Greg and Mandy's Travels

Mar 13, 2025

After another breakfast on the rooftop looking at the swirling clouds through the nearby mountains, we headed off in yet another direction for a walk around the outskirts of the town. After a nice coffee at one of several bakeries with French heritage, we headed back to the room, checked out and caught our EV taxi to the train station.

Whilst the trains and the station are lovely, the Chinese didn’t bother mucking around with putting a station near the middle of the town, and so all the train stations on the high-speed line are well out of the way and require some form of transport to get there.…

Mar 12, 2025

Breakfast was on the top floor of the hotel, overlooking the town and the picturesque hills surrounding it.

We declined the invitation to hire a motor cycle to head out to the bungy jumping over the gorge, and instead settled for a more sedate wander down to the river and along the various roads of the town.

Gotta love Asian shop signs. Along with the various spelling issues, today’s winner was the fast food shop selling ‘originally chicken’ which presumably is now pork.

Vang Vieng has traditionally been the uninhibited party destination in the country, until the authorities decided that the deaths and poisonings were giving the country a bad name and cleaned it up.…

Mar 11, 2025

The belt and road initiative is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the government of China in 2013 to invest in more than 150 countries and international organisations. It is comprised of six urban development land corridors linked by road and rail, as well as a maritime road and development of multiple ports. Later a digital infrastructure initiative was announced to accompany it.

It is considered the centrepiece of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy, and as of 2024 almost 75% of the world’s population and more than half the world’s GDP are involved. The initial focus has been on infrastructure investment, education, construction materials, railways and highways, automobile, real estate, power grids, and iron and steel.…

Mar 10, 2025

The Mekong River is a serious bit of water. It is the world’s twelth-longest river with an estimated length of 4,909 km. From its headwaters in the Tibetan Plateau, the river runs through Southwest China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Along the way it forms part of the border between China and Myanmar, Myanmar and Laos, Laos and Thailand. Only the Amazon boasts a higher level of bio-diversity. We’ve traveled on it in China and Vietnam, and today it was out turn to travel on it in Laos.

There are three attractions in Luang Prabang that are on everybody’s list – a cruise down the Mekong, a visit to the Pack Ou caves and a visit to the Kuang Si Falls.…

Up well before sunrise to catch the monks as they did their morning alms walk. Hundreds of plastic stools were put out by vendors along a roped off footpath. The idea was that they ‘owned’ a small patch of the route, provided the stools and scarves to the tourists, and then sold the offerings to those utilising their stools for them to give as offerings.

Around 200 monks filed past around 6:30 to get their daily supplies. Unfortunately there were plenty of Chinese tour groups who had no idea what a request for silence meant, or what a rope barrier was for, but the monks went through the motions for them looking suitably bored.…

Mar 9, 2025

A great night in a lovely hotel.

Now here is a fundraising idea. Everything in our room is available for sale and, helpfully, they even tell you that they will provide assistance for you to get it downstairs and presumably into your car. It only remained for us to decide whether we wanted to buy our fridge at $150 or our ornate coffee table at $150. I’m guessing that they might as well offer you assistance to get it out as you can hardly stick it in your backpack.

In the morning we wandered out onto our balcony and looked out over the picturesque Mekong River, and Thailand on the other bank.…

Mar 8, 2025

We’ve come to this part of the world a week earlier than necessary for our Philippines tour so that we could take a side trip to Laos. It was originally also going to be Myanmar, but that was before the junta started using tourists as hostages to gain foreign currency. Anyway, having just arrived on the flight that was included with our tour, this morning we headed back to the airport to fly to Laos. It involves two separate flights as pretty much the only way to get into Laos is from Bangkok, so it was to the Thai Airways counter we headed this morning.…

Mar 7, 2025

Woke to find the sun shining and hardly a breath of wind. Can understand why people in the black and white era had no idea that a cyclone was about to pummel them. Ain’t the internet wonderful at times like this.

Our incoming plane was on-time and our flight was listed as scheduled, so we caught the shuttle over to the airport and joined the fairly short queue at check in. Lots of flights departing, though all flights after lunch seem to have been cancelled. Sat and had coffee watching two young Japanese girls at our table groom themselves by their phone camera using a small USB hair straightener.…

Mar 6, 2025

Way back in 1986 a rather battered courier pigeon detected a cyclone off the Queensland coast, and declared it Cyclone Alfred. Much to everybody’s delight, it fizzled out to a tropical storm before it made landfall, and Alfred was duly miffed that his name was not etched in history.

Fun fact! Did you know this cyclone wasn’t going to be named Alfred? It was originally set to be ‘Anthony’ in accordance with the Bureau of Meteorology’s naming system. But the BOM decided that wasn’t such a great idea for next year’s budget allocation, and wisely decided to move to the next name on the list.…