In January, we visited our family in LAO - Kris, Khamko, and Andy. We spent time with them until our friends, Judy and John Kolb arrived to travel with us in LAO, Cambodia and Thailand. Khamko was the "Official" Welcoming Agent.
After John and Judy arrived, Khamko and Kris provided all of us an authentic Laotian meal. There was plenty of food. Ruthann and Judy helped to prepare the spring rolls.
After one week in LAOS, we traveled by air to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. What an amazing site. There are many temples, but the largest is Angkor Wat.
After
returning to LAO, Kris, Khamko, and Andy had a Baci for us. This is a ceremony to celebrate and welcome others. It was an all day event of creating the center piece and feasting on wonderful LAO food.In Vientiane, the rice fields were being planted.
Following our visit in Vientiane, we traveled to Luang Prabang, LAO and spent a week visiting th
e old capital of LAO. It is a much smaller town than Vientiane and life moves slowly. There are no traffic lights in the town. The trip to Luang Prabang was by bus. This trip took 9 hours and covered some beautiful mountain scenes.Our next destination was Chiang Mai, Thailand. After a short flight, we landed in a city of 1 million people. Chiang Mai is also the old capital of Thailand. It is in the north of Thailand and much cooler than Bangkok. While there we visited an elephant camp (taking an elephant ride, ox cart ride and bamboo raft ride), silk, umbrella, and woodworking factories.
An overnight train ride from Chiang Mai to Bangkok proved to be an interesting cultural experience. While in Bangkok, we visited the Jim Thompson House, the Floating Market and numerous temples as well as the Grand Palace. Traveling with friends made this a very enjoyable experience for us.
