My up most apologies people for the delay in posts of late but you know how it goes, time runs away with you when your having fun!! =D
So I have found my idea of heaven on earth, or as close as I feel it can come any way!
After that shocking bus journey, my last post, we arrived in Laos. Now, how do I describe Laos!? Well for those of you who have seen Jurassic Park, the opening of the movie when you get those amazing views of the island where they have all the dinosaurs, yep well that pretty much sums up what the landscape in Laos is like, minus the dinosaurs, OBVIOUSLY! It is amazingly green and mountainous, it is the MOST beautiful place I have ever seen, the bus journeys around that place are never boring, there is soo much to see looking out the window, like; waterfalls and palm trees and obviously massive sloping landscapes, that before you know it the 4 or how ever many hours have passed. Guessing there is already no need to tell you that Laos is by far my favourite place and I haven't even told you what we got up to!!
Our first stop was the capital of Laos, Vientaine. This place is exactly like arriving in Paris, very chic and full of little bistros and cafe, coffee shop places. We were only here for a few days but it was lovely and OH MY GOD, the people are just great, the total opposite to the Vietnamese, well North Vietnamese.At one point I found myself wondering around at 6am as I could not sleep, all other signs of travellers were non-existent it was just me and the locals and a few asked if I was ok and then i sat down and had a cup of tea with one of the ladies who ran a Cafe. Other than the people the other most refreshing thing about Laos is that they do not continuously beep their horn every second, in fact i think i heard 3 beeps in the entire week we were there!
We made our way up into the mountains to one of Laos most famous towns, Vang Vieng, the home of tubing!! We stayed in a great little place called Vilayvong, and our room had beautiful views of the jagged mountains that surrounded us. As the title of this post says, it is extremely laid back in Laos, soo much so that when you go to a restaurant, along with your menu for food and drink, you also get a 'specials' menu. This menu gives you a great selection of different ways to enjoy, Opium, Weed and Magic Mushrooms. Yep drugs! Basically in Laos as long as an establishment has a license to sell such things and people only take them in these establishments, there is absolutely NOTHING illegal about any of it!! (Nice to know for some of you!) So your sat chilling on cushions around a low table, listening to Bob Marley, drinking your beer and eating a real meal, or a Happy Pizza (magic mushrooms is the key ingredient) or just casually smoking a joint and enjoying life. Obviously you can just skip the drugs all together and just enjoy this in this strange but relaxing atmosphere, but i will keep you guessing on what i decided to do! ;-)
However, this is NOT the main attraction of why people come to Vang Vieng, it is, as i said earlier because of the tubing. Now for those of you who do not know what tubing is let me inform you, basically, you get driven 5 kilometers out of town with a big tube, get in to a river and float down, at intervals you get thrown a rope from a guy at one of the many bars on the bank and you hoist yourself up, enjoy a bucket or two and a few homemade whisky shots, mud volleyball or zip wire into the river and then off you go again back into the river on your tube. The last bar (Bucket Bar) is right back at the start of town. Yes it does sound dangerous and yes it it if your not sensible and get too intoxicated, but believe me even if you did it and did not touch one drop of alcohol the views are most certainly worth it. I found myself floating down the river by myself as I had managed to float out of the current and everyone else was way ahead, but i just sat in my ring and took in all of the stuff around me. It was brilliant and I am glad that I did it, I also met some great people on that day and made it back to town before night fall and got off at the last bar (if you miss this your a bit unlucky as there is a small waterfall a few km after wards, eek!!!)
We enjoyed our stay in VangVieng soo much that we ended up staying there much longer than we planned and did not get to go any further up Laos as we needed to get into Thailand!
x
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
You just gotta laugh . . .
because sometimes there is nothing else!!!
This is the saying i have adopted in life and it has been very necessary in the last 5 weeks but on Monday 11th October I even had to convince myself that this was the case. . .
So lets rewind a few days back to Thursday 7th October, were in Hanoi and decide that we will leave the day after the 1000 year celebrations and we book bus tickets to our next destination, Laos. We go to a booking office recommeneded by the Lonely Planet called Sinh Cafe, after deciding that at 90pounds flights are too expensive we decide to take a bus, not just any bus a sitting bus (heaven only knows why we made this choice, we somehow convinced ourselves we would be fine!) We purchase our $15 tickets for the 21 hour bus journey and off we go to enjoy the rest of our time in Hanoi . . . fast forward back to Monday 11th October . . .
4.45pm, we arrive at the booking agents, as told to, we then get put in a cab and arrive back to a hostel, 2 mins from the hostel we were staying in, so firstly, why did we have to walk all the way to the booking office? Finally after a 45 minute wait we are packed on to a minibus with several other people all heading to Vientaine in Laos, too. After 30 minutes driving we arrive at a kind of bus depot and the group are split, some going on to luxury sleeping buses and the rest (8 of us to be precise) are slumming it on the sitting bus. The sleeping bus turns up and on get the first group. Then the guy who collected us tells us to folllow him, so we drag ourselves and our bags for about 10 minutes and then we wait . . . but the place we are waiting is some dodgy street that looks like it is home to Vietnam's most unfinest prostitutes and drug lords, great or what!? After a further 30/40 minutes, and a hundred buses driving past us, our bus, a rickety old one, finally shows up (its been waiting in the bus depot behind us the whole time!!!)
So we chuck our bags in the under carriage and board the bus to find, not only an almost packed bus full of Vietnamese people but also the aisles full of bags of rice, fake Lacoste T-shirts and other random stuff. We see seats at the back and head that way, but the gap between the back seats and the ones in front of them have also been packed full of stuff so I take a seat at the back with the two Dutch guys we have met and I have to sit with my knees up to my chin, just wonderful! As there are 5 seats and only the 3 of us at the back we have a little bit of room to spread out, for now!
And so our journey begins, we have not been drving for 20 minutes and the aircon breaks (this continues to go on and off the entire journey and because I am at the back next to one of only four windows on the bus I have to open and shut when needed!!) once they get it back on, we are off again and then another 15 minutes on we stop again, this time to upload even MORE cargo, we look out the window and see all of our bags in a pile on the road side, so off we get to make sure they get put back on before we depart. These kind of shinanigans carry on for the next hour or so and then finally I manage to nod off to sleep. After about 30 minutes I am woken by somebody shoving me in the side. As I get my eyes in to focus I realise that more Vietnamese people are getting on the bus. Two cram themselves on the back seat with me and the dutch guys and the rest all sit on the cargo in the middle of the aisle (the only way I can explain it, is that they look like they are waiting for the song 'oops upside your head . . ' to start playing and then they will do the hand actions to the dance!!!) Then I notice at the front some people can not sit and they just stay standing, for the entire journey. This was complete and utter madness and due to my tiredness I did not know how to feel, but finally I nodded back off to sleep. I woke a few hours later to the Vietnamese lady next to me with her head on my shoulder fast asleep and no air con again! This carried on until about 8am, Bloody marvellous!!!
At 8am we arrived at the Laos border. Firstly we had to go through immigration on the Vietnamese side and once we got through the bus drove off without us. I was soo unimpressed and anyone we tried to ask just started waving their hands as they did not understand, apparently!! Finally one guy who spoke english asked us if we were ok, after explaining he pointed us in the right direction to the Laos entry border and said our bus should be waiting on the other side, which it was. THANK GOD!!! The rest of the journey continued pretty much the same as before, the lady next to me kept feeding me (as if I really need it!) with crispy bacon and some random fruit that on the outside was a cross between an onion and and an apple and inside was like a white pomegranate, but it tasted good.
Finally at 6.30pm on Tuesday 12th October we arrived at our destination, Vientaine the capital of Laos, much to our suprise! We got straight in a tuktuk and headed to the hostel recommended to us by the girls we met in Cambodia (thankyou ladies it was very nice and real Tesco tea bags with breakfast was a bonus!!)
I appreciate that in this post you guys reading this can not quite grasp the reality of what we went through in that 24 hours or so but it was gruelling and mentally straining. After much deliberation, as I had plenty of time to think about it stuck on that ,I decided that it was most definatley a, 'you gotta laugh' moment and this is why . . . .
Comapred to all the stories we have read about or been toldof on our travels, about the particular crossing we did, we were lucky that we were only deprived of leg room and space, oh and the occassional spout of no air con, because we have heard far worse stories like; bus drivers demanding extra money half way through the journey and if people have no money or refuse to pay then they get thrown off and have to hitchhick the rest of their way, girls getting touched up by pervy men, buses stopping 10km away from the final destination and having to walk the rest, buses being robbed by bandits, buses stopping for 5/6 hours to let the driver sleep (we had a crew of 4 so they took turns) or buses not stopping at all, not even for toilet breaks, the list goes on . . .
So I think, weighing up all of the past experiences with ours, we did not get such a bad deal, it was not great but atleast we and all of our belongings got there in one piece and we can now definatley laugh about it and swear we will never make a crazy decision like that EVER AGAIN!
All of you due to travel be warned!!!
This is the saying i have adopted in life and it has been very necessary in the last 5 weeks but on Monday 11th October I even had to convince myself that this was the case. . .
So lets rewind a few days back to Thursday 7th October, were in Hanoi and decide that we will leave the day after the 1000 year celebrations and we book bus tickets to our next destination, Laos. We go to a booking office recommeneded by the Lonely Planet called Sinh Cafe, after deciding that at 90pounds flights are too expensive we decide to take a bus, not just any bus a sitting bus (heaven only knows why we made this choice, we somehow convinced ourselves we would be fine!) We purchase our $15 tickets for the 21 hour bus journey and off we go to enjoy the rest of our time in Hanoi . . . fast forward back to Monday 11th October . . .
4.45pm, we arrive at the booking agents, as told to, we then get put in a cab and arrive back to a hostel, 2 mins from the hostel we were staying in, so firstly, why did we have to walk all the way to the booking office? Finally after a 45 minute wait we are packed on to a minibus with several other people all heading to Vientaine in Laos, too. After 30 minutes driving we arrive at a kind of bus depot and the group are split, some going on to luxury sleeping buses and the rest (8 of us to be precise) are slumming it on the sitting bus. The sleeping bus turns up and on get the first group. Then the guy who collected us tells us to folllow him, so we drag ourselves and our bags for about 10 minutes and then we wait . . . but the place we are waiting is some dodgy street that looks like it is home to Vietnam's most unfinest prostitutes and drug lords, great or what!? After a further 30/40 minutes, and a hundred buses driving past us, our bus, a rickety old one, finally shows up (its been waiting in the bus depot behind us the whole time!!!)
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| Me and new friends before the back seat got invaded! |
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| 'opps up side . . ' |
And so our journey begins, we have not been drving for 20 minutes and the aircon breaks (this continues to go on and off the entire journey and because I am at the back next to one of only four windows on the bus I have to open and shut when needed!!) once they get it back on, we are off again and then another 15 minutes on we stop again, this time to upload even MORE cargo, we look out the window and see all of our bags in a pile on the road side, so off we get to make sure they get put back on before we depart. These kind of shinanigans carry on for the next hour or so and then finally I manage to nod off to sleep. After about 30 minutes I am woken by somebody shoving me in the side. As I get my eyes in to focus I realise that more Vietnamese people are getting on the bus. Two cram themselves on the back seat with me and the dutch guys and the rest all sit on the cargo in the middle of the aisle (the only way I can explain it, is that they look like they are waiting for the song 'oops upside your head . . ' to start playing and then they will do the hand actions to the dance!!!) Then I notice at the front some people can not sit and they just stay standing, for the entire journey. This was complete and utter madness and due to my tiredness I did not know how to feel, but finally I nodded back off to sleep. I woke a few hours later to the Vietnamese lady next to me with her head on my shoulder fast asleep and no air con again! This carried on until about 8am, Bloody marvellous!!!
At 8am we arrived at the Laos border. Firstly we had to go through immigration on the Vietnamese side and once we got through the bus drove off without us. I was soo unimpressed and anyone we tried to ask just started waving their hands as they did not understand, apparently!! Finally one guy who spoke english asked us if we were ok, after explaining he pointed us in the right direction to the Laos entry border and said our bus should be waiting on the other side, which it was. THANK GOD!!! The rest of the journey continued pretty much the same as before, the lady next to me kept feeding me (as if I really need it!) with crispy bacon and some random fruit that on the outside was a cross between an onion and and an apple and inside was like a white pomegranate, but it tasted good.
 |
| Squished |
Finally at 6.30pm on Tuesday 12th October we arrived at our destination, Vientaine the capital of Laos, much to our suprise! We got straight in a tuktuk and headed to the hostel recommended to us by the girls we met in Cambodia (thankyou ladies it was very nice and real Tesco tea bags with breakfast was a bonus!!)
I appreciate that in this post you guys reading this can not quite grasp the reality of what we went through in that 24 hours or so but it was gruelling and mentally straining. After much deliberation, as I had plenty of time to think about it stuck on that ,I decided that it was most definatley a, 'you gotta laugh' moment and this is why . . . .
Comapred to all the stories we have read about or been toldof on our travels, about the particular crossing we did, we were lucky that we were only deprived of leg room and space, oh and the occassional spout of no air con, because we have heard far worse stories like; bus drivers demanding extra money half way through the journey and if people have no money or refuse to pay then they get thrown off and have to hitchhick the rest of their way, girls getting touched up by pervy men, buses stopping 10km away from the final destination and having to walk the rest, buses being robbed by bandits, buses stopping for 5/6 hours to let the driver sleep (we had a crew of 4 so they took turns) or buses not stopping at all, not even for toilet breaks, the list goes on . . .
So I think, weighing up all of the past experiences with ours, we did not get such a bad deal, it was not great but atleast we and all of our belongings got there in one piece and we can now definatley laugh about it and swear we will never make a crazy decision like that EVER AGAIN!
All of you due to travel be warned!!!
1000 Years of Hanoi . . . .
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| Vietnamese Family |
We did not plan to be in Hanoi for this massive celebration, my god we didn not even know about it until we got to Hanoi but it was worth being there. Hanoi was packed full of people, you literally could not move in the streets. Every one was wearing crazy red and yellow bandanas with stickers on their faces or the Vietnam flag pinned to them. The atmosphere was electric. There were 4 stages around the old city with, opera singers, dog shows, acrobats and all going on, and a few big TV screens with interesting short movies about the history of Hanoi. The lake, which is the focal point in the old town was lit up with lights and so were the temples in the centre, it looked beautiful.
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| Us joining in the celebrations |
every one was having a good time.
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| Lake all lit up |
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Hanoi =D
I LOVE HANOI!!!
We arrived in Hanoi at about midnight on Wednesday 6th October and automatically took a shining to the place, it is the total opposite from Ho Chi Minh. Its less crowded, less built up and far more tranquil, especially for a large city! We are staying in the old quarter right next to ST Joseph's Cathedral, which is pretty cool. The streets are all littered with the Vietnam flags, decorations and lights, and were pretty amazed. We have since found out that from the 1st Oct to the 10th Oct, Hanoi are celebrating a 10 day festival, because on the 10th it will be Hanoi's 1000year Birthday, which is pretty exciting and a bit of a once in a lifetime experience, pretty lucky we leave for Laos on Monday night, wouldn't you agree?
All the people we have met along the way up Vietnam, and the Top Gear boys (Clarkson, Hammond & May) have all raved about Halong Bay, which is about 4hrs outside of Hanoi. So we thought we better check it out. We booked ourselves onto a 2day, 1 night boat trip around the world heritage sight that is Halong Bay and trust me it did not disappoint, it is stunningly breathtaking and experiencing it on a boat is just the best was to do it, especially at night sitting on the deck looking up at the stars. Whilst there we also got to go into the caves off some of the islands and explore them and go kayaking, swimming in the blue waters. It was great and certainly worth it. Just look out for the pics i promise the will be up here very very soon so you can all see what im raving on about.
I have just got back to Hanoi today, to a very packed city filled with the most amazing atmosphere, leading up to tomorrows celebrations, i best go get a good nights sleep so i can enjoy myself and have plenty more to update you all with!!!
much love x
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| Streets were all lit up for the celebrations |
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| Halong Bay |
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| Hanoi, lake in old quarter |
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| Groupies on the boat |
much love x
Moving on up the coast . . .
After we left Nha Trang we headed up to Hoi An. It's a really quiet little town on a river, but its very picturesque and lined with tailor shops. You can literally get anything made for you in 24hrs for about 5 to 10 pounds! Its amazing and their craftsmanship and attention to detail is out of this world. Hoi An is all about the architecture, which truly is beautiful so please look out for the pictures!
After a relaxing day in Hoi An, we headed up to Hue, which was great, it was much less of a touristic place and therefore we really got to see how Vietnamese people live, especially when we headed across the bridge into the old town. Whilst there we went into the old palace, that was destroyed in the Vietnam war, but they have been working hard for the past 15 years to restore and it really is a stunning place, especially the grounds inside known as the forbidden Purple city, which was the place that only the king and his family were allowed, talk about luxury even for all those years ago!! It was here that we got to really sample lots of traditional Vietnamese food and also master the use of chopsticks, even for rice. No meal will ever be the same when i return to knives and forks!
After a few days here we were planning to get a 17hr sleeping bus to Hanoi, but in central Vietnam, they suffered really bad floods, where 26 people in total died. This had an affect on the buses and trains and they were all cancelled for 2/3 days. So our only option was to fly up to the north. We had to back track slightly (3hrs) to Danang, which was totally the most non-touristic place we have seen and fly to Hanoi.
Which is where i am currently!
Which is where i am currently!
Nha Trang, South Coast of Vietnam
Well, apologies for the delay but i have been enjoying myself rather a lot.
I last left you with our arrival in Nha Trang, we settled into our hostel, Back packers house and within a few hours Jenna bagged herself a job at the Red Apple, a bar that is run by the hostel, the most popular bar in the town!
We met lots of great people in our dorm and also Beni and Cecil who we met in Cambodia caught up with us so there were plenty of people to enjoy ourselves with! The weather however, had not been too good to us, still boiling HOT, but we did have a few rain showers which obviously limits what you can do, but not us!!
First impressions of Nha Trang were good, its by the beach, there are lots of islands off the coast and its Vietnam's party town! Why not, eh!? We therefore spent a few evenings drinking buckets of whisky and whatever else they provided, dancing the night away at the sailing club (night club) on the beach and then of course at 3am when craving kebab or chips (which obviously there is none of) we end up sitting in what is essentially some couples living room eating chicken noodles with chopsticks! Very challenging!!
Soo i read in one of the many travel books before i left Blighty, that, you have not truly traveled until you have your hair cut in a foreign land by somebody who does not speak your language. Of course, me being me, though sod it, whats the worst that can happen!? We found a Vietnamese salon and off they went with their scissors on my mop of curls (and my cousin Raf's). I felt rather sorry for the lady because she was soo short and even with the chair at its lowest she could not reach the top of my head, so i had to lean back . . i know what your all thinking . . . what the hell does my hair look like!? Well, in all fairness she did a great job, did not have a clue what thinning was so i still have a mini fro but all is good, so do not panic, i didn't end up bald or with a Mohawk . . . tempting though! While i was having my hair done i thought i would treat myself to a pedicure and at the end i was pleasantly surprised with the bill, bet no one can guess how much a haircut and pedicure cost me? . . . . . 4 quid . . . i know i could not believe it either and i didn't come out looking like i had a hair growth disorder or that my mum had cut round my head with a bowl on it, Raf on the other hand was distraught that he now looked like a Vietnamese popstar (as informed by many Vietnamese people)!! haha!
One of the managers at our hostel took a shining to our little group and invited us along to the
opening of his friends Mexican restaurant in town (with free meal) Obviously, being backpackers, on a budget, you never EVER turn down free food, so off we went . . . and we are sooo glad we went. Firstly, the free food was absolutely delicious and just kept coming, a total mixture of Mexican and a few Vietnamese dishes. Secondly, the hospitality was amazing, we were socialising with all local people, enjoying ourselves dancing with them and their families to a live band and we were fully supplied with free vodka and jagger shots ALL night long. Seriously, Vietnam know how to party and we were very grateful for the experience and the fact they let us join in and participate with them (and of course for the sombrero that is now permanently attached to my rucksack, lets see if it makes it home!)
We decided that we needed to explore the islands that we cold see just off of the coast and booked ourselves on a boat trip for the day with Beni & Cecil. Bright and early we boarded our boat and went off to sea. W e explores one of the islands and then we went snorkeling in the reefs around the island they call Bamboo Island. It was great, especially as i have never snorkeled before. Other went diving and caught sea erchants. Which were later served up to us inform of soup, it was an interesting taste, sorry to sound obvious but it was extremely fishy, but at least i can say i have tried it. We also enjoyed a live band on the boat and an amazing lunch full of sea food all freshly caught and prepared whilst we were sailing. Towards the end of the day we got to go out into the sea in a rubber ring and sit at floating bar in the middle of the ocean, this experience equals WOW. It was sooo much fun and soo beautiful to sit there off the coast surrounded by all these islands enjoying Vietnamese wine and cocktails, it was, owever a slight struggle climbing back on the boat after a few too many!
The best way to see Vietnam is to join in with the locas and go round my motor bike. I have on several occasions been on the back of motorbikes here travelling around, but Beni had the genius idea of hiring our own for the day. So of we went to hire then and as i have never driven one before i had to practice up and down the street. Lets just say, the experience was not only unsafe for me but for everyone on the road too. I have absolutely no co-ordination what so ever! So that idea was out of the window. I am determined to master this skill though . . watch out Potters Bar!
Well that about sums up our 4/5 days in Nha Trang, it was great fun but we have to keep moving on up to coast so we get to see it all before our visas run out!
I last left you with our arrival in Nha Trang, we settled into our hostel, Back packers house and within a few hours Jenna bagged herself a job at the Red Apple, a bar that is run by the hostel, the most popular bar in the town!
We met lots of great people in our dorm and also Beni and Cecil who we met in Cambodia caught up with us so there were plenty of people to enjoy ourselves with! The weather however, had not been too good to us, still boiling HOT, but we did have a few rain showers which obviously limits what you can do, but not us!!
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| Raf getting all you can eat for $1 |
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| Noodles at 3am =D |
One of the managers at our hostel took a shining to our little group and invited us along to the
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| Free FOOD!!!! |
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| Mexican night! |
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| Floating bar off Nha Trang coast |
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| Fresh seafood lunch |
We decided that we needed to explore the islands that we cold see just off of the coast and booked ourselves on a boat trip for the day with Beni & Cecil. Bright and early we boarded our boat and went off to sea. W e explores one of the islands and then we went snorkeling in the reefs around the island they call Bamboo Island. It was great, especially as i have never snorkeled before. Other went diving and caught sea erchants. Which were later served up to us inform of soup, it was an interesting taste, sorry to sound obvious but it was extremely fishy, but at least i can say i have tried it. We also enjoyed a live band on the boat and an amazing lunch full of sea food all freshly caught and prepared whilst we were sailing. Towards the end of the day we got to go out into the sea in a rubber ring and sit at floating bar in the middle of the ocean, this experience equals WOW. It was sooo much fun and soo beautiful to sit there off the coast surrounded by all these islands enjoying Vietnamese wine and cocktails, it was, owever a slight struggle climbing back on the boat after a few too many!
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| Motorbike day - I chickened out! |
The best way to see Vietnam is to join in with the locas and go round my motor bike. I have on several occasions been on the back of motorbikes here travelling around, but Beni had the genius idea of hiring our own for the day. So of we went to hire then and as i have never driven one before i had to practice up and down the street. Lets just say, the experience was not only unsafe for me but for everyone on the road too. I have absolutely no co-ordination what so ever! So that idea was out of the window. I am determined to master this skill though . . watch out Potters Bar!
Well that about sums up our 4/5 days in Nha Trang, it was great fun but we have to keep moving on up to coast so we get to see it all before our visas run out!
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