Chilling Out and Relaxing in Laos

Just arrived yesterday in Luang Prabang, the capital of ther northern part of the country. Since I crossed the boarder from Thailand I've spent 4 days in Vientiane the capital and another 5 days in Vang Vieng, a backpacker's hang-out place a bit further north at a river. I did some tubing and a motorbike trip to the nearby caves. Very, very nice!! So yesterday me and my Israeli travelling companion Tomer took the tourist-bus to Luang Prabang. The town is situated on a long tongue of land at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan river. Luang Prabang itself is very very nice or 'supernett' as I would describe it but not really stunning as the Lonely Planet guide book says! The Mekong is just a big brown stream and the city is less French-colonial as I expected. Though, the baguettes seem almost to belong to the national cuisine (even though only toursist eat them everywhere). You also get superbe coffee in many places. The place is very touristy and a bit overpriced in my opinion. Vang Vieng was 'very very nice' too and not mind-blowing as many travellers say. But I'm on the road for quite a long time, so maybe I got a bit used to mind-blowing sceneries and temple architecture. However, one thing everyone agrees on about Laos is: it's very very relaxing. People are relaxed and peaceful and I think almost everyone adobts this atmosphere to his state of mind to a certain degree. Laos is just an excellent chill-out place. So far I have not made up my mind yet of where to continue. I want to do some trekking or other nature-experience here and most probably head over to northern Thailand afterwards. Whatever. Right now its only today and tomorrow what counts.
keep you up-dated.
cheers.
m.

Bangkok, Bangkok

yes, I'm in Bangkok for almost 10 days now. Recovering and acclimatization to the tropical climate again. But I'm ready to go now!! Next destination is Laos bordareing to Thailand in the North-East of the country. Laos is actually called Lao but the French colonizers added an "S" at the end of the name because....??? Well, they say for easyer spelling but probably rather to express their colonial status also in linguistic terms which was commom among colonizer and colonized at the time. However, Laos is supposed to be less touristy, more authentic, more backwards, poorer and more laid-back than Thailand. Though the cultural ties to the latter are supposed to be obvious everywhere. The country does not have a sea-cost but many rivers (e.g. the Mekong River) and lakes. So I'm curious for more adventure in the nature. Laos was also severly bombed by the Americans during the Vietnam war (more tons of bombs than then the entire amount of bombs thrown over Europe during WWII!! as the tourist-guide says!!))because the Vietkongs hided in the area to the Vietnam boarder. Tonight 7.00 pm. I'll catch the bus. I'm travelling with my latest companion Tomer, another Israeli (don't seem to get rid of them:-))) I don't know how cheap and easy to access an internet connection is over there so be prepared for only random contact to me and late update of my blog.
Bye.
Mischo.