss

- going to the night market FULL of awesome embroidered items, paper lanterns, and some of the sweetest (again, NON-pushy) people ever (we went many times!)

- practicing English and “teaching some grammar” to a Laotian student, Porher, at a place called “Big Brother Mouse” where foreigners can come from 9-11am every day to volunteer

- saying Sabadee to anyone and everyone

So, as you can see, I had a great time in Laos and, even though I only saw one town, I will forever have a wonderful impression of this country. It was very hard to get on the plane this morning and wave good-bye, but I really do think that I'll be back again. It's the type of place that you could visit at any age and take away from it whatever you are looking for. There is serenity and there is culture; there is peacefulness and there is spice.

And there is more beauty in the land and people than I could ever adequately describe.

So, now we are in Chiang Mai for an undetermined amount of time. I might try to find some work/volunteer work here, or I might stay here until I can establish something elsewhere in that realm. But for now, we found a place to stay and just had some ice cream, so one thing at a time.

On that note, I will leave you with a quote that I really liked from the monk photo exhibition that speaks to the need for simplicity in life

“Nothing whatsoever shall be clung to”

Think about it…