Laos - My First Trip To Asia 2005

In early 2005, my 10 year old business was bankrupt, my wife had divorced me and I was basically homeless. I had started working as a courier so I had a little money coming in but approaching 40, I wasn't in a good place.

Thankfully I had a huge circle of friends all over the world through a website I was using at the time that was basically I guess, a forerunner to todays social media. They, along with a couple of local friends kept me sane and were, and still are a wonderfully supportive bunch of amazing people. One of them I suggested I needed a break, and should come out to Laos. I hastily grabbed an Atlas as of course, it was pre google maps! "It's Songkhran" she said, "A sort of Buddhist new year and the biggest celebration you'll ever see".

Despite never having travelled alone before and done nothing more adventurous than a 2 week all inclusive in Antigua, that April I found myself on a plane to Vientiane, the smallest capital city in the world where I was greeted by a small posse consisting of Noi, along with members of her family and some friends who spent the next two weeks touring me around the sights, sounds and smells of this beautiful, quiet communist outpost.

I had fallen in love with SE Asia, and that trip changed my life.

The Patuxai monument was built in the 60s as war memorial to celebrate the fight for independence from France and the similarity to the Arc de Triomphe is more than coincidental. The funny thing is, it was built from an American donation of cash and concrete which was supposed to be used to build a new airport! Of course the Americans got retribution when they rained down 270 million cluster bombs, yes, read that number again, 270 million during the Secret War. Laotians are still dying and losing limbs even now due to unexploded ordnance.

The huge morning market was my favourite haunt, now turned into a shopping mall :-(

and the garden of my beautiful hotel, now a huge government complex.

Always need to take care on the roads during morning rush hour !

Evening meals were spent on the banks of the mighty Mekhong , across on the other bank is Thailand. In April, its the hottest and driest time of the year so the water level is extremely low and they hold fairs and football tournaments on the sandbanks. Possibly one of the most chilled out places in the world......until they concreted it over and built a road along the bank.

And so to Songkhran, its a time for cleaning and washing and celebrating a new year. The idea is, you visit 7 temples in 2 days, carrying a bucket of scented water to wash the Buddhist statues and of course, it all ends up in a huge water fight on the streets.
Noi and a friend turned up early morning with buckets and garlands. "You need to make water smell nice" she said and filled my bucket with flower petals before noticing a new bottle of Georgio Armani aftershave I'd just bought at duty free on the way there and took one sniff, decided Buddha would like it and tipped most of it into the bucket. At 60 quid a bottle, I hope Buddha was impressed !

A temple........

Another Temple.......

OK, thats enough temples, Im all templed out now!

Give me a break will you? Its Asia, theres got to be a food pic, its the law lol

We took a bus out of town to see a hydro electric power station...no idea why, my hosts all actually worked for the government and were quite proud of it I think !!

And all too soon it was time to leave, so we all drank lots of beer lao, and enjoyed the dancing musical fountains which to be honest, I loved !!!

I of course remained a stoic Brit and refused to have any ice in my beer, despite it turning into this warm, flat, disgusting brew in about 2 minutes. Just meant I had to drink quicker ;-)

Laos has changed a lot in the past 12 years, and I go back regularly. But it still retains it's sweet and simple charm and will always be a very special place.

It's not about the hustle, it's all about the humanity :-)

(pictures are all mine, but give me a break. It was 2005 and I just had a 4Mp Canon Ixus !)