EPISODE 34: BEING LAOS-Y AT UPDATING OUR BLOG

In March 2017, we took another Mindy-organized adventure to Southeast Asia: this time to Laos, with a big group of friends: Elana, Jin, John, Astrid, Kurt, and Heather. 

We flew into Vientiane on the heels of Hannah's last service learning trip to Taiwan with the 7th graders and immediately felt right at home amongst all of the signs in Korean everywhere. ^^' From Vientiane, we flew to Luang Prabang via what is probably the most informal airport we've ever seen. Picture a really large garage with the garage door open, rows of plastic seats, and some chickens milling around amongst a few concession and souvenir booths.  There was security though: we were ushered through some metal detectors upon going upstairs to the departure room. (What's that beeping sound, you ask? Probably nothing, just keep going.)

After landing at the Luang Prabang airport, a driver from our resort came to pick us up in a large van, and proceeded to drive us far up into the hills... then turn off the paved road onto a dirt road... then continued winding up the mountainside, all while dodging potholes and passing houses that looked progressively more like thatched-roof huts. Needless to say, Mindy spent 45 minutes being assailed with increasingly less joking threats about what we would do to her if the "resort" she booked turned out to be one of said huts. (Passing a woman who was beheading a chicken on a wooden stump probably didn't help.)

One should never question Mindy as a tour guide, however, as our resort ended up being absolutely fantastic, as we soon discovered...

To endless refrains of "No Woman, No Cry," we checked into our rooms, complete with cool decor and complementary live geckos,

 marveled at our jungle-facing balconies, 

and went off for a cat tour of the grounds.

The cats and kittens running around were all pretty friendly...

as were the butterflies.

Hard not to feel relaxed looking at this guy,

and being served incredible meals every day. We are still thinking about that green curry and sticky rice, and the smell of the roasted eggplant. 

Of course, there's also the pool to hang out in,

the poolside cabana,

and the lemongrass sauna. 

Elana immediately went for the hammock,

and Ben immediately went for the bugs.

This guy continued to be indifferent to our existence. Maybe the 27,000th refrain of No Woman, No Cry wore him down.

It wasn't long until we decided to take a hike around the local area, where Kurt discovered some the first touch-me-not plants that we'd ever seen. We stopped under this hut for some rest,

some gazing into each others' eyes,

and some improper exiting of rest shelters.

It may have been the dry season while we were there.

Jump shot taken with a talent for photography.

Jump shot taken with a talent for catching awkward moments.

Playing the air guitar so hard he started levitating.

The surrounding landscape was pretty incredible. 

More fun with winged friends.

Definitely not a dead butterfly that we picked up so that it looked like we were holding a live butterfly.

"Put your dumb book down and come play catch," says Ben.

"Oh, fine," say the water buffalo.

Time for some meandering around the resort...

...and looking at the staghorn fern.

While Ben and Mindy stayed to lounge around in the pool, Elana, Jin, John, Heather, and I decided to take a short hike around the local area. Without our two best navigators, we might have been in trouble if it weren't for the resort's dog leading the way. We were assured by our host Pierre (life motto: "anything is possible") that this dog understands English, French, Lao, Russian, Spanish, and more; he just doesn't speak them yet. Seems right.

The dog turned out to be a pretty decent navigator. He got us to Nahmdong Park (to which we would return for ziplining fun the next day),

through the local village,

over the bamboo pole bridge,

and back to the resort. He only went under a fence that we couldn't climb once. (But he came back.)

Throughout our hikes in the areas surrounding the resort and our drives outside Luang Prabang, I was amazed by seeing at least 3 or 4 buildings with Korean on them! Reading more about the buildings, we found out that different groups from South Korea have been coming down to Laos and helping build schools, community centers, etc for the local people. It was surprising but also cool to see how the country I was living in was supporting and helping other countries in the area, and made me curious to know more about the connection.

As gluttons for punishment in the form of getting bounced around on roads full of potholes, we decided to call one of these to take us down to Luang Prabang.

John was super excited we showed up.

The temple's dragons were less enthusiastic.

So we went off to the night (okay, sunset?) market instead.

First stop, smoothies.

Next stop, check out the town.

It's comforting to know that the police have the thong group on their side.

We could definitely see why Luang Prabang is a World Heritage site, especially as the sun went down, the lights came on, and things became even more charming.

Is that Disneyland on the hill?

The next morning dawned, and it was time for adventures for kittens and friends alike!

Cat on a warm tin roof?

We ventured back to nearby Nahmdong Park, complete with animals, lovely gardens, and even lovelier Mindy. ^^

Since Mindy was on a ziplining kick from her service trip to Cambodia, we of course had to try it out in Laos. After getting all hooked up in our oh-so-cool looking gear, we followed our guides across the bouncy wooden-planked bridge behind us in the picture (which Mindy and Ben naturally ran across, Mindy out of being Mindy and Ben out of sheer terror of heights). We zoomed across about 7 or 8 lines total, flying above the treetops, sometimes rotating around midline, coming in to the landing way too fast (Mindy XD), or feeling the reassuring crunch of the wooden steps beneath us splintering into pieces as we pushed off from the jump point (Ben ^^''). 

Midway through our zipline adventure, our guides casually hacked a papaya from a nearby tree with a machete and cut it up into big smile-shaped pieces for us, so at least there were snacks. ^^ Our guides were incredibly nice the whole time and were ridiculously comfortable hanging out thirty feet up in the air. When Mindy got stuck halfway down the line of the last course, the guide next to me instantly swung up onto the line, shimmied down to get Mindy, and towed her back like it was nothing. So strong. o_o

Feeling exhilarated from whizzing through the jungle and giddy from having emerged with no legs broken (given the crew we are), we got some butterfly pea tea (a surprising shade of lavender) and took in the incredible vista before us. This was probably one of my favorite moments in Laos - gorgeous view, lots of laughs, and incredibly refreshing.

From there, we said goodbye to our amazing nature resort (which we all later agreed that we should have stayed at the whole time, given how chill the atmosphere was, how beautiful the rustic buildings and tropical landscape was, and how absolutely amazing every meal we ate there was), and headed down for a night or two in Luang Prabang.

Fortunately, our new hotel in the town also had its share of geckos on walls to entertain us.

The next best step seemed to be to go down to a river bar and hang out in some huge, hammock-style lounging areas on a huge deck overlooking the sunset on the water. Definitely a foreigner bar, but they had some cool games to play - too bad it was too dark to play volleyball! Ben decided to hang out, while John and Jin and I returned to the night market for more wandering around the rows and rows of stalls and blankets filled with cool paper lanterns, hand-carved wood crafts, embroidered pillowcases with all kinds of bright colors, and elephant pants galore. 

At the market, a craft we saw a few times was keychains, spoons, and jewelry made from the metal of unexploded bombs dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War. A crazy statistic is that 80 million of these bombs didn't detonate when they dropped - so not only do people have to watch out for the bombs in their everyday lives, but they also have to figure out what to do with them - and this is one way to recycle and bring awareness to how the war affected Laos (something I had no concept of). As we'd come on this trip with little knowledge of Laos as a country, seeing this jewelry (and later, asking the driver who took us to the airport more about Laos' history) was a glimpse both tragic and fascinating, and made me want to learn more.

After breakfast the next morning, it was time to go down to the river and hire a boat to take us around the Mekong a bit. 

Hiring the boat proved a bit more complicated than we'd originally bargained for, but we eventually found a guy to take our big group. He cruised down the river with us for a while, making a few stops here and there so we could see more of the surrounding area.

Of course, our first stop looked like this. 

What would a vacation with us be without a hike up a zillion stairs? 

The Mighty Mekong.

You can fly, you can fly, you can fly!

Part of our group of intrepid adventurers.

Seeing all of these elaborate, open-feeling temples was my favorite part of this tour. All of the ornate gold and silver scrollwork on the temples was like nothing I'd ever seen before - not to mention the super-fierce dragons!

After a few more stops to at some temples and a village where we got to see how they made handmade paper and papercrafts, we said goodbye to our trusty boat and headed for a last taste of Laos.

"Boiling cultures" pretty aptly described the temperature that day.

What would lunch be without some cats coming to hang out?

Yep, green curry and sticky rice. Amaaaaazing.

After a long day of exploring Luang Prabang, we headed back to the airport and to Vientiane via the friendly but unassuming Lao Airlines. Their slogan seems to adequately represent the overall extremely chill vibe of Laos.

Lao Airlines' main claim to fame: their legit dried fruit snacks.

Once we got to the Vientiane airport, we felt right at home, since we got to enjoy waiting in line to check in for our night flight back to Seoul with 200 or so of our closest Korean friends. (By closest, we mean physically, very, very close.) It was a bit difficult to appreciate all of their souvenirs while constantly being inadvertently assailed by them. We made it back to Jeju feeling newly tan, refreshed from all of our pool and nature time, and still in awe of the elaborate temples and beautiful sights. Laos wouldn't have been a destination that we would have picked if left to our own devices, but it ended up having a lot of delightful surprises in store, thanks to our fantastic tour guide Mindy!