The sight of PQ as we arrived on the ferry made us both heave a sigh of relief. Beautiful beaches and clear blue waters, yes! We installed ourselves in some bungalows (not the nicest, one bed turned out to have been peed on and they didn't change the sheets...mmm) and started to Relax. Our day was made when we realised that in fact we'd got to PQ a day earlier than we thought and so we had 4 days there!
Not much to say about the next few days really, we moved bungalows and found some much nicer ones, lay on sunbeds, read many books and sat in the sea. I had my leg hair removed in an original way (some ladies attacked me with a reel of cotton, a little painful but probably v environmentally friendly!) and got a massage. It's a tough life! We found an amazing place to eat right on the beach, watched a thunderstorm and one night splashed out, put on our fancy frocks and headed to La Veranda, a vvv posh resort and had a truly memorable meal. We kept giggling as we felt so out of place, I think the waiters thought we were crazy!
Sadly you can't spend forever in paradise so we had to leave PQ and head to Ho Chi Minh, which was frankly terrifying. There were motos and bicycles everywhere and a deafening cacophany of horns blaring as each person tried not to run over someone else. We kept our eyes closed and stuck to taxis!
A day of culture and horror at the Reunification palace and the war remnants museum (probably the most distressing museum I've ever seen) and then suddenly it was time for me to go back to Bangkok. Aargh where has the last 3 months gone?
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Temples temples temples (and a motorbike on a dirt road)
Despite not being entirely better Andrea and I dragged ourselves out of bed to do a seriously hardcore day at Angkor Wat. Deciding we were too ill for cycling (v wise decision) we found a tuk tuk driven by someone who I think was called Weevil, who was the cutest Cambodian we'd ever met. Patting ourselves on the back for beating the tourists most of the way, we managed 8 or 9 temples in 11 hours, not bad for 38 degree heat and us both on the crackers! The temples, even the second time round, were amazing and Andrea's enthusiasm made them even better! Angkor is probably the most amazing man-made thing I've ever seen, I can't describe them properly here, just go and see them! The next day we made it to a few more temples but sadly didn't beat the tourists and after lunch we gave up, retreating to our air conditioned room and Home Alone...
We were slightly apprehensive about our bus journey to Phnom Penh which turned out to be painless with lots of legroom! However, then came decision time...how does one get to Phu Quoc???? We set off to Kampot to cross the border in the south of Cambodia, a crossing only recently opened and therefore not in LP yet. The bus to Kampot was supposed to be 2 hours; 4 1/2 hours later we stopped at Kep, still an hour and a half from Kampot so we got off and decided to wing it. We ended up jumping on the back of two motorbikes, our rucksacks between the driver and the handlebars and bounced over a dirt road for an hour. However, it was one of the most picturesque journeys we've taken, through rice fields, salt fields, little bamboo huts, villages apparently unused to the rather bizarre sight of westerners on the back of a motorbike with children running out to wave. We reached the Cambodian border, a little shack, an hour later then crossed onto the Vietnam side which was a rather more impressive big concrete gate with an enormous room for immigration. I think they were trying to make a point.
A further bumpy moto ride and 2 hours on the most bumpy bus of all time we managed to make it to Rach Gia to get the ferry to PQ. Success! Further amusement ensued when we could not find a restaurant in Rach Gia and our efforts to find one were met with blank looks. Not so used to tourists here!
We were slightly apprehensive about our bus journey to Phnom Penh which turned out to be painless with lots of legroom! However, then came decision time...how does one get to Phu Quoc???? We set off to Kampot to cross the border in the south of Cambodia, a crossing only recently opened and therefore not in LP yet. The bus to Kampot was supposed to be 2 hours; 4 1/2 hours later we stopped at Kep, still an hour and a half from Kampot so we got off and decided to wing it. We ended up jumping on the back of two motorbikes, our rucksacks between the driver and the handlebars and bounced over a dirt road for an hour. However, it was one of the most picturesque journeys we've taken, through rice fields, salt fields, little bamboo huts, villages apparently unused to the rather bizarre sight of westerners on the back of a motorbike with children running out to wave. We reached the Cambodian border, a little shack, an hour later then crossed onto the Vietnam side which was a rather more impressive big concrete gate with an enormous room for immigration. I think they were trying to make a point.
A further bumpy moto ride and 2 hours on the most bumpy bus of all time we managed to make it to Rach Gia to get the ferry to PQ. Success! Further amusement ensued when we could not find a restaurant in Rach Gia and our efforts to find one were met with blank looks. Not so used to tourists here!
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Stuck in Siem Reap
Our last day in Vientiane was very relaxing, we saw a couple of temples in the morning, resigned ourselves to being soaked all day and ate a lot. Poor Andrea had a pretty rough evening; first the electricity went off in our room (only our room, not the whole hotel) leaving her standing under a cold shower in the dark and then her long looked forward to pizza just did not arrive, causing her to go slightly insane and do a pizza dance. The poor waiters were quite worried about us!
Unfortunately since arriving at Siem Reap both Andrea and I have been hit with rather bad stomachs, which means that our day of hard core Angkor Wat sightseeing today didn't quite get off the ground and Andrea is still in bed at 3.00. I am a bit gutted as Cambodian food is amazing and I'm just not hungry! The upside is we have a TV in our room and they showed the Sound of Music yesterday! So we are spending an extra day here hoping that tomorrow we will be well enough to brave the heat and crowds of Angkor. The downside of this means we have to cut off a day on our paradise island in the south of Vietnam at the end, boo. Let's hope they show Mary Poppins this afternoon.
Monday, 14 April 2008
A taste of the real Laos
The past couple of days have been rather 'intense'; we headed east to Phonsavan, home of the 'Plain of Jars' (as it says on the label, a bit like stonehenge but with jars...), happy to get off the tourist trail and hopefully see some of proper Laos. Maybe we saw just a little too much of it!
Day 1 - to Phonsavan
We arrived at the bus stop having bought our tickets an hour early to find that the bus was full and there were literally no seats for us. A bit of argument later the ticket operator had shoved 2 kids off our seats and plonked them with their parents. As more and more people showed up for the bus it became clear that there was no such thing as a full bus and somehow they had to all fit on. The solution..stools in the middle of the aisle (I think there were about 20-25 people sitting in the aisle by the end). We got some perspective and stopped moaning about the lack of air conditioning and the long bus ride. At least we had seats! The bus was 9 hours round hair pin beds and up and down mountains, with us gripping on for dear life! The scenery was absolutely beautiful but the road was pretty horrendous. We passed a couple of accidents along the way which made us fear for our lives (haha this was nothing, wait till later!) and hidden dangers lurked in villages along the way where the children would lie in wait with buckets, hoses and water guns, woe betide anyone who was stupid enough (or asleep as I was at one point) to leave their window open. We got soaked!
The next day was one of the most bizarre I have ever had. The trip we took with Sophie and Paulina (2 girls who also had to endure the horrendous bus ride to get here) was a day seeing the plain of jars, a plain of bomb craters, a village which used bomb shells in its everyday life and work, a trip to the local market and a trek to a waterfall. I think the best way to describe the day of near death experiences is to introduce you to 'At least...', a game Andrea and I have invented to play when everything is really really rough!
AT LEAST.....
1. We didn't get killed by any UXO (unexploded ordanances)
Phonsavan is in one of the provinces that was most heavily bombed by the US in a 'secret war' on Laos during the Vietnam war (trying to stop the spread of communism in Laos) so we hoped to understand some of the history here as well. Of the millions of bombs dropped on Laos (in secret by the USA, it only admitted it when the refugees started pouring into Thailand) it's estimated that 10-30 % didn't explode which means that it is one of the poorest regions in Laos. Farmers can't use the land for fear of bombs exploding and children think the bombs are toys when they find them. Our first stop on the trip was a field just covered in bomb craters, a chilling sight especially in such a peaceful spot. As we got out of the car our guide said 'be careful' (catchphrase of the day) as the field hadn't been cleared of UXOs. We thought he was joking, nope!
2. We didn't fall down/off the waterfall
We were told that the trip down to the waterfall was steep but the trip back up was less so but took longer. What our guide neglected to mention was the way up involved a scramble, climb and almost crawl up the side of the waterfall cascades over slippery rocks, trees and the inevitable mud! And as we thought we were safe he said to us 'be careful, there are leeches'! The waterfall however was probably the most beautiful we'd seen on our trip and well worth the scramble. Even better, there were only Lao tourists there and no westerners!
3. We didn't get struck by lightning
Our trip to the Plain of Jars had to be cut short by the onslaught of the most enormous thunderstorm. We saw all the Laotians running for the gate and one gestured to us at the sky. Our guide was extremely keen to take us into a cave and wait out the storm but we followed the crowd and just made it back to town before the storm broke. The jars were interesting (there are lots, very old (maybe back to 2000 BC) and no one really knows why they are there) but we were more concerned with not getting wet at that point!
4. We didn't get soaked/covered in flour
The Laos new year has started in earnest and we were bombarded on all sides by people at the sides of the road with buckets and mafia children with water pistols. We felt quite smug though driving past in our air conditioned van!
5. The bus was running
Phonsavan was a dump and we were determined to get the hell out of there and take the night bus to Vientiane. As we were finishing dinner the man from the guesthouse drove up with all our bags and tried to convince us that the bus was leaving without us. It should have been a taste of things to come...
6. Some of us had seats...?!
Yet again despite arriving 1 1/2 hours early there were no seats left on the bus. We were less than amused. About half an hour of arguments later (and serious stress) we managed to get 3 seats, the rest of the bus shooting daggers at us. Sophie nobly (or stupidly?!) traded her seat for a stool for $6, a decision I think she might have regretted! Yet again the stools came out and this time I think they crammed about 35 extra people on the bus. I was sat next to a rather smelly and unpleasant man which was bad enough, especially as we had a mini fight in the first 5 minutes about leg room. Speaking too soon though, as we were at the front and had more leg room they proceeded to put a stool in our leg space and...a man swaying from lao lao (the local brew), a new bottle in his hand and with a gun slung over his back proceeded to sit on this stool. What is it about me, guns and buses?!
7. We arrived in Vientiane alive
Is the only thing I can say about the 12 hour hell we went through on that bus trip. On my right I had the man with the gun and the smelly man, on my left in the aisle I had Penny puker on a stool who threw up (no joke) at least 10 times in the first 2 hours. The man dropped lao lao on my bag and kept trying to talk to me, then making comments with his friends about us. They played horrendous Lao and Thai music all night long and stopped at 2 in the morning for a toilet break in the rain (Andrea managed highly successfully to squat at the side of the road in the pitch black and the rain, very impressive!). The thunder storm came back in earnest with lightning seeming to be alarmingly close. Luckily our driver drove at a snails pace most of the way which we were extremely grateful for. 12 hours later we stumbled off the bus, I have never been so happy in my life! We nearly broke a tuk tuk (4 people + baggage = rather lopsided), staggered to a lovely guesthouse and are now attempting to recover (with the help of some lovely cafes) while avoiding the mafia lining the streets with buckets ready to soak any unsuspecting person walking along.
8. This is our last bus journey in Laos!
We are now patting ourselves on the back for the wise decision to fly from Vientiane to Cambodia. The thought of another bus journey makes me want to cry, let alone in Laos!
Day 1 - to Phonsavan
We arrived at the bus stop having bought our tickets an hour early to find that the bus was full and there were literally no seats for us. A bit of argument later the ticket operator had shoved 2 kids off our seats and plonked them with their parents. As more and more people showed up for the bus it became clear that there was no such thing as a full bus and somehow they had to all fit on. The solution..stools in the middle of the aisle (I think there were about 20-25 people sitting in the aisle by the end). We got some perspective and stopped moaning about the lack of air conditioning and the long bus ride. At least we had seats! The bus was 9 hours round hair pin beds and up and down mountains, with us gripping on for dear life! The scenery was absolutely beautiful but the road was pretty horrendous. We passed a couple of accidents along the way which made us fear for our lives (haha this was nothing, wait till later!) and hidden dangers lurked in villages along the way where the children would lie in wait with buckets, hoses and water guns, woe betide anyone who was stupid enough (or asleep as I was at one point) to leave their window open. We got soaked!
The next day was one of the most bizarre I have ever had. The trip we took with Sophie and Paulina (2 girls who also had to endure the horrendous bus ride to get here) was a day seeing the plain of jars, a plain of bomb craters, a village which used bomb shells in its everyday life and work, a trip to the local market and a trek to a waterfall. I think the best way to describe the day of near death experiences is to introduce you to 'At least...', a game Andrea and I have invented to play when everything is really really rough!
AT LEAST.....
1. We didn't get killed by any UXO (unexploded ordanances)
Phonsavan is in one of the provinces that was most heavily bombed by the US in a 'secret war' on Laos during the Vietnam war (trying to stop the spread of communism in Laos) so we hoped to understand some of the history here as well. Of the millions of bombs dropped on Laos (in secret by the USA, it only admitted it when the refugees started pouring into Thailand) it's estimated that 10-30 % didn't explode which means that it is one of the poorest regions in Laos. Farmers can't use the land for fear of bombs exploding and children think the bombs are toys when they find them. Our first stop on the trip was a field just covered in bomb craters, a chilling sight especially in such a peaceful spot. As we got out of the car our guide said 'be careful' (catchphrase of the day) as the field hadn't been cleared of UXOs. We thought he was joking, nope!
2. We didn't fall down/off the waterfall
We were told that the trip down to the waterfall was steep but the trip back up was less so but took longer. What our guide neglected to mention was the way up involved a scramble, climb and almost crawl up the side of the waterfall cascades over slippery rocks, trees and the inevitable mud! And as we thought we were safe he said to us 'be careful, there are leeches'! The waterfall however was probably the most beautiful we'd seen on our trip and well worth the scramble. Even better, there were only Lao tourists there and no westerners!
3. We didn't get struck by lightning
Our trip to the Plain of Jars had to be cut short by the onslaught of the most enormous thunderstorm. We saw all the Laotians running for the gate and one gestured to us at the sky. Our guide was extremely keen to take us into a cave and wait out the storm but we followed the crowd and just made it back to town before the storm broke. The jars were interesting (there are lots, very old (maybe back to 2000 BC) and no one really knows why they are there) but we were more concerned with not getting wet at that point!
4. We didn't get soaked/covered in flour
The Laos new year has started in earnest and we were bombarded on all sides by people at the sides of the road with buckets and mafia children with water pistols. We felt quite smug though driving past in our air conditioned van!
5. The bus was running
Phonsavan was a dump and we were determined to get the hell out of there and take the night bus to Vientiane. As we were finishing dinner the man from the guesthouse drove up with all our bags and tried to convince us that the bus was leaving without us. It should have been a taste of things to come...
6. Some of us had seats...?!
Yet again despite arriving 1 1/2 hours early there were no seats left on the bus. We were less than amused. About half an hour of arguments later (and serious stress) we managed to get 3 seats, the rest of the bus shooting daggers at us. Sophie nobly (or stupidly?!) traded her seat for a stool for $6, a decision I think she might have regretted! Yet again the stools came out and this time I think they crammed about 35 extra people on the bus. I was sat next to a rather smelly and unpleasant man which was bad enough, especially as we had a mini fight in the first 5 minutes about leg room. Speaking too soon though, as we were at the front and had more leg room they proceeded to put a stool in our leg space and...a man swaying from lao lao (the local brew), a new bottle in his hand and with a gun slung over his back proceeded to sit on this stool. What is it about me, guns and buses?!
7. We arrived in Vientiane alive
Is the only thing I can say about the 12 hour hell we went through on that bus trip. On my right I had the man with the gun and the smelly man, on my left in the aisle I had Penny puker on a stool who threw up (no joke) at least 10 times in the first 2 hours. The man dropped lao lao on my bag and kept trying to talk to me, then making comments with his friends about us. They played horrendous Lao and Thai music all night long and stopped at 2 in the morning for a toilet break in the rain (Andrea managed highly successfully to squat at the side of the road in the pitch black and the rain, very impressive!). The thunder storm came back in earnest with lightning seeming to be alarmingly close. Luckily our driver drove at a snails pace most of the way which we were extremely grateful for. 12 hours later we stumbled off the bus, I have never been so happy in my life! We nearly broke a tuk tuk (4 people + baggage = rather lopsided), staggered to a lovely guesthouse and are now attempting to recover (with the help of some lovely cafes) while avoiding the mafia lining the streets with buckets ready to soak any unsuspecting person walking along.
8. This is our last bus journey in Laos!
We are now patting ourselves on the back for the wise decision to fly from Vientiane to Cambodia. The thought of another bus journey makes me want to cry, let alone in Laos!
Friday, 11 April 2008
Luang Prabang
And so finally I can describe to you one of the most beautiful places and probably the loveliest city I have ever been to, Luang Prabang. Getting off the boat we thought we were on the outskirts of town, it was so quiet and a complete lack of tourists and cars. But no, we were in the middle of the city. Beautiful temples covered in gold leaf jostle with crumbling french architecture and amazing cafes. Monks in bright orange walk down the road and women on tuk tuks cling to parasols as they balance side saddle. As it is almost the water festival though there are some mischievous people lurking at the sides of the road waiting to drench you with water, funny until you get caught! In the evenings there are markets down the streets selling incredible handicrafts (I would say the nicest in South East Asia, you get the picture), a source of much angst for Andrea and I who have run out of space in our bags!
We have spent the whole of our three days here eating and drooling over how amazing the food is (and to think we ate lots of western food in Chiang Mai thinking we were coming to the back of beyond!). We have strolled down streets and peered into temples, taking sneaky pictures of the monks, stopping for fruit shakes at the side of the road and wishing we could live here. We are putting off the inevitable 9 hour horrendous journey onwards from here and have got to the stage that going to a museum or another temple is just too much effort, time to stop at another cafe and have cake!
We have spent the whole of our three days here eating and drooling over how amazing the food is (and to think we ate lots of western food in Chiang Mai thinking we were coming to the back of beyond!). We have strolled down streets and peered into temples, taking sneaky pictures of the monks, stopping for fruit shakes at the side of the road and wishing we could live here. We are putting off the inevitable 9 hour horrendous journey onwards from here and have got to the stage that going to a museum or another temple is just too much effort, time to stop at another cafe and have cake!
A note about 'The Traveller'
One of the weird things about this trip is the lack of travellers that Andrea and I have met that we have actually liked (apart from the lovely Germans who we took the bus to Chiang Mai with and were quite possibly the nicest couple I have ever met). The boat trip was a case in kind for some of the more horrendous types of traveller: let me describe some of the more memorable people and then you might sympathise with us and realise we're not that unfriendly!
First up were 2 girls we noticed trying to cross the border in Thailand and making a mess of it. One had gone slightly overboard on the ethnic and was in flowing skirts, flowing hair (with a flower in it), a sarong draped over the shoulders, dangly earrings and some kind of natural sunscreen on her face which looks like she'd been rolling in the mud. They were the type of people who have pleasure in showing off how absorbed in the culture they were. As soon as we got on the sangthaew to the boat the girl with the flower in her hair called her mum and proceeded to lecture her on how to say 'kaa' properly in Thai (women say kaa at the end of words to make it more polite). Having established her mum had a good kaa she then described how 'intense' the border crossing had been and her first impressions of Laos (which she had been in all of 5 minutes). Was she for real...?!
We also met some guys on the boat crossing the border who spent the whole 5 minute boat ride moaning about how they had got ripped off they had been with their tickets, then how drunk they had been for their entire trip around Thailand. This does seem to be the norm for people in Thailand, I just can't quite get excited about it any more.
Another memorable group was the french parents and 8 year old child (the only kid) on the boat. The man was the tallest and lankiest I'd ever seen, wearing 'ethnic' clothes and kept doing weird contortion exercises on the boat as well as being the only person brave/stupid to swim in the fast flowing muddy water; the poor kid was rather a brat but covered in mosquito bites all over her face.
We were sitting opposite some of the most horrendous americans I'd ever met, slightly overweight, chain smoking and on the Beer Lao from 10 when the boat left, they took up the whole of the aisle and proceeded to get more and more noisy as the day went on; luckily the girl sniffed out a spliff and had a couple of 'tokes' in the afternoon which calmed her down a bit!
I was also sitting in front of Andy from Little Britain's big brother who smoked almost in my face and kept sitting on the side of the boat with his rather large behind in my back.
The one saving grace on the boat was meeting Rich again who I had met in KL in Malaysia and his friend, they have restored our faith in ever meeting some nice travellers! And they had the Economist which made Andrea very very happy. And the nice Irishman sitting next to us on the second day who alas was a smoker but made up for it by being charming. Halelujah!
Unfortunately LP being extremely small we have managed to run into most of these people at some point during our 3 days here. We ended up sitting right next to the obnoxious americans at dinner last night, typical!
First up were 2 girls we noticed trying to cross the border in Thailand and making a mess of it. One had gone slightly overboard on the ethnic and was in flowing skirts, flowing hair (with a flower in it), a sarong draped over the shoulders, dangly earrings and some kind of natural sunscreen on her face which looks like she'd been rolling in the mud. They were the type of people who have pleasure in showing off how absorbed in the culture they were. As soon as we got on the sangthaew to the boat the girl with the flower in her hair called her mum and proceeded to lecture her on how to say 'kaa' properly in Thai (women say kaa at the end of words to make it more polite). Having established her mum had a good kaa she then described how 'intense' the border crossing had been and her first impressions of Laos (which she had been in all of 5 minutes). Was she for real...?!
We also met some guys on the boat crossing the border who spent the whole 5 minute boat ride moaning about how they had got ripped off they had been with their tickets, then how drunk they had been for their entire trip around Thailand. This does seem to be the norm for people in Thailand, I just can't quite get excited about it any more.
Another memorable group was the french parents and 8 year old child (the only kid) on the boat. The man was the tallest and lankiest I'd ever seen, wearing 'ethnic' clothes and kept doing weird contortion exercises on the boat as well as being the only person brave/stupid to swim in the fast flowing muddy water; the poor kid was rather a brat but covered in mosquito bites all over her face.
We were sitting opposite some of the most horrendous americans I'd ever met, slightly overweight, chain smoking and on the Beer Lao from 10 when the boat left, they took up the whole of the aisle and proceeded to get more and more noisy as the day went on; luckily the girl sniffed out a spliff and had a couple of 'tokes' in the afternoon which calmed her down a bit!
I was also sitting in front of Andy from Little Britain's big brother who smoked almost in my face and kept sitting on the side of the boat with his rather large behind in my back.
The one saving grace on the boat was meeting Rich again who I had met in KL in Malaysia and his friend, they have restored our faith in ever meeting some nice travellers! And they had the Economist which made Andrea very very happy. And the nice Irishman sitting next to us on the second day who alas was a smoker but made up for it by being charming. Halelujah!
Unfortunately LP being extremely small we have managed to run into most of these people at some point during our 3 days here. We ended up sitting right next to the obnoxious americans at dinner last night, typical!
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
The Journey
After 3 days, a bus, a boat and over 24 hours of solid moving on transport we have finally made it to Luang Prabang in Laos. I guess this is what 'travelling' is all about?
THE BUS
Our first day we arrived at the bus station in Chiang Mai to find there was a 1st class bus directly to Chiang Kong (the border) in 20 mins. Perfect. Unfortunately by the time we got to the front of the ticket queue there were 2 minutes till the bus left and it was full. It was quite a heart wrenching vision to see the bus leave without us! 5 hours later we were squashed onto a 2nd class bus with minimal air conditioning and 5 seats to a row (I didn't even fit on one seat so spent the journey with one butt cheek off the seat) and an extra 2 hours to get to where we wanted to go. A test of endurance to say the least! Lonely Planet seem to think that the 'only' way to travel is to take public buses and you're not a proper traveller unless you do. If I ever meet the editor I'm going to slap him.
Finally 7 1/2 hours later we arrived at the border town and were nearly killed on a tuk tuk to a guesthouse as the driver was actually insane. We were both rather hysterical by this point! The guesthouse was set in beautiful gardens with cool bamboo huts but unfortunately had the most irritating owner in the world who drove us both mental and didn't give us any useful information whatsoever!
THE BORDER
The next early early morning we made it across the border, having to pay 5 baht for 'overtime' to get our passports stamped as apparently it was a Thai holiday. We then hopped into a long tail boat over the Mekong to Laos, paid our $35 for visas and were officially not aliens any more!
THE BOAT
We were convinced that we would be able to get a bus from the Laos border to Luang Prabang despite being told in Chiang Mai by about 6 different tourist agencies it wasn't possible. At the border we found out yes there was a bus but it was 16 hours without air con. The memory of the bus the day before decided it; the boat it would be. Not the 6 hour fast speed boat that you had to wear motorcycle helmets and had a strong possibility of dying on but the gentle 2 day meander down the Mekong with a stop in a village along the way.
The plus point about the boat was that it was shady. The downside was that it was entirely filled with westerners (we were surrounded by some of the most obnoxious people I've met on my trip (see the next post)) and our 'seats' were wooden benches very close together. Luckily I'd invested in some cushions for us or our bums might have fallen off! As we set off a rather nice river breeze ruffled our hair and we thought, hey, maybe it might not be so bad!
The boat ride itself would have been lovely if it had been a mere day. Meandering down the Mekong we passed hills and mountains, children swimming and waving, women washing clothes and little wooden huts for villages. The sad part was when we stopped and our boat was swamped by kids selling beer. But I guess it gives them some money that they wouldn't receive otherwise. In the evening we stayed in quite a charmless village with limited electricity; we were so exhausted by this point we would have slept anywhere though!
The next day we arrived at the boat very early to find we'd been upgraded overnight and almost half the seats were now padded (car seat like). We managed to get 2 of the last few nice seats remaining and sat feeling smug as everyone that turned up later was forced to sit back on the wooden benches. Unfortunately our favourite smoking Americans turned up almost last of all and ended up sitting right by us on the wooden benches! Sod's law!
When we finally arrived in Luang Prabang 9 1/2 hours later I felt like we hadn't been on dry land for a week. It was just such a relief! And then we got lucky, almost making up for the nigthmare boat trip. We were walking down the road looking for a cheap guesthouse when a guy from a very posh place offers us a place to stay. After laughing because it was way too expensive he asks us how much and now for $20 a night we are ensconsed in the most beautiful teak room with 2 enormous beds, a TV, air con AND a fan, and the piece de resistance, a shower curtain! Maybe that was worth the journey?!
THE BUS
Our first day we arrived at the bus station in Chiang Mai to find there was a 1st class bus directly to Chiang Kong (the border) in 20 mins. Perfect. Unfortunately by the time we got to the front of the ticket queue there were 2 minutes till the bus left and it was full. It was quite a heart wrenching vision to see the bus leave without us! 5 hours later we were squashed onto a 2nd class bus with minimal air conditioning and 5 seats to a row (I didn't even fit on one seat so spent the journey with one butt cheek off the seat) and an extra 2 hours to get to where we wanted to go. A test of endurance to say the least! Lonely Planet seem to think that the 'only' way to travel is to take public buses and you're not a proper traveller unless you do. If I ever meet the editor I'm going to slap him.
Finally 7 1/2 hours later we arrived at the border town and were nearly killed on a tuk tuk to a guesthouse as the driver was actually insane. We were both rather hysterical by this point! The guesthouse was set in beautiful gardens with cool bamboo huts but unfortunately had the most irritating owner in the world who drove us both mental and didn't give us any useful information whatsoever!
THE BORDER
The next early early morning we made it across the border, having to pay 5 baht for 'overtime' to get our passports stamped as apparently it was a Thai holiday. We then hopped into a long tail boat over the Mekong to Laos, paid our $35 for visas and were officially not aliens any more!
THE BOAT
We were convinced that we would be able to get a bus from the Laos border to Luang Prabang despite being told in Chiang Mai by about 6 different tourist agencies it wasn't possible. At the border we found out yes there was a bus but it was 16 hours without air con. The memory of the bus the day before decided it; the boat it would be. Not the 6 hour fast speed boat that you had to wear motorcycle helmets and had a strong possibility of dying on but the gentle 2 day meander down the Mekong with a stop in a village along the way.
The plus point about the boat was that it was shady. The downside was that it was entirely filled with westerners (we were surrounded by some of the most obnoxious people I've met on my trip (see the next post)) and our 'seats' were wooden benches very close together. Luckily I'd invested in some cushions for us or our bums might have fallen off! As we set off a rather nice river breeze ruffled our hair and we thought, hey, maybe it might not be so bad!
The boat ride itself would have been lovely if it had been a mere day. Meandering down the Mekong we passed hills and mountains, children swimming and waving, women washing clothes and little wooden huts for villages. The sad part was when we stopped and our boat was swamped by kids selling beer. But I guess it gives them some money that they wouldn't receive otherwise. In the evening we stayed in quite a charmless village with limited electricity; we were so exhausted by this point we would have slept anywhere though!
The next day we arrived at the boat very early to find we'd been upgraded overnight and almost half the seats were now padded (car seat like). We managed to get 2 of the last few nice seats remaining and sat feeling smug as everyone that turned up later was forced to sit back on the wooden benches. Unfortunately our favourite smoking Americans turned up almost last of all and ended up sitting right by us on the wooden benches! Sod's law!
When we finally arrived in Luang Prabang 9 1/2 hours later I felt like we hadn't been on dry land for a week. It was just such a relief! And then we got lucky, almost making up for the nigthmare boat trip. We were walking down the road looking for a cheap guesthouse when a guy from a very posh place offers us a place to stay. After laughing because it was way too expensive he asks us how much and now for $20 a night we are ensconsed in the most beautiful teak room with 2 enormous beds, a TV, air con AND a fan, and the piece de resistance, a shower curtain! Maybe that was worth the journey?!
Friday, 4 April 2008
A week in Chiang Mai
The cookery course we did in Chiang Mai was a definite experience and well worth the whole 15 pounds we paid for it. We were taken to a local market and learnt about the 3 different types of basil and 4 different types of eggplant before being driven to the cookery school and cooking 6 different Thai dishes, all of which we got to eat afterwards. I even managed to produce some Thai tasting dishes (toned down on the spice front though!) which I was quite proud of. So be prepared for some Thai cuisine when I get home.
We then took to the hills for a 3 day trek. We were extremely lucky and had a small group, the only other people were a french couple who we were only with for the first day and a memorable Japanese student called Hide (prounounced hee-day, I accidentally called him Heidi for the whole of the first day!). The trek was fantastic and one of the best things I've done in my 2 months here. Here are some of the selected highlights about our 3 days:
We then took to the hills for a 3 day trek. We were extremely lucky and had a small group, the only other people were a french couple who we were only with for the first day and a memorable Japanese student called Hide (prounounced hee-day, I accidentally called him Heidi for the whole of the first day!). The trek was fantastic and one of the best things I've done in my 2 months here. Here are some of the selected highlights about our 3 days:
- The elephant ride at the beginning of our trip (maybe not a highlight but definitely memorable). They tried to fit Andrea, Hide and I on one elephant which involved Hide sitting on the neck. He fell off as soon as the elephant moved its head, headfirst onto the ground. Andrea started hyperventilating as she's scared of heights and we thought he'd knocked himself out. They put him back on the elephant's neck and I spent most of the ride clutching onto him for dear life praying he wasn't going to fall off again!
- As we were stopped for a minute on the elephants we suddenly felt this thing poke itself between Andrea and I. It was the trunk of the elephant behind us searching for the bananas I had on my lap! He promptly found them and I had a wrestling match with the trunk as he took not just 1 banana but the whole bunch. Greedy thing, it looked pretty pleased with itself!
- After a sweaty and very hot 2 hour walk we arrived at a waterfall. Plunging into the waterfall and cooling off instantly was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had! Hide also brought out his shampoo and proceeded to wash himself there, a great advert for Herbal Essences!
- I woke up for sunrise the next morning and was greeted by the dogs and the pigs from the house were staying in. An incredible view and no one else to disturb it, amazing.
- The second day I managed to fall up a hill and into a river, nice one! We also had another amazing swim in a waterfall with absolutely no one else around.
- We saw more snakes than I saw in the jungle in Malaysia including a tree snake, one of the most poisonous in Thailand. Every time something rustled in the leaves after that either I or Andrea would scream, causing our guide much amusement.
- We spent the second evening teaching Hide and our guide how to play some english card games by candlelight.
- We were woken at some ungodly hour on the 3rd day by the rooster right underneath our bamboo hut and the pig grunting nearby. Not sure I'm made for the country life.
- The last waterfall we swam in involved clambering out via a very slippery rock. Andrea and I were like 'amoebas escaping the primeval slime' as we inched our way out. Most embarrassing was that we were cheered by some other trekkers when we made it!
- The last part of the trip (after a horrendous downhill slope that terrified me) was sitting on a bamboo raft floating gently down the river (negotiating the rapids) and being splashed by all the local kids as we passed them. A perfect end!
- The shower when we got back to our guesthouse was one of the best feelings ever! We then went out for a proper pizza and gelati to celebrate and had 12 hours sleep!
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