After the White Temple we went for lunch at a buffet place which was alright , let's say it did the job and then we headed for our boat ride to Laos. As our tour guide was sorting things out we had free time to explore the area on the river bank . This is a Buddha which is on the banks of the Mekong River it was made to celebrate the Queen's birthday, from the river it looks like it is sat on a boat. 
These elephants lead into the area where the Buddha is.
Apple our guide was not able to come on the short boat trip to Laos, so she introduced us to her brother who was going to take us, he was called Mr Banana, this is when we thought what on earth, is everyone here named after fruit, but apparently his was just a nickname. On the boat trip which took half an hour, as we had a wee trip up and down the Mekong he explained to us about the three countries, Thailand, Burma and Laos, but he did this repeatedly, saying the same thing again and again. On the river we saw boats that were transporting buffalo down from China, the journey took 3 days and 2 nights, so I hope the animals were let out at some point. On the journey back it was like he didn't know what to talk about so he asked people if they wanted to sing, a few politely declined, then an American took the microphone and started singing the national anthem. As you do!
When we crossed into Laos we landed at a market which had many interesting things for sale. This is whiskey that is made from rice, there are different items in it such as scorpions, snakes, ginseng, bits
of tiger etc. Each one is supposed to have special powers the tiger is supposed to give more strength and is recommended for men. Whereas the women were recommended to drink ginseng whiskey as it is supposed to make you look younger! Blooming cheek, a bit sexist if you ask me.
This shows the map of Laos and the countries bordering it, Burma and Thailand. The three countries meet at this point where two main rivers also join. There is an area here which really was a no mans land between the three countries and therefore there was no police. In the past opium was grown here and it was very expensive, 1kg of opium would cost 1kg of gold and that is how it got its name, because you could not buy opium with anything else but gold. Nowadays opium is not grown there and the area has become a tourist spot instead.
From here we headed to Mae Sai which is on the border with Burma. We did not actually go into Burma as it can cause problems with your Thailand Visa, and it is a lengthy process going through their customs and we were on limited time. There were some shops here but it was not very interesting, we were there for half an hour and that was too long.
In the picture below you can see Burma.
Our final destination that day was to a hill tribe village but this was very disappointing and I feel a bit set up just for tourists. When we got out of the minibus, there were loads of minibuses already there, we walked into the village to see loads of stalls with the women selling their wares. As we walked past them the tourist guide talked to us about their clothes explaining that each tribe had their own style of clothes and demonstrated this with the stall holders, picking out three who were wearing different outfits because they were from different tribes, so it seems strange they were all in the same place. You could also visit a Longneck there, this is a lady who has brass rings around her neck which gradually makes her neck longer. The rings start going on her neck when she is 5 years old and a new ring is put on every couple of years. The woman in this village had rings on that weighed 5kg . We
chose not to see her, we were told that she also had been moved into the village and was not originally from that area. The whole tribe thing was a bit uncomfortable and we chose to go back to the minibus and wait with the driver.
No comments:
Post a Comment