Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang

Our next stop on our travels was Vang Vieng. The landscape is beautiful, limestone karst terrain, but the town has earned itself a bit of a reputation, after it has become a 'traveler hotspot' in recent years. To avoid the same we stayed at an organic farm outside town - run by a non-profit organization, which has done some pretty good projects in the community - school buses for remote villages, English classes...plus great food. One of the volunteers a ciouple of years back imported 5 goats from France - now there's great goat's cheese, which we managed to finish off during our stay :-)

We then moved on to Luang Prabang, which was declared UNESCO world heritage back in 1995. Since we've arrived we've been soaking up the atmosphere of the town and strolling around, stopping for coffee every now and then - enjoying life! We met two French women who invited us to join them on a little trip to a nearby village, where some Hmong people where having their new year celebrations. It was a bit like a fun fair 50-100 years back in time. Everybody was really nicely dressed up in their traditional clothing. Girls and boys played a ball tossing game, where they form two separate lines in pairs that are directly facing one another. The pairs toss a cloth ball back and forth, if a girl fancies a boy she hands back a handkerchief with sth. like a fresh leaf, and then he has to find a place where they can get to know one another. If the girl doesn't like the boy he will get some old food in the handkerchief - it's the girls decision - they got it right over here :-)