VV to Vientiane to Khao Lak Day 25 & 26

Hi all,
Jeremy was going to write these posts but I managed to do them when he was sick just before he ended up in hospital :( At least he is better now so hopefully he will be blogging again soon!
Also as another aside I have managed to delete all our daily summaries off the iPad which means we have to write them from memory, so please bear with us for the remaining posts - thats if anyone is still reading :)

So after the craziness that is tubing in Vang Vieng I wake up early feeling awful. After my 4th trip to the bathroom I realise its more than just a hangover and that I have picked up what Jeremy and I have dubbed the Laos tummy.
Great stuff, I have the 3 hour journey to Vientiane to look forward to!
Anyway we go back to sleep until the last possible minute before we have to leave. We had decided to give the 'VIP' bus a try and I'm so glad we did. We had aircon the whole way and the road is a lot straighter than our last journey so all in all I managed :)
We get to Vientiane and all I can think of is sleeping, so Jeremy finds us a hotel, Douang Deuane and I have a bit of a nap. Eventually I start feeling a bit better so we go for a bit of a walk around. We eventually get a take away pizza from across the street from the hotel, and it is surprisingly good. I have a couple of pieces and decide to call it a day. Jeremy heads off to an internet cafe to do some catching up and then it early to bed for us.
The next morning we are up bright and early to start our day long travelling to Khao Lak. After weighing up the options we had decided to fly from Vientiane to Bangkok rather than the overnight train,and given the way I was feeling it was definitely the right choice.
We flew Laos airlines and they were actually pretty good. The plane was brand new and we got some snacks on board which is a change from the likes of air asia!
Anyway we get to bangkok with 5 hours to kill so we decide what better way to kill time in Thailand than by having a massage. So half an hour and a back massage later Jeremy and I are feeling a lot more relaxed and ready to take on the next leg of the trip.
We eventually arrive in Phuket after a pretty smooth flight with Air Asia,with some great scenery. After debating another hour or so wait for the bus we decide that the 1800baht for the taxi is probably worth it. So after 1h30min drive we eventually arrive in Khao Lak. Woohoo!
For those of you that don't know we actually decided on Khao lak because Philip and Estie, some friends of ours from South Africa, told us at the wedding that they will be there in April. We realised that it was possible for us to join them so we thought why not? I'm so glad we did. The Haadson Resort where we stayed was just great. It's about the only resort on the stretch of beach and there only about 4 restaurants on the beach too. Great for getting away from it all.
The resort itself is great, really nice attention to detail, and they upgraded us to a villa which was amazing. Very spacious, and it had a really nice balcony,which I used to do some yoga on a couple of mornings which was pretty amazing- wish I could always do my yoga in that setting.
Anyway after a swim in the pool we have a bit of a nap and then decide to check out the hotel restaurant for dinner as we just can't be bothered to look for anywhere else... The food was really good, Jeremy had the green curry (which you will come to realise is his go-to thai meal) and I had a noodle dish with wide flat rice noodles that was just delicious.
After dinner Philip, Estie, little Reece and Philips parents arrive back from their dinner in Khao Lak town and Philip joined us for a beer.
We chat about what we've been up to, and tell him some of our crazy stories and then its early night for us!




Signpost in Vientiane - although I'm pretty sure CPT is more than 1058km away :)




Beautiful scenery from the plane window




Swans on the bed for the Newlyweds- Haadson Resort




Dinner :)

Vang vieng tubing day 24

We thought it would be wise to start the day with a big brekkie, so we headed down to a restaurant for some food and some friends. After spending far too long watching friends we eventually make our way to the start.
You basically pick up your tubes from the town center, there is one shop that hires everyone tubes, and they then take you on a tuk tuk up the river to the start of the tubing.
We get our tubes and hop on the back of the tuk tuk not quite knowing what to expect.
A couple of things to note about the tubing. Everyone who does the tubing in Vang Vieng has a 'uniform' - Tubing in the vang vieng swimming shorts, tshirts and ray bans. And after the day is done you will add some wristbands to your collection, one for every bar and lao lao shot you drink. Every where you go in SE asia people are wearing these with pride, and it just adds to the craziness of the place.
For those of you that didn't see it there is a pretty interesting article here about the danger of the tubing, and Jeremy and I made a pact before we started that we wouldn't jump off any platforms or swing off any ropes, especially as it was dry season and I don't want to die just yet thank you.
Even still its amazing what dutch (Laos) courage you get after a couple of shots of whisky,but luckily neither of us broke the pact.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/07/vang-vieng-laos-party-town?cat=world&type=article
Anyway we get to the start, and the only way to get to the river is through the 1st bar. So its a shot of Lao Lao whisky and then we decide to get a beer and relax before we get going. We meet 3 Aussie girls that are travelling for a few weeks around Thailand and Laos and 2 english girls that are also travelling SE Asia. We end up spending way too long at the first bar with them just chatting and drinking, so eventually all of us decide to make our way to the second bar.
You basically grab your tube and just hop into the river and float down using the river stream (with some paddling too) Then when you are ready to be pulled in you put up your hand and someone will throw you a rope and pull you in. Simple really :)
Anyway the second bar is pretty cool and another shot down, Jeremy and I get involved in a beer pong game, and lose, but only by a little.
After all that beer we decide to get a bucket, which is great. We meet some more people and play some drinking games with the girls and some other people we meet.
We realise that if we want to get back in time to avoid the penalty on the tubes we better start heading down river. We end up at the third bar which is pretty dead to be honest. Another shot and another bracelet.... This bar has an added bonus - flying ants! So after being bitten a couple of times Jeremy and I decide to start making our way down the river to the end. We say goodbye to the girls with plans to meet them at the end and hop onto our tubes. Jeremy manages to leave behind his tshirt, and about 2mins later manages to drop his Oakleys in the river, never to be seen again, but I think one to many shots means we don't really worry about this until the next day!
Anyway we start making our way downriver, in some parts the river is hardly flowing and we have to paddle,and in others it is so shallow you almost scrape your butt on the rocks. But the scenery is amazing, I have quite a few 'can't believe I'm here' moments on the way down!
We make it about half way when Jeremy decides enough is enough and manages to barter with a local fisherman to take us on his boat the rest of the way. Although I wasn't very happy with him in the beginning, I realise now that it was definitely the best decision cos it was getting dark quickly! We make it back with minutes to spare before they close.
We head back to the hotel, send some drunken texts to Jarrod and Stacey (who have both done VV before), sorry guys :) And then decide its time for food before we go out to party.
Haha,after the food all either of us can think of is sleep,so we head back to the hotel and pass out. Great fun!




At the start




Beer pong -first bar...still pretty empty




Drinking games!



Me, Jem and a random 'let me take the pic I have long arms' guy




Flying ants!




Floating down the river

Luang prabang to Vang Vieng Day 23

Hi all,
Sorry for the delay in the posts. Promise we have been making daily summaries we have just had little internet access and time to type the posts out!!

So the only way to get from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng is driving, either by mini bus or a normal bus.
We decided to go with the mini bus thinking that it would be more comfortable and the fact that its quicker...After our journey I'm not so sure it was the best decision.

The road from LP to VV is only about 120km but it took us 6 hours to get there!! The road is through the mountains and very very winding. It makes Bainskloof pass look like a walk in the park. I had read that it was pretty tough going, and for the first 2 hours or so I couldn't understand what people were on about...and then we go into the next half. Seriously bad. And to make it worse the driver would only put the aircon on when going downhill, I think the car was loaded too full to make it up with the aircon on too. It is beautiful though and the scenery does go some ways in making up for the drive.

I was feeling pretty rough at the end of it, and very glad once we got to Vang Vieng. Although we heard from another guy in our bus that the journey from Hanoi to LP is the journey from hell. It takes 26hours and is just as winding, I am very glad we decided to fly. Although according to him the bus journey from hell makes for a good facebook post, so maybe we missed out. Sorry guys that our comfort came before your reading pleasure :)

Once we got to VV we walked around trying to find somewhere to stay. We hadn't really done that much research other than Jeremy doing some reading on the way there (his car sickness is a lot better than mine!) so we headed down to the river to see what we could find.

We ended up at TCK Guesthouse, which boasted river views and only cost us around 10 pounds. It was quite a nice spot and brand new. The rooms were quite funny though as they had been finished off really badly. For example the paint jobs on the walls stopped about 10cm from the skirting boards and the ceilings had circles drawn on them for the downlighters, but whoever installed those used the guides very roughly as you can see the circles quite clearly with the light installed right next to it. LOL. But the place was big and clean and the view was pretty amazing.

For those of you that don't know what Vang Vieng is, its basically a sleepy town on the road between LP and the capital of Laos, Vientiane. This town has now been transformed into the party town of SE Asia and has quite a reputation. You basically hire tubes,go down the river and stop at numerous bars on the way down to drink. Water, tubes and drunk people makes for a pretty awesome party experience!! After you get sick of the tubing all the bars in the town serve western food and most of them have daybeds and endless re runs of friends or family guy playing.

After we checked in we went into town for some food and killed a couple of hours watching friends. Doesn't matter how many times you have seen friends it is still great, and even more so after a few weeks of BBC News and if you are lucky a decent movie on HBO (that you will inevitably only catch the last 30mins of).

We ended up at bucket bar after that. And the name really says it all. Jeremy and I ordered a lao lao bucket and I will say that it went down really slowly.No amount of ice could make it taste better. We decided that we would stick to vodka buckets from now on. Anyways we spent some time laughing at the drunken tubers, knowing that it would probably be us tomorrow...And had a relatively quiet night knowing that we would need it the next day.

Will leave you now with some pics, Jeremy will take over for the actual tubing day.




View on journey from LP to VV




Vang Vieng




Watching Friends :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Luang Prabang - day with the giants Day 22

Candice and I had originally planned to go the elephant village on the Thursday but after my stomach bug we decided to shift it to the Friday to give a little extra time to recover.
They picked up us early at our hotel on Friday at about 7:30am. Fortunately for us there was only 5 people booked on the day trip which made the group really small. It was three Americans Megan, Ethan and Rachel. Interestingly Ethan and Megan were also newly weds and having that in common made for some interesting conversation. It's interesting to hear other peoples stories and their reasons for travelling what they do for a living etc. I had a really interesting chat with Nathan who was a lawyer for the American army and gets deployed to various bases around the world. His next deployment is in a small village in Germany. He defends American soldiers for any wrongdoing or against war crimes they accused of. We chatted a lot about wars and the military etc. One thing I found really interesting though is that the US army is deployed all over the world, war or no war. If you are a US citizen the US army can reach you anywhere in the world in 40 minutes.

The elephant village while being a major tourist attraction is good in that they capture elephants from logging where they are exploited. Instead of working 16 hours a day logging in the forrest they work a maximum of 4 hours a day and are well looked after.
Our guide for the day was a laos man who's English was slightly broken but we could just about understand him. Happy and friendly as ever he tells us we are going to learn basic commands in Laos to talk to the elephants.
The elephants are very well trained and you learn pretty quick that they are intelligent creatures. After he takes us through the basic commands we walk over to a mahout who is sitting on an elephant. A mahout is someone who basically lives with an elephant as his job to train them. Out of nowhere the guide says to me you first time to ride elephant. I can't remember the command but he talks to the elephant and it bends it's right front leg so that I can stand on its leg and climb into it. Before I know it I am sitting on top of this massive creature and and it starts to walk. A little nerve wracking at first but you feel pretty safe. We each take our turn one by one and then after that we did what most tourists do and go for a hour long walk whilst sitting on the elephant.

After that was a buffet lunch where we had a good chat with the three Americans who were on the tour with us. Megan we learn is a English teacher in South Korea but is heading back to the states to study. South Korea sounded like an interesting place maybe one day we could visit there.

After lunch we did what for me was a truly unforgettable experience. We each got an elephant with a mahout and went down to the river. We waded into the river with the elephants and are given a brush to scrub the elephants and splash water on them. The elephant I was on was extremely playful. As I brushed it and poured water over its back it would take water with its trunk and spray it back at me. I jumped off the elephant to swim in the river as it was about 36 degrees. As I was in the river looking across in the river watching everyone swim among the elephants and playing with them was very surreal something I won't forget for a long time. We were in the water for about 20-30 mins with the elephants after which we got on a boat to take us up river to a waterfall. The waterfall was dry as its the dry season. The reason they take you there is that their is that there is a zip line in the forrest that you can do as another activity. We then went back down the river to the elephant village where we could swim in the pool and have a drink and just relax. The pool was quite nice it had a concrete chairs in it and a bar you could sit at and have drinks. We swam and relaxed for about an hour before heading back to Luang Prabang town center. When we got back we went for an early dinner with the Americans at a little coffee shop/restaurant called JO MA which was all to easy to pronounce as jou ma.

Being our last evening in Luang Prabang we decided to walk up the hill which has a viewpoint over the town. We did it at sunset and it was pretty scenic. After that we went back to our room and got ready so we could go out. We had a couple drinks at a place called Lao Lao Bar which is name after the famous Lao Lao whisky. We were there till about 11:00 before we decided to hit the infamous bowling alley in Luang Prabang. In Luang Prabang everything closes down at 11:30pm so everyone at the bars/pubs either heads off home or two the bowling alley as it is the only place open for a drink after 11:30pm. Quite a random thing a bowling alley in a place like Luang Prabang but great fun at the same time. Candice and I played three games of bowling and it ended up in a tie.I won the first game, Candice won the second game and the third game was tied. We were only their for about an hour in all as we had to go home and pack as we were leaving early the next day for Vang Vieng.



Look ma no hands.




My beautiful wifey.



Two saffas and three Americans.



FTeeeessssss (f..king tourists)






swimming with the elephants.



View from the hill.



At the bowling alley.



I won I won.

Luang Prabang - Man down day 20-21

Not to much to say about the third day in Luang Prabang. I got a pretty bad stomach bug and I was pretty much man down the whole day. Laos is a pretty poor country and so hygienic standards will vary. You also eating from street vendors and the like so there is always the chance of getting the odd bug. Thats why Hepatitis A vaccination is so important as it is the only type of Hepatitis you can obtain orally. Oddly though Candice had eaten the same as me so its weird her stomach was okay. To give you an idea of the scale of the diarrhoea the Imodium box said take one tablet after every time you go to the loo. I ended up taking about six imodiums. Obviously being dehydrated in temperatures of 35 is not great so I just stayed indoors with the aircon on fulltilt. Candice played the role of nurse and went to the pharmacy and got me some re-hydration salts and vitamins to help me along. I spent the day indoors for most of the day and just slept and drank lots of fluids.

In the evening we decided to go get some food. There was a really nice place called saffron cafe we went to on the Monday or the Tuesday where I had an awesome salad and my thinking was that the food and the kitchen should be okay. Anyways the 500m walk there was a killer being weak and dehydrated in the heat is not fun. I wasn't exactly feeling hungry so I just ordered some french fries which I only managed to eat a couple before giving up. I then decided to go back to the room and just rest some more and get some sleep.

We woke at 5:30 on the Thursday to go to the alms giving ceremony. Its an age old tradition in Loas but basically the Buddhist monks walk in a line through the town and the locals give them offerings into a basket type thing they are carrying. Loas in some ways is very similar to Thailand except the people are even more friendly and the traditions and culture is a little more in tact. I read whilst in Loas that the average person in Luang Prabang lives of 1 US Dollar a day. What is extremely fascinating is how poor the people are they literally have nothing yet they are extremely happy and friendly. It makes one thing a lot about western culture and the problems associated with it where we think more money is better but clearly it is not the answer.

After the alms giving ceremony we headed back to the room for some sleep as I was still not feeling lekker. After a power nap we decided to get some breakfast of some pancakes. The traffic in Luang Prabang was nothing like the cities of Vietnam so we rented a motorbike and drove the 30km to the waterfall. The going was pretty tough as although I felt better I was still a bit queasy and weak. The waterfalls were really refreshing though and we had a nice swim to cool off. After that my appetite started to return so we got some watermelon to snack on and just took it easy reading our books and relaxing. I had a good chuckle at two Buddhist monks as they were smoking and were wearing sunglasses which was different from the norm.

We then had another swim in another of the pools at the waterfall. There was a nice swing to launch you into the water and a high rock you could jump off into the water. My energy levels started to return and so I had a go jumping off the rocks. We left the waterfall at about 3pm and drove back to Luang Prabang. The 30km road is quite windy but very few cars so being on holiday I just took it easy on the bike with candice on the back. You go through quite a few viliages and its very rural and very poor. We drove past a school and I stopped to get a picture with some of the kids who I think thought was bonkers.

On the way home I got my appetite back so we stopped at Luang Prabang bakery for a burger, thinking its one of the few things my stomach could handle. After that food it was time for another nap...

We then went to do some shopping at the night market and then headed off to Utopia bar, which a couple of people recommended. It is down some side streets on the banks of the river and very chilled out.




Alms giving




Pools at the waterfall




Jumping




Waterfall




Me with the school kids

Location:Luang Prabang