Vang Vieng- The mash up capital of Laos

Well.... Im horribly overdue for my turn to update the blog, holding up the whole process some might say....It is just quite hard to back track and write about things that have happened when Im so caught up in what we are doing this exact second, but anywho one must keep it updated if we are to attract millions of readers and get offered a book deal, something along the lines of belle de Jour, but less raunchy.



We arrived in Vang Vieng after the slightly traumatic yet humourous windy bus drive and found a cheap hotel for the four of us and our new buddy Chris... bit of overdue male compainonship for Mike after putting up with us girls constantly rabbiting on 24/ 7. Vang Vieng is a place of contrasts, on one hand it is a beautiful little town with an amazing river and cliffs and on the other it is full of drunken prepubescent australian males given a perfect platform from which to show off.



This showing off takes form in the activity Vang Vieng is best known for... 'tubing'. In short (and I won't go into too much detail as I think everyone should experience this for themselves) you hire a giant tractor inner tube and get a tuk tuk a couple of km's up the road and slowly, leisurely float down the river. The first stop you come to is called 'the organic mojito stop' and this is before you actually get in the water. From here you float down the river and get hauled to the side into different bars where everyone is drinking buckets and beers and dancing etc. There are also giant flying fox swings (showing off). Basically it is the best thing ever.



Anyway we enjoyed the tubing so much we did it again the next day and ended up attempting night tubing. This is not highly recommended. If we had more time I think we would of stayed a LOT longer here. Tess and Mike had their first anniversary while we were here and treated themselves to a night in a place that cost more than 3 dollars and a nice meal. We left Vang Vieng with Chris a little more worse for wear than we arrived and got on the bus to Vientiane, not too shab apart from the lack of airconditioning combined with hangover and loud eye-spy players in the back of the bus.



Im actually going to write about Vientiane also beacause to be fair we didnt really do anything here. Although this is the place where I have had the best pancake so far on the trip. After a bit of investigation we found the only way to feasibly get to cambodia would be to fly. We were aiming for Siem Reap but there were no flights for about a week so flew to Phnom Penh instead. This took us into a whole new class of travellers, and we felt really quite posh.

Right well I almost lost this entire blog so I am just going to publish it before everything goes pearshaped

Clem

Waterfulls in Luang Prabrang

After our éxciting' baot ride, we arrived in Luang Prabang at the mouth of the Mekong River. We were feeling pretty sore after the boat, but since it was Mike's birthday we quickly brushed ourselves off and headed out for dinner. In comparison to the last town we were in, Chiang Kong, Luang Prabang was luxury. It is a beautiful place set on the banks of the Mekong with high cliffs enveloping the town and an eery mist which settles on the town in early morning, throughouyt the town there are loads of temples. WE had some lovely meals sitting on the edge of the river watching the sun set.

One highlight of our time here was doing a day trip out to a beautiful waterfull. we hired a tuktuk who took us on a 40 minute drive through the remote hilly countryside to where the waterfull is. We walked through the bush to find a beautiful waterfull that cascaded down into several lovely swimming holes set in the middle of the bush. The water was crystal clear and the whloe setting was idyllic. Once again we, being from a colder climate, jumped eagerly into the water and had a very refreshing swim.

We did not spend long in Luang Prabang as we were keen to get a move on to our next destination, we hopped on on early morning shuttle bus to Viang vieng the next day. As the crow flys the distance to Viang Vieng is only about 150km, we couldn;t understand why the van was sceduled to take 5 hours. But once we begin the journey we quickly realsied, the road was a tiny dirt road that wound up and down hills for the entire way. On the sides of the hills, almost on the road we passed tonnes of tiny remote village communties, it was amazing to see them living in such a way. Our van driver was fairly enthusitaic and combined with the skinny road, roadside villages and other traffic, we had quite a few close calls on the drive. Fortunately, hot and sweaty 5 hours later we arrived in Viang Vieng for a well deserved beer.

Hanging with the Hilltribes

All and all, this was an amazing experience. We travelled into the hills of Chiang Mai with our ADHD travel guide "Bat" (pronounced But) for a fun filled 2 day trex. We had 6 other people people with us, 2 girls from Scotland and Ireland, 2 french dudes, and 2 guys from thailand.

Our trip started with a 2 hour drive to a waterfall, which we had the opportunity to go for a little dip. Of course the fab 4 jumped into their bathing suits and timidly tiptoed into the luxury freshwater. But before long we were all jumping around splashing each other like little kids.

Then we moved onto the start of our trex. The scenery was amazing. Our guide gave some of us responsibilities, i was rewarded with a leaf hat and named team leader (mike) which i was so very overwhelmed, with such a prestiges rank within the group. This was also the time that we realised that our guide "Bat" may have had a little thing for Anna.

When we arrived out our first stop and our first Village, we continued with our extreme fizzy intake and bought a round of drinks. You could buy anything at this villages. W walked for about 4 hours and arrived at the village in the dark after crossing a couple of dodgy bamboo bridges.

Our guide, with the help of clemmie cooked the most amazing range of Thai dishes. We gobbled them up and were completly satisfied . The night was very relaxing with the thai boys showing us some card games and then breaking out the guiter for some songs around the good old classic campfire.

Unfortunatly that was when the relaxing stopped as one of the French dudes had a snoring problem which kept the entire hillside awake. We woke after never really been asleep except for Tessa who woke up nice and perky and clearly had a few more hours than the rest of hours.

We left early in the morning and walked for an hour to the next village where we were to start our Elephant riding. The 4 of us were on 2 elephants the were tied together. We were also lucky enough to also be accompanied by the little baby elephant. We travelled down the river for about hour and half. It was all very relaxing with sights we will never forget.

When we finally made it to our next village, it was time for some "Bamboo Rafting" this is where things got a little hairy for the raft that Tessa and I were on. There was a moment when i was trying to control the back of the raft and managed to get my bamboo stick stuck between 2 rocks. A normal person would have let go but i didn't, MAN OVERBOARD. We hit numerous rocks Tessa Hit her leg and While all this was happening Anna and Clemmie had a very relaxing time with absolutly no problems.

That was the last of our trip, so it wasw the long trip back to Chiang MAi. Our guide gave us his number and wanted to hit the town, but we had to say we were far to tired.

It was an amazing trip and we wished that we had done the 4 day.

MIKE

Laos border crossing and speedboating down the Meekong

Crossed the border from Chang Khong in Thailand on the ? Jan after an awful night in a shitty guesthouse with karaoke blaring into our room. We renamed Chiang Khong the Picton of Thailand – serves one purpose to get to the otherside of an expanse of water. - Chiang Kong(Thailand) is on one side of the Mekong River and Laos is a 1 minute boat journey on the other side.
Once in Laos with our Visas sorted we were supposed to catch a slow boat down the Meekong with another 100 people which would taken 2 whole days. But after some swift talking by a local Laos salesman (and probably a rather rich local speed boat owner) we brushed aside the warnings of various respected travel books and friends and ended up spending more money and catching a speed boat down the Mekong river to Laung Prabang.


This made the 2 day journey a short 6 hours...but wasn't without its drawbacks. We were given our standad issue Supertrooper-esque combo of visored helmet along with a lifejacket, and travelled on a tiny boat which seated a max of 8 people. You had to sit with your legs up by your chest for the entire journey as you sat on the ground of the boat which nearly led to early onset of deep vein thrombosis among other things. We had also managed to convince an Aussie couple to join us - not sure how happy they were with the whole adventure.

All in all glad we took the fast route - as you may be able to tell from the photo...the slow boat looks pretty packed. However the jury is out on whether we would dare to recommend it to others...

Trying to upload a movie of the boat ride- but might have to sort that out for next time

The road to Chang Mai

On the 4th of Jan in the arvo we set out for Chang mai from Bangkok - our lovely travel agent lady had booked us a cheapo bus there. We packed snacks for the overnight 12 hour journey - a delectable selection of wholemeal bread, plastic cheese slices and salted chips which created a wonderful beige paste when made into a sandwich. The bus was subzero in tempurature during the night and Tessa and Mike resorted to using tracksuit pants as a hat and scarf, while Clem and I used scarfs to make mini tents over our heads. But all in all it was not too traumatic though and at 6am we arrived in the outskirts of Chang Mai at a petrol station. Here we were herded like illegal immigrants onto a truck and shipped into the centre of town to a dodgy hostel called 'Nice Place'.

The bus we had caught between Bangkok and Chang Mai is apparently owned by local CM hostels and they aren't allowed to come into central Chang Mai as the hostels just use them to get unsuspecting foreigners to stay in their specific hostels by dropping you straight at them. However, we were wise to their tricksy little ploy and left the hostel asap and walked to Eagle House hostel which we had booked. Here we planned our trek to the hilltribes and began our obsession with fizzy drinks...

In the beginning.....

The Asian Adventure finally began after a loverly christmas in Norway with an unfortunate incident involving my knickers in Heathrow, followed by a long flight to Sri lanka with a ropey entertainment system. However, we arrived unscathed in the early hours and spent the next couple of days reading, sunning and generally relaxing. Sri lanka was really nice, beautiful beach and weather and VERY friendly locals. Unfortunately we had somewhat underestimated our funds on new years eve but managed to blag a cheap whisky with a local, see a fireworks show on the beach and weasel our way into a poolside party at a posh hotel (poss the worst party ever, when a middle aged man tried to push us into the pool to the band playing "she'll be coming round the mountain", we got out of there.)

We then made our way to Bangkok and began the series of massages, lazy beers and obsessions about various styles of culottes and pantalones, I swear I will never wear tight trousers again. I picked up Anna from the airport and the crew was complete.....

Hello avid readers

Hi everyone,

Welcome to our brand spanking new blog, we have decided this is a good way to keep in touch with you all, and then you also only have to find out what we are up to if you want to, instead of receiving the dreaded group email. We are all going to take turns writing and adding stuff

love Clem, Ans, Mike and Tessa.