Monday, December 31, 2018
destination: laos [2 - 4 march 2017]
Day 1 (2 March 2017)
seriously, this will be the shortest entry of my travel log for i forgot most of details! so sorry, huhu.. our flight was airasia as usual, departed from KLIA2 on 6.40am and arrived at laos on 8.20am. we already made a tour arrangement earlier through tripadvisor. our guide, chansay picked us up from the airport and immediately started the tour.
our first stop was wat ho phra keo and wat si saket. the word wat actually means temple. these two temples are located opposite to each other. chansay explained the history of these two wat to us along the tour. there were a lot of tourists walking around. after the temples visit, we went to patuxai (gate of victory). along the way, we passed the presidential palace. we stopped a while to take a few photos.
wat ho phra keo is no longer used for religious purposes and is now turned into a museum. it was originally constructed in 1565 as the lao royal family's personal chapel and as a home for the emerald buddha. but in 1779, vientiane was seized by the siamese general and the emerald buddha was taken to siam and the wat ho phra keo was destroy. the emerald buddha now resides in wat phra kaew, bangkok.
wat si saket may be the oldest temple still standing in vientiane. it was built in 1818 with siamese style of buddhist architecture. wat si saket features a cloister wall with more than 2,000 ceramic and silver buddha images.
the presidential palace is the official residence of the president of laos. it was designed by local architect and first started in 1973. it finally opened in 1986 but closed to public. it is surrounded by well-manicured lawns and gardens.
patuxai (victory gate) was built between 1957 and 1968. it is a war monument dedicated to those who fought in the struggle independence from france. it resembles the arc de triomphes in paris. our next stops are pha that luang and cope visitor center.
pha that luang is a gold-covered large buddhist stupa and was originally bulit as hindu temple. it was later built as a khmer temple but fell into ruin. in 1566, the temple was rebuilt. the bases had a length of 69 meters each and was 45 meters high. it was surrounded by 30 small stupas.
before checking in to our hotel, we stopped by hard rock cafe for i wanted to buy the hard rock bear for my collection. we freshened up for while and continue our tour to buddha park. once done, we visited the mekong night market and bought some souvenirs there. our hotel was just a walking distance from the market. before going back to the hotel we had our dinner. the next day (this was not initially planned, but chansay suggested it to us), we will have a long journey to vang vieng.
Day 2 (3 march 2017)
on our second day, we journeyed 157km from vientiane to vang vieng. this trip wasn't originally in our itinerary. it was added later when chansay suggested it and we were very glad for the change for we had a lot of fun in vang vieng! the journey took almost four hours. we started early in the morning, around 6:30am. we bought our breakfast along the way (just some buns and coffee). our first stop in vang vieng was thang chang/jang cave. we took a long flight of stairs to get into the cave. it was filled with wondrous stalactites and staglamites. the view from above is also breathtaking.
after the thang chang/jang visit, we had lunch at a local halal restaurant that offers indian cuisine. done with lunch, we continued our adventure by ziplining and tubing at tham nam (water cave). here, we got lucky! there are two start points, A and B. Start point A ends at the blue lagoon and start point B ends at thang nam. Route B is shorter than Route B. but we managed to start from start point A and finished at thang nam (slightly longer than original route B). the reason was, there was a large group of peoples using route A and to avoid the 'traffic', we were given an alternative route since there are the only two of us. done with zipling, we went tubing into the water cave. our adventures in vang vieng didn't stop there. we went kayaking at nam song river.
by the time we finished kayaking, the sun had already began to set. we journeyed back to our hotel in vientaine and stopped for dinner along the way. we mostly slept all the way back and arrived at our hotel around 11pm. once back, we packed our stuffs to go back to malaysia the next day.
Day 3 (4 march 2017)
we checked out on 7.30am. chansay and the driver drove us to the airport. we said our goodbyes there. overall, i'm very satisfied with this holiday in laos for we did a lot of outdoor activities that we rarely did; ziplining, tubing and kayaking. i really recommend laos for your vacation. our flight departed as schedule and we arrived at malaysia safely.
ps: the next travel entry are in hong kong and macau! stay tuned.. v(~_^)v
Day 2 (3 march 2017)
on our second day, we journeyed 157km from vientiane to vang vieng. this trip wasn't originally in our itinerary. it was added later when chansay suggested it and we were very glad for the change for we had a lot of fun in vang vieng! the journey took almost four hours. we started early in the morning, around 6:30am. we bought our breakfast along the way (just some buns and coffee). our first stop in vang vieng was thang chang/jang cave. we took a long flight of stairs to get into the cave. it was filled with wondrous stalactites and staglamites. the view from above is also breathtaking.
after the thang chang/jang visit, we had lunch at a local halal restaurant that offers indian cuisine. done with lunch, we continued our adventure by ziplining and tubing at tham nam (water cave). here, we got lucky! there are two start points, A and B. Start point A ends at the blue lagoon and start point B ends at thang nam. Route B is shorter than Route B. but we managed to start from start point A and finished at thang nam (slightly longer than original route B). the reason was, there was a large group of peoples using route A and to avoid the 'traffic', we were given an alternative route since there are the only two of us. done with zipling, we went tubing into the water cave. our adventures in vang vieng didn't stop there. we went kayaking at nam song river.
by the time we finished kayaking, the sun had already began to set. we journeyed back to our hotel in vientaine and stopped for dinner along the way. we mostly slept all the way back and arrived at our hotel around 11pm. once back, we packed our stuffs to go back to malaysia the next day.
Day 3 (4 march 2017)
we checked out on 7.30am. chansay and the driver drove us to the airport. we said our goodbyes there. overall, i'm very satisfied with this holiday in laos for we did a lot of outdoor activities that we rarely did; ziplining, tubing and kayaking. i really recommend laos for your vacation. our flight departed as schedule and we arrived at malaysia safely.
ps: the next travel entry are in hong kong and macau! stay tuned.. v(~_^)v
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