Laos: Vang Vieng + 4,000 Islands (Don Khone)

Woahhhh...it's been a long time since I last posted! Will try to piece it all together - apologies if you've heard some of this before :)

So....after Luang Prabang, we got a 7 hour bus south to Vang Vieng - the tubing capitol of Laos. I'll let Michael describe the bus trip, as it had a more profound effect on him:

"The road which looped up and down and round and around the mountains provided some absolutely magnificent views. Unfortunately, I spent a good part of the journey sitting down stairs with a middle aged Chinese woman, each alternatively vomiting into our own tiny plastic bags. I'm not sure whether she realised it but we were actually racing to see who would fill their bag first, and thanks to a traditional Laos stew of basil, coriander, lemongrass, dill and what looked like ragwort, I won!

Feck the Chinese! That night the medal for the 200km Hurl went to Ireland."

During this ordeal a man across the aisle also passed me a note behind michael's back as he was hunched over and looking queasy: "What's his problem?" Michael was not impressed, but as it turned out later he was a very nice Turkish guy who was wondering if he could offer assistance - so it was all just lost in translation.

The thing to do in Vang Vieng is tubing down the Mekong river surounded by the gorgeous mountain landscape. You basically get pulled into a bar every 50 meters for a drink, free shot of Mekong whiskey (if you want it - we didn't!), and a giant swing or zipline into the river to cool off. It was a great day, perfect weather, and we met some really nice people along the way.

After Vang Vieng it was on to Vientiane, Lao's capitol, where we caught an overnight bus down to the 4,000 islands in the Mekong River. The bus was composed of two rows of beds with both a "top bunk" and "bottom bunk." Seemed comfortable enough, but to my uncontained amusement we soon realised that the beds (about 3 1/2 feet by 5 feet) were actually meant for 2 people, rather than one. Not exactly "western style proportions." At least we weren't one of the 10 unfortunate people who were put at the back of the bus in rows of 5 - like a giant slumber party full of German strangers!

My plan to work on my tan in the islands wasn't exactly the best, particularly because of serious rain, but nonetheless it was a lovely couple of days on quite a rual and beautiful island (electricity only from 6-10 pm, and most of the island used for farming rice). It was mainly just reading and relaxing between meals, but our 2nd day was a little more adventurous than we had planned.

We rented bikes and rode down to the south of the island, where it's possible to rent a small boat to go out in the river to see the rare and nearly extinct fresh-water irawaddy dolphins. It had been showering a bit, but didn't seem like it would rain. So we went out in the little boat with a local guy and about 30 seconds out it started to rain...and then pour...and then hail. Suddenly we were out in the middle of the relatively wide river in this tiny boat, the mist and rain preventing us from seeing the shore, being hammered by rain. As we laughed nervously and gestured that we should go back, the motor suddenly puttered out and wouldn't restart. Hmm. the "skipper" went to the front and began paddling - forward, rather than back. I handed michael a board on the bottom of the boat to paddle with and tried to help out with my hands as we scrambled, totally soaked towards shore, where there appeared a little hut with a woman and a baby and the standard packages of food and cans of soda and beer.

We smiled and sat under the hut, out of the rain. Looking around I suddenly noticed something -- the typical signs and cans of beer Laos were instead Angkor beer - "My country, my beer." Hmmmmm.The skipper smiled, "Oh yea, this Cambodia!" Holy illegal border crossing!

Luckily the border police never came, and on the up side, we were actually able to see a lot of dolphins from the shore - seemed like they were almost playing in the rain, and we made it back safely to shore once the rain had subsided.

After our adventure in Laos (that actually continued with "scary-dilapidated-bridge-crossing-in the-pouring-rain-with-a-bike + leech," which I've decided to leave out for our mothers' sake) it was on to Pakse to fly to Siem Reap for our legal border crossing to Cambodia. Siem Reap is the city closest to spectacular Angkor Complex, which consists of lots of temples built by the former Kmher empire kings - the main attraction, Angkor Wat, is the world's largest religious monument.

More on that soon!

Chiang Mai + Luang Prabang

Hey everyone!

So, been a while now since the last entry and I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath for the next installment...brace yourselves, it has arrived!

We took the overnight train with cool sleeper bed/seat contraptions to Bangkok from Ko Tao (which was perfect as I mentioned before - found this little rasta bar with friendly staff and fire spinning and we went snorkeling and I saw 3, count them, 3 sharks!). We then flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand, a.k.a the "cultural capital of Thailand" or, where everyone goes to trek. In Chiang Mai we stayed at this nice laid back guest house where we organised whitewater rafting+home stay+"flight of the gibbon."

Whitewater rafting was a lot of fun, in large part due to the hilarious antics of one of our guides, Ping Pong. Oh, Ping Pong! After that we went to the village where flight of the gibbons operates and where we learned, to my immense disappointment, that there weren't actually any Gibbons. Apparently they all got freaked out by everyone growing tea and coffee in their home and moved to Laos. "Oh, you'll see why it's Flight of the Gibbon, you move among the trees with your feet never touching the ground..." gee, thanks. After this crushing development, we met our homestay host, an extremely friendly woman named Arun (sp?). She was a great cook and the majority of the evening was spent eating her delicious food and using a thai-english dictionary to communicate word by word. We were "feeling" "happy."

In the morning we went to get strapped in for flight of the gibbons--basically a series of zip-lines through the jungle canopy - which was actually quite cool and a lot of fun, despite the aforementioned false advertising re: gibbons. After that it was back to Chiang Mai for a day of relaxation and shopping in the Sunday market. Special deal for us!

After that we signed up for an all day cooking class and learned the secrets of Thai cooking (hot wok, oil, sugar, chilies and coconut milk from what I could see). We got to eat everything we cooked so all around it was a delicious experience, and we both passed the course with a certificate to prove it. One of the highlights of the class was the sassy female chef, Meow. She gave us the classic line that thai ginger was "good for boom-boom," but then also added that she had tried it on her boyfriend and it was "bullshit, only make him gassy!" Oh, Meow!

We capped off our time in Chiang Mai, meeting up with a friend of a friend, Brent, who was practically a local after 9 years there. We went to a typical Chiang Mai bar complete with pool hustling waitress for some Thai beer and Whiskey (which is actually rum), and then dragged Brent to a thai boxing match. Brilliant.

We're just finishing up our time now in Luang Prabang (northern Laos), which has been great. Luang Prabang is a beautiful little world heritage town, where, somehow, everything - the slightly crumbling french buildings, cafes, and silk/craft shops - seems to be incredibly well-lit, like the whole place is an art gallery. Laos is more laid-back then Thailand, less hassle from people on the streets, and really beautiful landscape with lots of families and kids everywhere.

We chilled out for the first day (more shopping...must avoid night market in future) and then booked ourselves onto a two day tour to see the caves (lined with Buddhas), waterfalls, kayaking, and a morning "mahout" or elephant-keeper course and elephant riding. The elephants were the highlight. We woke up at 6 to give them their morning bath and then after breakfast went for a ride through the jungle (note to self: observing giant spiders somehow less scary when atop an elephant...). Then we got to feed them and the 6 month old baby elephant bananas! The baby also tried to nibble my sandal and toe - OMG.

Definitely hoping to have more close-encounters with animals. One of the women that we met on the tour had just come from volunteering at the Tiger Temple in Thailand for 3 months...I'm profoundly jealous still.

Now we're taking the bus down to Vang Vieng for some tubing, and then on to the Mekong Islands to try to bolster my fading tan.

Hope all is well back at the homestead(s)!

xx Jo