jEn route...

Video of our travels

2013-08-07T12:46:00.002-07:00

One year after returning, I finally got round to putting together a video montage of our trip. I can't believe it was only just a year ago, it seems like a life time ago.
Enjoy: https://vimeo.com/71532420

Home (sweet?) home: End of an era

2012-08-02T03:25:00.002-07:00

We've been home a week now and it feels odd. Its an extremely odd feeling/ mixture of emotions.

The first few days were great, actually a lot less depressing than I had expected. I found myself taking mental notes of all the novel little things, things I'd never noticed before but was suddenly acutely aware of and experiencing through a fresh pair of eyes. First and foremost, I found the concept of flushing toilet paper down the toilet and not putting it in a bin, ridiculous. For about 3 days after we returned, I had to constantly fight the urge to bin the paper and kept worrying I would block the drain/ kept imagining where the toilet roll must be ending up.

Another thing I noticed more was flies. I found myself more interested in them, more aware, more wanting to avoid them/ squat them. I had never had this relationship with flies prior to our trip.

Other little things that took some getting used to included not using foreign phrases to say please and thank you, and not having to accept/ give things with my left hand (as is done in Asia). I seemed to be more aware of strange noises such as lawnmowers and helicopters in the sky and I liked being able to drink tap water again, although I was hesitant and cautious at first (ironically, having gone 10 months around the world and travelled through some of the world's poorest countries without ever having to go a day without a shower, the day I got home, the water in our neighbourhood was off and I had to skip my shower and brush my teeth with bottled water!). One final thing that I found novel for a few days, was being be able to sit with the soles of my feet pointing upward and it not be considered rude/ an insult.

But now its been a week, and all of these novelties have more or less worn off, and what I'm left with is a sort of fear and realisation that its back to the real world. Its only just hit me tonight, as I attempted to pack a holdall for a weekend away and struggled (!) doing so, what an achievement the past 10 months have been. I think I have been blocking it out for the past week, not looking at any pictures or allowing myself to contemplate what has been and is no more. It's only just hit me that its over. We planned it for two years, it came, and now its over. We're not just having a rest at home and then getting out our shells (rucksacks) again to re-pack them. Nobody will ask us how long we've been away for and we will no longer proudly reply '10 months'. We wont do laundry, struggle with zipping up our bags, fumble with currency or check tripadvisor. I wont steal tooth brushes, spray mossie guard, take malaria tablets or wee in a squat. Its officially over and now the question is: what next?

Siem Reap & Angkor Wat

2012-07-17T05:12:00.002-07:00

Well, Siem Reap is one of the places I have looked forward to the whole trip and I was worried, after some people's reports, that it wouldn't live up to expectations, but it actually ended up surpassing them! Definitely one of my favourite places in the world!

Siem Reap, home to Angkor Wat, is the national pride of Cambodia, even the Cambodian flag has a picture of Angkor Wat on it. Angkor, literally meaning 'city' is an ancient city that was re-discovered in the 19^th century in the middle of the dense jungle and it is one of the top three 'lost cities' in the world (after Macchu Picchu). It has such an amazing feel to it. The whole of the ancient city, consisting of hundreds of temples, is part of a huge national park and you buy a pass to get in and can visit as many of the temples as you like. We opted for the three day pass, which could be used over three days (doesn’t have to be three consecutive days).

Exploring the temples

So, we got to Siem Reap the town, late at night and checked into our hotel which was number one on trip advisor. It was lovely. Very peaceful, clean, all the amenities, and very friendly staff who always said hello to us and greeted us by our names. The night we got there, Jemma felt ill and it was raining outside, so we decided to order room service and we had fish and chips and burger and chips brought up to the room. It was scrumptious. The next day, we spent having a lie in, exploring the town, and getting our bearings. The 4* hotel next door had a pool that you could use, so I also went for a swim in that. The town of Siem Reap its self is very touristy, but that's why I liked it. Lots of Western food, and Western bars and a nice atmosphere, with night markets selling souvenirs and fairy lights in the street.

Main street in Siem Reap

On our second day in Siem Reap, we started our templing. The weather was really hot during the whole of our stay there and we took a tuk tuk from outside of our hotel. We we hired the driver for the whole day to take us around the temples. He was so lovely. First stop was not Angkor Wat, but some other amazing mystical temple set in the middle of the jungle. It was gorgeous. The best temple I have ever seen. The temples of Angkor have such a mystical feeling to them. Second stop was the Tomb Raider temple where they filmed Lara Croft with Angelina Jolie.

Tomb Raider temple

That one was mind blowing. You see huge trees and roots growing out of the temple walls and wrapping around the temples – it is like nothing else I have ever seen! It was very impressive and showed the power of nature. It also felt like you could imagine what the person who discovered it felt like because it was literally hidden in amongst the jungle. It was stunning. The next few days consisted of experiences like this – riding around in the tuk tuk through the stunning Cambodian countryside (rice fields, banana trees, little hut villages) and getting out to explore these hidden ancient temples. We stopped for lunch at a really nice restaurant and had a break there, before continuing with more templing in the afternoon.

On the second day, we got up at 4am to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. I was a bit worried we wouldn't make it in time, as the hotel forgot to make Jemma's packed breakfast so we had to wait for it, but we made it there just in time to see this:

It wasn't as good as it could have been, due to cloud cover, but it was still stunning.

A lot of people had told us they were disappointed with Angkor Wat because there were too many tourists there. Luckily for us, we were there in the low season (rainy season, although we actually had fantastic weather), so there weren't as many tourists there – peak season there are 7000(!) tourists a day at Angkor Wat, when we were there, there were supposedly 2000, but we hardly saw any. The only downside to the temples, which wasn't too much of a downside, was all the sellers there -lots of little kids trying to sell you books, bracelets etc. We ended up giving in a few times; once because a little girl about 4 chased our tuk tuk for about half a mile and I couldn't resist her (she was so cute). Every temple you go to though, you hear 'Madame! 2 for $1, you buy me, you help me, 3 for $1!'

Another day, another temple

It is similar to this in the town of Siem Reap too, and one night when we went out, we had one small boy holding a baby in his arms, approach us and ask us to buy him milk 'I only want food not money'. So we went with him to the supermarket, thinking, ok, maybe we'll just buy him one bottle of milk for 20p, but no, he wanted a tin of powdered baby milk off the shelf with no price on it (the only thing in the whole shop with no price on it). We asked him how much it was and he said $18. We sniffed a scam and left straight away. Later that night, I googled it and found out it is in fact a very common scam, it happens every night in Siem Reap (we saw it happening to lots more people whilst we were there and the same boy even approached us the night after). Basically, the boy takes the tourists into the shop, they buy the powdered milk for $18 and then the milk gets given back to the shop to be recycled on the next gullible tourist and the shop and the beggar split the profits. Considering the average Cambodian makes around $100 a month, this is an extremely profitable scam!

Day at pool

In between our three days of templing, we gave ourselves a day's rest, lying by the pool. I was getting templed out by this point. I also hit my head on one of the low doorways in a temple and it really hurt! I was happy to have a day's break. We ate in the town every night and one night we went to a restaurant that had a live show of typical Cambodian dancing on. We also treated ourselves to a massage one night (a 'seeing hands' massage, by the blind). It was something I'd wanted to do every since I'd seen it advertised but it was absolutely terrible. They spent 20 minutes just pinching our arms and then at the end of the massage they slapped my back with brute force. They said it was a Japanese shiatsu massage, it felt like amateur torture – it was awful! We did laugh a few times though, not at them, but with them, because they kept knocking the massage oil on the floor and then couldn't find it (because they were blind) so we had to keep reaching down for it. I had to burst out laughing at one point when I looked across and saw the blind woman battering Jemmas feet. Jemma was wincing in pain. I burst into raucous laughter, because I knew I'd be getting the same a few minutes later.

River front at night in Siem Reap

Overall, I loved Siem Reap and the Temples of Angkor, it made me love Cambodia. It was much cleaner than the rest of Cambodia – no litter etc and very friendly people. Probably all a show for the tourists, but still, it was nice. I would highly recommend it as a holiday destination for anyone who wants to visit Asia!

More photos: Angkor Wat

Southern Cambodia – Sihanoukville & Kampot

2012-07-17T04:25:00.003-07:00

After Phnom Penh, we decided to head down to the southern coast of Cambodia as we'd heard there are some lovely islands and beaches down there. Unfortunately, we were in the middle of rainy season, and when we got there, there were heavy monsoons. We checked into our first hotel in Sihanoukville and it was way below the standard we had become used to over the past 2 months in S.E Asia – no free soap or shampoo, no complimentary water! It wasn't that bad, it was actually the biggest room we've ever stayed in, but it just felt a bit creepy (high ceilings – they always creep me out). We didn't like the feel of the place.

Biggest does not always mean best

That night, I wanted to ring my mum for her birthday but the internet didn't work in the room (sods law, the only hotel we've had in Asia where the internet doesn't work), so I went down to the reception to use it there, waiting until midnight to ring home. Then at 10pm, the woman started to turn off all the lights and shut the shutters on the front of the guest house and said they were turning off the internet and couldn't leave it on in case it burned. Despite our pleading, they wouldn’t change their minds, so we had to go to the bar across the road to use the internet there. When we came back to the hotel around midnight, we were locked out! We couldn't get back in. We had to go round a dodgy dark alley around the back and hammer the back door down. I could see a girl sitting in the room behind the door just looking at us. Eventually, when I shouted 'hello!' loudly several times, she finally let us in. The next day we checked out. The towels were dirty and there had been a hole in the bathroom ceiling. We didn't want to stay another night. Instead, we checked into a luxurious hotel down the road that is probably the nicest we have stayed in! The bathroom had a bath and a window onto the bedroom and it had a lovely pool. We went for a walk along the beach and it had a hippyish vibe to it, with lots of old Western men and young Cambodian women there together. The beach also felt very dirty, with litter everywhere, and we didn't trust any of the restaurants not to give us food poisoning so we ended up going back to our hotel and ate at the more pricey restaurant across the road which was lovely.

New room, new pool :)

We shared a bottle of Malbec together and it reminded us of Argentina. We decided to treat ourselves to the wine, a nice meal and dessert because there was nothing else to do there. Food in Cambodia is quite a bit more pricey than the other countries because they use the US dollar as their currency, so everything is $1, which sounds cheap, but that's about 60p for a coke, whereas in Thailand it would be 30p, so Cambodia is double the price for many things, still not expensive though.

The next day we checked out and took a bus to Kampot, a town the Lonely Planet describes as a 'quaint little French colonial town'. On the minibus on the way there, we were discussing how, despite having done a round the world trip, we didn't feel like true travellers because we'd never travelled on a bus with live chickens before (something many travellers report as a norm). We ate our words a few minutes later, not because someone with live chickens got on, but because the bus stopped to pick up every man and his dog (bus built for 13 people, ended up holding 26) and we were travelling with live crabs stuffed between our legs. The bus stopped every 5 minutes to pick up some package or another (sea food etc), which had to be wedged in between our legs and made the journey go really slowly.

Kampot

Eventually we got to Kampot and a tuk tuk driver approached us with a sign asking us to stay in his hotel. As we had nowhere booked, we went with him and ended up in an average place (this time with free toiletries), but again, the weather was terrible, so what everyone had described to us as being a lovely coastal down, just looked miserable. Our hotel was on the bank of a river, where people supposedly go swimming in summer, but we just had to make do with borrowing an umbrella and walking into town. Luckily, we happened upon a lovely cafe, where they made Swiss hot chocolates and where the staff were really friendly and wanted to practice their French on us. We ended up hanging out there for a bit and then went back there afterwards for tea (fish and chips). In the end, we both decided we liked Kampot, despite the rain.

Restaurant we ate at - I liked the deco!

Angkor Wat

2012-07-10T10:36:00.002-07:00

Today we visited the temples of Angkor and experienced Angkor Wat at sunrise. It was a dream and a childhood ambition come true. It was one of the most spectacular experiences of the whole round the world trip and I absolutely love Cambodia.

Out of this world!

Phnom Penh

2012-07-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

Phnom Penh is the capital city of Cambodia, and while we were here we did all of the cultural/ historical stuff: some nice, some very sad.

On the first day we went to the national museum, which had a lot of old statues in it and had some beautiful gardens, it reminded me of Bali. Then we went to the Royal palace.

National museum

Royal Palace

The next day, we hired a tuk tuk for the day to take us to the killing fields and S21 prison to learn more about the history of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Before we visited Cambodia, we both read 'First they Killed my Father' and extremely sad an graphic book which tells the story of one young girl's sad plight after 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia and massacred a quarter of the population. We also watched the film 'The Killing Fields', so we had a pretty good knowledge of what went on in Cambodia, the genocide and the sheer brutality of the Khmer Rouge, who took over the country, killed anyone they deemed intelligent, middle class, or basically anyone who wasn't a pheasant farmer, and then forced everybody to work on farms until most people either died from starvation, disease or was brutally massacred by the Khmer rouge soldiers. For anybody who doesn't know the history, it too much for me to write on here, so here's a link for more info. It really does defy belief. More information on the Khmer Rouge

Memorial tower with skulls and bones inside

I have never been anywhere like the killing fields in my life. Even the concentration camps in Germany don't have the amount of living history this place has. When I say living history, there are literally still bones and old clothes coming up from the ground you are walking on. All these years later (the killings happened in the late 70s), its incredible just how many dead bodies were dumped in the mass graves there, so much so that each time its rained, more parts come up from the earth. They say that the dead wont lie still. I couldn't believe it. Some parts are fenced off, but on the walking paths, we saw bones and clothes poking through and I even saw some teeth poking up on one part of the path.

They have a big memorial tower with all the skulls of the victims in (the Khmer Rouge brought people to the killing fields to be murdered – they made them stand next to a pit and then smashed in their head and slit their throats, letting them fall into the pits). Men, women and children, all were killed in equally brutal ways. Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge's philosophy was that you needed to get rid of the roots of society in order to create a new perfect communist society, hence why they even killed babies. By far the most harrowing sight, was a tree, against which the soldiers used to smash the heads of babies to kill them in front of their mothers, before tossing both of them into the pits. They used to hold the babies feet and then smash their heads against this killing tree.

Killing tree: Used for killing babies

The man who discovered the killing fields after the Khmer Rouge fled, said he knew it was a killing tree because there were bits of scalp, blood and skull all over it. Killing fields like this, existed not just in Phnom Penh, but all over Cambodia. It is so very sad.

After the killing fields, we went to S21 prison museum, which was a prison the Khmer Rouge kept people in before they were sent to be slaughtered. People hadn't done anything wrong, they were forced to sign confessions that they had been disloyal to the party etc and they were tortured until they confessed and until they signed that their family had been involved too. In the prison, as well as seeing the cells etc that they were kept in, you also see hundreds and hundreds of pictures of the victims and putting a face to all those skulls you saw earlier in the killing fields memorial is heartbreaking. They also showed us a video about a couple who were both murdered and their love story. It was a very sad and draining day, much different to the day before looking around the palace and national museum.

More photos of Phnom Penh

Cambodia - First Impressions

2012-07-08T08:58:00.002-07:00

It was a relief to get into Cambodia after the hecticness/ noisiness/ stressfulness of Vietnam. The border crossing wasn't a bed of roses though, we took a 3 hour bus to the border and then had to wait at the immigration office in a queue for about an hour and a half whilst they messed with everyone's passports and dished out visas. A few hours later and our bus pulled into Phnom Penh, capital city of Cambodia, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief – it was so much calmer than Ho Chi Minh City. We checked into our gorgeous hotel (we splurged and got a posh one for £10) and then we went out for tea. We needed cash first, but cash points aren't easy to come by (well not as easy as they are in Vietnam), so we had to walk for a while to find one, in the pitch dark. Whilst Cambodia is a lot calmer than Vietnam, its also a LOT poorer, and the streets are not very well lit at all, which can feel slightly dangerous. I think Cambodia is the poorest country we've visited on this trip – it actually seems poorer than Laos or Bolivia. For example, you have lots of people begging you for money, and you see women washing their naked babies with bottles of water in the middle of the street. There is also a hell of a lot of litter and rubbish – an overwhelming amount. I don't think they even bother to sort out rubbish – they seem to just toss it in the street, and it all piles up everywhere, which makes the towns look quite ugly (this was my first impression of Phnom Penh). However, despite all of this, Cambodia certainly has a charm – the food is really tasty (like Thai, but even nicer!) and the people are friendlier/ warmer than Vietnam. You don't have to worry as much about constantly being ripped off. One thing that has shocked me about Cambodia, is the amount of western old men/sugar daddies with young 20something Khmer (Cambodian) women – its actually worse than Thailand, which I wasn't expecting.

The countryside in Cambodia is stunning, and it was a relief to see the Thai style architecture again (temples, Buddhas etc) as you don't get any of that in Vietnam. I like all of the greenery: we are here in rainy season, so everything is lush and in full bloom. As you drive along on the bus, you see lots of rice fields, green banana trees and villages made up of little wooden shaks, babies running around naked etc. Its how you imagine South East Asia to be, well, at least how I imagined it to be, and its a country I've always been interested in. As we are here in rainy season, we have had a lot of rain, including some very scary thunderstorms which woke us up in the night and we had to check on the internet to make sure it wasn't an earthquake. I'm really enjoying all of the differences and there is a lot to see and do, but at the same time, I think we're getting tired now; tired of all the dirty squat toilets, long uncomfortable bus journeys and insect bites. It's not Cambodia's fault – its more the fact that we've been on the go now for 10 months, which is a long time to be on the go by anyone's standards and I never thought I'd ever get to the point where I felt like I'd had enough but I think we are nearing that point now... which is really convenient because we are nearly at the end now anyway. However, now we're near the end of the trip, I'm really savouring every minute and taking it all in more than ever. I know that as soon as I get back to the UK, I'll be daydreaming about trading in home comforts for foreign cultures, so I'm trying to remind myself of that now, because you don't know what you've got till its gone, and no doubt I'll read this blog a few months down the line and lament the lack of noisy buses and smelly toilets in my life.

Bus in Phnom Penh

Ho Chi Minh City

2012-07-04T01:35:00.002-07:00

After Nha Trang, we made our way down to the most famous city in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). This time we took a day bus instead of a night bus and it took us 12 hours to get there (Vietnam is really long and the buses are really slow and inefficient). I had really quite looked forward to Ho Chi Minh as it has a lot of history (war museum, Cu Chi tunnels etc) and it is one of the most famous cities in Asia, but in the end, I really didn't like it. There were simply too many motorbikes; more motorbikes than I have ever seen in my life and it was just impossible to go out and do anything because It was so stressful. I nearly got run over (the guy actually mounted the pavement and ploughed straight into me – I had to jump out of the way, and I was quite shaken afterwards!).

Bikers with masks on

Also, it was a really polluted city, everybody there wears masks and I can see why. It was hot, and just going out the hotel and crossing the road to the shop was exhausting. Add to this, the constant noise of horns and people constantly hassling you, along with throngs of backpackers sitting in bars and getting wasted on the dollar beers, and you have a good idea of what Ho Chi Minh was like. But enough of the bad points, there were some good things about visiting the city. We got to learn a lot about the history of the Vietnam war (or the Armerican war as they call it in Vietnam). We went to the war museum, where they have old captured American military planes on display in the car park. I found this fascinating because I've never seen real war planes I the flesh before – they had tanks, helicopters, planes and all sorts. And you could look inside them, touch them etc, there were no restrictions. Then you go in the museum and it is one of the most graphical and disturbing museums I have ever visited.

They have lots of pictures of people who were injured and killed during the war by the Americans. The images are horrific – lots of pictures and stories of mothers and children who were slaughtered by the Americans – just like the Nazis did to the Jews, in the most inhumane ways. They had one story of an American general who ordered a whole town to be pillaged and all of the women and children were murdered and beaten to death. Some kids tried to hide in a well and they found them and disembowelled them. I was just gob smacked that Americans had done this and so recently as well! I really had not realised how brutal they were and how in the wrong they were to go to war with Vietnam.

The general in charge of that particular slaughter later went on to be come an American senator! Of course, there are those who say the museum is very biased – it only shows the Vietnam side of the story – however, you just can't argue with the pictures we saw. The worst part though, even more horrific than the room with the war photographs, was the agent orange room. The Americans sprayed the Vietnamese countryside with toxic chemicals – the most toxic known to man – called agent orange. They said it was to destroy the crops, but it was so deadly that it is still having ramifications to this day – with millions of Vietnamese now disabled or with cancer as a result. It carries on in the genes, so children and children's children will continue to have problems in years to come. The pictures were really disturbing – lots of deformed people, and one display even had real foetuses in jars.

So yes, that was an enlightening and disturbing day.

The next day, we had a lighter day (just) and visited the cu chi tunnels – the tunnels that the Vietnamese built and hid in during the war. They were very impressive.

We all got to go inside them and they showed us all the death traps that were used to trap and kill the Americans. At the end they showed us a video talking about the brave soldiers who killed the American enemy. When we got into the tunnels, we could go as far as 300m along them, and at some points you had to lie on your back to get through because they were so small. I got out after 100m because I felt faint and claustrophobic but Jemma did the full tunnel. At the other end, they had guns that you could fire with real bullets (AK47s etc) but Jemma found it distasteful and anyway we didn't have enough money so we just watched. It was very loud.

The next day we did a final tour of the city, which took us to the Chinese quarter (just some old markets) and some temple (seen one temple, seen them all – yes I'm coming to the end of the trip now – can you tell?) and then we went back to the room and just watched TV because we had had enough of the city and couldn't bare the stress of it any more. I went and picked up 2 pizzas from pizza hut and we just ate them in the room whilst watching Desperate housewives. And that was the end to our Vietnam adventure. I was so relieved to leave Ho Ch Minh the next day and was really excited for Cambodia. Although I had really enjoyed the rest of Vietnam (especially the seaside bits), some of the people, the night buses and the traffic had stressed me out and I was ready for calm.

Nha Trang

2012-07-03T09:21:00.002-07:00

Nha Trang is a beach resort where lots of Vietnamese, Australians and bizarrely, Russians go on holiday. I think I saw more Russians there than I have ever seen anywhere else. There are lots of Western restaurants and bars and I really quite like the place. One one of the days, we took a really cheap boat trip out to go snorkelling. It cost us £10 and for that we got a full day out on a boat, jumping off the boat and snorkelling around the best reefs I've seen on this trip (much nicer than the Great Barrier Reef!) and we went to some lovely turquoise waters next to some rocks.

We also had an amazing Vietnamese seafood buffet included in the price. There were some lovely people on the boat with us and it really was an amazing day!

The following day, we went to a mud spa which was amazing! We paid about £6 and for that, we got a day's access to a kind of spa-themepark, with various spas, pools, waterfalls etc. The best part was that we got our own private mud bath – first time I've ever had a bath in mud before and I absolutely loved it! It was so funny, and very tricky to wash off – despite the power hoses that we walked through and despite going in various pools afterwards, we still found mud in crevices for days later! Later that day, we also hired a tandem bike and cycled along the promenade - it was hilarious. I loved Nha Trang and would recommend it to anyone who wants to go on holiday to Vietnam.

Mud spa

Night buses in Vietnam (rant!)

2012-07-03T08:24:00.001-07:00

After taking several night buses in Vietnam, I can confir that they are the WORST way to travel over night. I NEVER want to take another Vietnamese nightbus every again in my life. They are bumpy, noisy, the driver honks his horn every 2 seconds for no apparent reason, they force you to go to the seats at the back of the bus near the stinking toilet because you are Western, the toilets are disgusting and don't lock so you have to hold them shut whilst squatting. The seats though are th worst part: they are filthy – probably never been cleaned since they were made, the curtain next to you is rotting, the seats are lying down ones, which sounds great, but its not, because they are too small, and you have a filthy little metal box at the bottom to put your bag and feet in. Then you have a grotty hard pillow, and you have to lie there, packed in, with other travellers either side and below you (we were always forced onto the top bunks so the locals could have the bottom ones and the top ones are the worst for swaying and the bus has no suspension whatsoever). It is impossible to sleep. The last night bus we took, I slept about 1 hour out of 12. I honestly can't stress enough how much I hated them and I'm so glad I never have to do another one!!

Hoi An

2012-07-03T08:19:00.003-07:00

Hoi An - its like the HSBC adverts

Hoi An is a typical little ancient Vietnamese town, very touristy, but at the same time, quite enchanting. We spent 4 days there. At night there are lanterns lighting up all of the streets and you can have dinner overlooking the river which has lots of floating lanterns in it and women in traditional hats punting along in little boats.

Quaint little city - perfect for exploring with a bike

One of the main features of Hoi An is that it is full of tailor shops and everywhere you walk, people are asking you to come in and have clothes made. The clothes are amazing – they basically base them on UK catalogues like Next and you can see lots of different outfits hanging up in the windows. On the first night we were having dinner in a restaurant and the waitress asked us if we wanted to go in the clothes shop nextdoor and have a look around after out meal. We couldn't really say no (she was very insistent) so we ended up in the tailor shop and consequently bought 12 new items of clothes in total. I had two traditional Vietnamese tops tailor made and a skirt. Jemma had some work clothes made.

Jemma getting work clothes made

Our other days in Hoi An were spent either walking around the town, having one of those pedlos peddle us around the town, or cycling to the beach.

Large group of Chinese tourists being pedalled around

The day we cycled to the beach, we saw some amazing scenery; rice paddies, traditional little houses by the river and a stunning beach. We stopped at a cafe by the beach, where we got hassled by lots of women selling stuff and had no choice once again but to buy stuff we didn't need. We had sob stories and lots of English phrases thrown at us such as 'luvly jubbly' and 'open your heart, open your wallet'.

Bike ride past rice paddies

For more pictures of Hue and Hoi An: Hoi An facebook album

Hue

2012-06-26T09:03:00.003-07:00

Godawful night bus

After Hanoi, we took a horrible night bus down south to Hue which was an awful journey.

It was something like this:

Hue was nothing special – just a small town with a few heritage sights that we looked around in one afternoon. We also took one of those pedal taxis for the first time, where a man peddles you around town. We both got on one together.

Getting a ride around town

Ancient city of Hue

We also had an AMAZING hostel, which was more like a hotel than a hostel. We spent a day watching TV and chilling out in the massive, luxurious room. That night we met up for dinner and drinks with one of my colleagues from work (James, a placement student). The next day we had to catch another 4 hour bus and I was so hungover I didn't think I'd make it but a tuna sandwich and chips soon perked me up.

Our hostel suite

Dinner with James and his friend

Sapa – Hill Tribes right in the North of Vietnam

2012-06-26T08:00:00.001-07:00

Our nice hostel in Hanoi packed us off on our night train to Sapa. When I say packed us off, I mean they literally carried all of our bags, put us in a taxi, got someone to meet us at the train station and then put us on the train! The night train was our first train in Vietnam and it was a lot higher quality than Thailand. Comfy bunk beds and a cabin of four. We shared with two Vietnamese men, one of which had tissue stuffed up his nose. I slept ok, the train was still as shaky as those in Thailand but not as loud but the air con was far too strong and I shivered the whole night. I woke up with a sore throat and running nose, no prizes for guessing who I got it off.

Night train

Our train arrived at 6am and we were met by a minibus that took us along some winding country roads into the mountains of Sapa. The scenery was out of this world. Layers and layers of Rice paddies, greenery, blue skies... it was stunning. I was very tired though. We got to our hotel and they gave us breakfast (egg and bread) and then we checked into our room, had a shower and had about an hour to get ready before our trek. We were both so exhausted! Anyway, we got ready and our guide met us downstairs in the lobby (a little tribal woman with a gold tooth) and then took us out into the town with 4 French boys and 3 Malaysians. As we began walking along the road towards the mountains, a group of hysterical tribal women began following us (we had seen this group earlier when our minibus pulled into the hotel, they were all screaming and running after the minibus). The group consisted of about 20 women, all carrying baskets on their backs, and being naïve and new to the ways of Vietnam, we had no idea why they were following us.

The women who followed us

Then they started talking to us and asking us questions 'How long you been here? Where you from?' and we got chatting to them. I naively assumed they just wanted to practice their English, but it was a very stupid assumption to make; why would a group of 20 women follow us on a 4 hour trek in the mountains just to speak English? Anyway, the trek went on, and we clambered through and across rice paddies, those ones that are like steps and lead all the way down the mountain. It had been raining earlier and it was extremely muddy and slippery, to the point where EVERYONE in the group fell over at some point. Jemma actually slipped off the edge of one of the rice tiers and jumped into the one below, submerging herself up to her knees in water. She was very lucky she didn't go head first and soak her whole body.

The rice steps - Jemma slipped & fell from one level to the one below

We were all so muddy, having slipped on our bums so much. I slipped down a steep hill at one point and just gave up and slid down the rest of it on my bum because I couldn't stand back up in the mud. It was kind of fun though. And all the long, the women were there to help us, holding our hands to stop us from falling, catching us when we slipped. How lovely the Vietnamese tribes are we thought! What a great authentic experience we are having, trekking with a tribe in the outer reaches of rural Vietnam.

Stunning Scenery

And then we came to the cafe in the mountains where we to have lunch and what happened next can only be described as a swarming attack. The women were all over us, in our faces, 4 women to a person, shouting at us for us to buy what was in their baskets. 'Please buy from me, my baby needs food' 'buy me I helped you' 'buy present, buy for my village, I need money'. The 8 of us were sat around these little tables and we had no escape. The tour guide disappeared and our lunch would not come until we had all bought something. I wouldn't mind, because the women had helped us a lot during the walk, but the prices they were asking for were so unreasonable and they wouldn't budge on them at all. We ended up buying two purses that we didn't even like/ want/ need!

French boys being hassled

Then the food came, and then after that, the tour guide, who we hadn't seen for the whole of the trek, reappeared and announced it was time to move onto the next village, at which point the first tribe of women scurried away, and we were joined by a new 'tribe' of women, dressed slightly differently, in different colours who swarmed around us and each one latched onto a different person. 'Where you from? How long you been here? I from new tribe, different tribe, poorer than that other tribe. How old are you? Do you have brothers or sisters?' We walked through a small village that was scattered with 'home stays'. The French boys were doing a home stay, we weren't, and when we saw the home stays, which were actually just concrete hostels that had been put up in the middle of a village and had nothing homely about them whatsoever, we were glad we weren't staying there. We were especially glad, when we saw a minibus pull up to take us back to the main town of Sapa. We literally had to run into the bus and tell the women 'no we don't have any money left on us!!!' They chased us and I shoved the equivalent of about 40p into their hand and jumped on the bus. They weren't happy, and shouted at us they wanted more, but thankfully the bus drove off, and I was so relieved to get away. The countryside had been so stunning, breathtaking, like nothing I have seen before, and I had been so enchanted in the beginning to be getting an 'authentic Vietnamese experience' but the women just ruined the whole thing completely for me and I would never want to go back.

Village

Just wow

But far too much hassle off the various tribes

We got back to the hotel that afternoon and went straight to sleep. I felt so ill, fluey and my nose wouldn't stop running. It was the worst cold I've ever had in my life. I dragged myself out of bed for dinner, where we had a lovely meal and got chatting to a Chilean and Israeli about politics, but then I had to go to bed early because I felt so rough and couldn't breathe because my nose was so blocked. I had the most sleepless night of the whole trip, literally could not breathe and went through about two toilet rolls from blowing my nose every two seconds. We were supposed to go on a second trek the next day, but I was too ill, and Jemma couldn't be bothered with the women hassling her, so we stayed in the room and I slept whilst she watched films. She went out to get me some medication and I took it and it knocked me out. Then we had dinner, before getting on the night train again, back to Hanoi. I wore extra layers this time, in preparation for the freezing air con, which was a mistake, because the air con in our carriage was broken and I sweated the whole night long. At least I was sweating the cold out though. When we got back to Hanoi at 6am, the guy from our hostel came to collect us, with a brolley to shelter us from the rain, and we checked into our hostel and slept for the whole morning.

Halong Bay

2012-06-20T09:05:00.002-07:00

Our Halong Bay group on the deck

Halong bay is that place you see on all the pictures. I think its been in a few films, incliding James Bond, which makes it quite recognisable around the world. So we decided to do a boat trip there, and booked a 2 day, one night cruise on a luxury boat around Halong Bay including all meals, kayaking, a tour of the caves there and karaoke on the boat. We were very lucky to be placed with an extremely nice group of people. We got into a minibus with a load of other travellers in the morning, and it took 3 hours to drive there. On the way they stopped for a break at this art place for tourists where disabled people make art. We got to Halong bay and they dropped us off right outside our boat and we sat down for lunch with our new boatmates.

Our room on board

They were all so nice. 2 German sisters who had lived in Mallorca most of their lives, 2 Aussie/Indian/Sri Lankan medics who were really funny and 3 students from Britain who were all studying Chinese and living in China. We all got on like a house on fire which made the trip what it was. We set off through the stunning scenery on the boat and then we stopped at some magnificent caves (the best caves I've ever seen), where we went for a tour round inside and then we all got to kayak around that area. Then we went to a beach with a mountain on it, where some people swam and some climbed up the mountain. I climbed up the mountain because the water was filthy.

Halong bay is stunning and a world Heritage sight, but my god the water is polluted. I climbed the mountain and got bitten to death by mozzies but the view at the top was stunning. When we came back down, Jemma and the German girl ran in the sea to cool off. After this, we all got back on the boat, showered and had dinner (really nice Vietnamese food like curried veg, rice and spring rolls – Vietnam does the best spring rolls). And then after dinner, a few people went to bed, but a lot of us stayed up and got really hyper doing karaoke.

Karaoke

Vietnamese Karaoke

I didn't drink any alcohol but I felt like I had. The tour guide was trying to make everyone drink this strong Vietnamese rice wine but it was foul so I didn't drink any. Those who did got quite drunk. After the karaoke, a few of us went up on deck on the deck chairs and put the world to rights under the stars.

The next day was a beautiful sunny day and it was very hot. We sailed amongst all of the stunning fjords and mountains and it was breathtaking – some of the best scenery I've seen in my life. It looked a lot like Milford sound in New Zealand but better and bigger, and for the same price we paid for a day trip in New Zealand we got a 2 day boat cruise in Vietnam.

Scene from James Bond

After a morning of cruising, we ended the day at and oyster farm, where they showed us how they make pearls, and then it was back into the minibus with our new friends, where we laughed all the way back (especially with this one guy Gareth from Nottingham who was so funny). And on the way we stopped for lunch in a restaurant, that was air-conditioned and I felt like I'd gone to heaven because the bus we were on was really bouncy, rickety and the weather outside was boiling.

Stunning scenery

More photos on facebook: Halong Bay photos

Hanoi - capital of Vietnam

2012-06-19T22:57:00.001-07:00

Hanoi and its attractions

Hanoi is completely different to any of the other Asian cities we have experienced. It feels more 'authentic' i.e lots of women with those cone hats wandering round selling fruit from baskets balanced on their shoulders and lots of tailors selling silk and food stalls selling proper Asian cuisine (*ahem, dog, and bull's testicles), but at the same time, its also more modern. I'm not sure I would go back there, it is VERY polluted and busy, but it was an interesting experience. When we first arrived in the taxi and I was looking out of the windows, I got an 80's vibe from it. It reminded me of East Germany; everything drab and concrete. And then Jemma pointed out that it was probably due to the communism. During our time there, we visited the little castle in the middle of the lake and also went to see the embalmed body of Ho Ch Mihn – Vietnam's saviour. That was weird – he looked a lot like a wax work. We had to queue for ages to get in, in a queue that wrapped around the mausoleum, but was constantly moving so it wasn't that bad. We got up at 6.30am because we'd heard the queues were bad and it was a Saturday so lots of locals were there on pilgrimage (we were the only Westerners!). The mausoleum is shut on Mondays and Fridays, which was annoying because it meant we had to come back to Hanoi one extra day especially to visit this.

Uncle Ho

Also in Hanoi, I met a random student whilst I was sitting on a bench by the lake. She approached me and asked if she could practice her English, and 2 hours later she was till there chatting to me. I was quite lucky it wasn't a scam (I later read in the guide book this is a common scam). She took me around the city and bought me some Vietnamese ice cream. She also showed me how to cross the road without getting killed. We met her again when we went to the Ho Chi Minh museum and she took us around that and her friend bought us some Vietnamese drinks which were quite nice. At the end, we had to go back to our hotel to check out and were running out of time so they offered to take us on their scooters. I didn't want to because I was afraid for my life, but in the end we did it and it was quite an exhilarating experience driving around one of the world's busiest cities with the dodgiest traffic system, on the back of a moped. Later, we had to go on mopeds again, this time it was a dodgy taxi driver, and that WAS a near death experience – weaving in and out of street stalls and other motorbikes coming head on.

A busker band in the park

Vietnamese food & Service

Our first time trying Vietnamese street food was a success. We found a little stall on the corner and the woman picked a dish of the menu she thought we'd like and we did. We paid very little for it and both enjoyed the meal.

Our first meal

The second experience was not so good. We picked a little street stall, but I did something which extremely out of character for me (I have never done this before in my life, I must have been relaxed), I forgot to check the prices. I guess I just assumed it would be like the other stall the previous night. Anyhow, we ordered some food; I ordered sweet and sour chicken and rice and when it came, it was a black bird in a black sauce and just looking at it made me feel sick. It still had its curled claws and beak on and the restaurant owners were all laughing at us. Clearly it wasn't chicken. Neither Jemma or I cared to taste it and just ate the rest of the meal (which for me was just a plate of fried rice) and then when we went to pay, a big grin came across the woman's face as she charged us triple what the meal should have been worth. Whereas in the other place we had paid £1 for a meal, here we were asked for £6. We had no choice but to hand over the money, and when we questioned why it was so high, the woman smiled and said 'you should have asked me the priced first'. So yes, that was our first, and so far, only (fingers crossed last) experience of being scammed in Vietnam and it hasn't really ruined my impression too much, after all it was only £6. After that food experience, we ate every other meal in a New Zealand restaurant around the corner from our hostel. We also ate once at a good restaurant, where I tried 'chicken porridge' which was, ok actually!

What I have found (having been here about 2 weeks now), is that rather than try and scam you in the traditional sense, which is what I'd been expecting, they are very nice to you and over charge you, but because they are so nice you feel guilty and can't complain. Also, I feel a little apprehensive about complaining because I've heard they can get aggressive, so so far, we've just paid that little bit more and all has been splendid, in fact I'd go as far as to say they have been the friendliest nation yet.... just don't want to step over that 'line' we've heard about.

The hostel in Hanoi

The hostel in Hanoi really made our stay there. As I mentioned in another post, the men working there treat us like Kings and did everything they could for us, organising all of our tours and really taking the weight off our feet. It was a really nice experience, service I have never before come across in my life, but as mentioned above, I think there was a price tag to it (we later found out they'd added $10 here, $10 there to the various tours we'd booked when we compared with others on our tour who had booked elsewhere). BUT, for this we got service out of this world and they gave us a room to relax and shower in when we were checked out and waiting for our train/ bus so that was really nice. I'll definitely give them a good rating on Trip Advisor.

Good Morning Vietnam!

2012-06-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

Street near our hostel in Hanoi

Sorry for the clichéd title, it had to be done. Well, we did arrive in Vietnam in the morning so its justified. We flew out of Laos, from Vientaine airport to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. We chose to fly and pay £80 for the flight rather than take a 28 hour bus ride for £25. We justified the price difference to ourselves because again, we had read horror stories on the internet about the journey being hell and unsafe. Also, with us both not feeling well, a long bus journey would only have knocked us down more. So we were quite happy we chose to fly, and we saw lots of other travellers in the airport that we had seen in Laos doing the same thing. Vietnam is a country I have heard so many tales of warning about as we've been travelling. Almost every single traveller we've met round the world has hated Vietnam for some reason or another, mainly because they've been ripped off or found the people unfriendly towards Westerners. A few people told us they hold a grudge toward Westerners and feel they are owed something after the war, so try to rip them off at every moment. With this in mind, because I usually always hate the places people love and love the places people hate, I was really looking forward to Vietnam and was determined not to have the same experience as the other people we've met :D

So we arrived at the airport and had pre-arranged a pick up to take us to our hostel (thus avoiding being ripped off by the taxi driver at the first turn). We later found out we paid a little more for this privilege but I was happy to do so. We got to our hostel/ hotel and it was really nothing like it had looked on the internet. The rooms on the website looked luxurious but the first room they put us in stank heavily of mould.

Our final room did look a bit like this

I told Jemma I wasn't prepared to sleep there and went downstairs to complain and they immediately changed us into a different room, which didn't stink, but still wasn't that nice. After 10 minutes in this room, they knocked on the door and told us they'd found another room, so we moved again, and this room was much nicer (still not as nice as the photos) but none the less, it cost us £5 each, had a plasma tv, fridge and ensuite with free soaps and shampoos :). The best thing about the hostel was that it was without a doubt the most outstanding service I have ever experienced in my life! Every time we entered the hostel, they rushed to us with a glass of cold water, and took our bags up the stairs. Every time we came downstairs they were extremely smiley and wanted to know how we were. They escorted us across the road to breakfast, held umbrellas for us when it rained and came with us in a taxi to the train station. We have yet to pay the bill however, for this amazing service: everything has gone on a tab, so I'll have to write another post once we've paid to clarify whether this outstanding service has been included in the price or if we've been charged extra for it all. None the less, it has been a fantastic welcome to Vietnam and for our first few days here, I have been left wondering what all the fuss is about - Vietnamese people seem to be the friendliest people in all of Asia! I hope I wont have to eat my words!

Vientiane - last day in Laos

2012-06-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

Arc de Triomphe in the Laotian capital, Vientaine

We left Vang Vieng both feeling quite ill - me with a migraine, Jemma with terrible back ache. We took a minivan down south to the capital of Vientaine. It took 4 hours and we had the world's worst driver. He drove like a madman at break neck speeds around the winding country bends which started to make us feel really sick. We had one travel sickness tablet left over from Thailand, so we decided to chop it in half and take half each. Such is the potency of Thai travel sickness tablets, it zonked us both out and we slept most of the way. When we arrived in the capital, we were both so tired we could barely stand up. I had an excruciating migraine caused from twisting my back in the wrong position for too long. Jemma somehow managed to navigate us to our hotel and when we got there we collapsed into bed and slept for a few hours. When we woke up, we decided to try and get tea and see a bit of the city before we left Laos the next day. Jemma felt really ill and shaky, so we went to the nearest cafe and then it started to bucket down.

Monsoon

We sat there for a bit, ate, and then went back to the hotel for another lie down. Later on, we got up and walked around the city, hitting all of the major sights. There's not much to see in Vientiane apart from an Arch-de Triomphe- like- building and a couple of French looking buildings. A lot of the roads have French names and the city was very developed compared to the rest of Laos. After our city tour, we looked around for a restaurant for tea but couldn't find much, so ended up in a Western steak house which cost us a bomb (well, £5 each, but that's a lot in Asia) and they undercooked our steaks (in fact I don't know if they even cooked them at all?) they were red raw and we had to leave them. Must be something to do with the French influence. By the end of the day, I was ready to leave Laos. I feel like we missed a trick in Laos and didn't really go to the right places. The countryside is so amazing and it is so untouched but we didn't get chance to venture into it much because we were in a rush to get to Vietnam because of our Visas. Laos is a friendly country, and has a lot of similarities to Thailand, but is much less developed and I would like to return there one day before it turns into one giant Vang Vieng.

One of many French steet signs

Laos photos: Album

Vang Vieng – A Paradise Ruined

2012-06-14T01:29:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, Vang Vieng was a very small rural village in the depths of the Laos countryside. Set amongst a stunning back drop, surrounded by blue lagoons, a river and spectacular mountains, it was a place of spiritual importance to the Laotians. Originally, it was a place where few backpackers visited, and those who did were just there to enjoy the nature and the basic way of life. And then... tubing happened. Basically, someone had the idea of renting out rubber inner tubes from tyres, to travellers so that they could float down the river and look at the scenery. Today this has developed into a mini Ibiza on the river, with bars along the way, that travellers stop at to get get wrecked, whilst playing on things such as trapezes and throwing themselves into the river. I really can't describe it better than this article does, so if you are interested in knowing more, read this:

Guardian Article

Also, for a laugh, watch this, it made me cry with laughter:

Anyway, so that's Vang Vieng, but before I get into our experience of Vang Vieng, let me first write how we got there. We got up early on our last morning in Luang Prabang to catch a VIP bus to Vang Vieng. The reason we had booked a VIP bus and not a min van as most travellers take, is that we had read various horror stories about the minivans. So we paid a few pound more to go on a coach, and we were waiting for our pick up to take us to the coach station, which was meant to come at 8.15am to get us to the bus station for 9.00. It got to 8.15am and a tuk tuk came and picked up some other girls from our hostel but told us we weren't on that tuk tuk and we couldn't get on. So we waited and waited, and it got later and later, and I asked the owner of our hostel if she could ring and see what was happening. So she rang and they said they were coming. It got to 8.50 and I started to sweat with worry. If our tuk tuk didn't come soon, we'd miss our VIP bus and waste the money we'd paid in advance for our hotel in Vang Vieng. 8.55 it finally came, hardly enough time to get us to the bus station, and it wasn't even a tuk tuk, it was a minivan. At this point I guessed that the company had taken our extra money for the VIP bus and put us on a hellish minivan anyway. Luckily, I was proved wrong, when the minivan pulled into the bus station and told us all to get off. It was now 9.05. So we all got off, and were told to get into another, much more cramped minivan, with no legroom whatsoever and no aircon. The travellers were packed in there like sardines. We got in anyway, even though I was angry at having paid for a VIP bus and was now going to have to do the nightmare 6 hour journey cramped in a minivan. When we were in, there was a big commotion because there weren't enough seats for everyone. That's when I told Jemma to show the man our tickets and tell him we thought we were on the wrong bus. So she did and a big grin came on his face and he told us to get off and that our VIP bus was just around the corner. We couldn't see any VIP bus around the corner, so we were convinced he was tricking us, so we refused to get off. He started to get quite angry at this point, but we stood our ground and said we didn't want to get off because it was too late for the VIP bus and it would already have left without us, leaving us stranded in Luang Prabang with no refund. Eventually when we could see he was getting very angry, we got off because we didn't want something bad to happen, and then we ran round the corner, dragging our rucksacks, hoping that the VIP bus was still there and that he wasn't lying.

VIP bus

Luckily, we got there just in time as it was about to pull off, and we were so relieved. It was a much more comfortable coach, with aircon, meals and lots of legroom. When we got to Vang Vieng, the people who had come on the Minivan we were supposed to go on said it was pure hell.

So, we got to Vang Vieng and it was raining heavily. We decided to just to go straight to a restaurant for tea. That's when we had our first experience of Friends re-runs. Almost every bar/restaurant in Vang Vieng plays Friends re-runs on a loop. Either that or Family Guy. Vang Vieng is like an extreme case of Western Tourism making a place ugly: A beautiful river with drunken, rowdy western backpackers floating down it, a small town that's been turned into a mini Ibiza and restaurants that serve western food and play nothing but Friends: It was dreadful.

They play my worst programme Friends, everywhere!

Anyway, the next morning, we got up and went tubing (Paradise is ruined already, us not going tubing isn't going to save it). We got these big rubber rings and then a tuk tuk dropped us off at the river, where we got in and floated down. The first bar we came across was at the riverside and was selling drinks with a sign saying 'buy a drink, help children' purporting that any profits from the drinks would go to help children. We didn't intend on drinking (I don't like drinking in the day, and there are far too many horror stories about travellers dying whilst tubing), so we skipped that, and floated down the river past a few bars, hoping to spot our friends in one, but we couldn't see them anywhere. At each bar, a man would throw a bottle attached to a string to us for us to catch so he could pull us in. We ignored these bottles, and Jemma actually got hit on the head by one. We floated on, on the river that was quite fast due to it being the wet season, until we eventually went past a bar that was called 'the last bar'. We hadn't seen any of the drunken people/behaviour we had read about online or in the news papers; all the bars were really quiet and our friends weren't in any of them. So we floated on, assuming that the bar was lying and that it wasn't really the last bar. It turned out to be the last bar and so for the rest of the river, we just floated along in peace, looking at the stunning countryside, and burning simultaneously. (I hadn't put on much cream because I'd assumed we'd see our friends at a bar and get out to talk to them/ put more cream on). It was quite an uneventful tubing session, which I wasn't sure whether I was happy or disappointed about. On the one hand I'd quite like to have witnessed the drunks throwing themselves off trapezes, but on the other hand, it was nice to have the river to ourselves and not have some drunken yob landing on our heads. When the river came back round to the town, two small boys swam over to us and pulled us ashore. When we got out, they demanded money. When we gave them money, they demanded 'more, more!'. They were cheeky, enterprising little scoundrels, who I have no doubt will grow to be the next generation of riverside bar owners.

Tubing

That night, we went for food, finding one of the few places that wasn't full of drunks/and Friends re-runs. And then we went to bed. We were both quite ill; me with a migraine, Jemma with back pain.

The next day, I really wanted to go on a bike ride to the blue lagoon – a wonder of nature where you can jump into the unusually blue waters (made that way by minerals) but we were both so ill we couldn't get out of bed. I had the worst migraine ever and was actually sick from it. It was an awful day, trapped in a dark room, trying to sleep but not being able to. At one point I managed to get myself out of bed long enough to walk down the street to book tickets out of Vang Vieng. I was so happy the next day when the migraine had gone down a little bit and we could finally leave Vang Vieng. That will not be going down on my list of places to return to!

Laos – Luang Prababang

2012-06-10T09:40:00.002-07:00

Main street in Luang Prabang

We left the Luang Prabang bust station in a Tuk Tuk, with the driver promising to take us to our specified hotel. When the driver dropped us off somewhere we hadn't asked for, we tried to argue with him but he didn't speak English. SO we ended up in the middle of a town, at 6am, not having a clue where we were. We asked around for our hotel that we'd booked, but no one could help us. One old man spoke French and directed us the wrong way and everybody else was just clueless or didn't speak English. Finally, we happened upon a Guest house with its doors open and a man sat inside on a laptop, so we asked him if we could use his laptop to see where our hotel was. Eventually we found it, and they let us check in early, which at 6.30am, having just been on a night bus for 22 hours, we were very grateful for. We check in, had a shower and then slept until midday. When we got up, we went for a walk around the town and to get some food. First thing we noticed was how much more expensive it was than Thailand, which didn't make sense to us because Laos is a lot poorer (one of the poorest nations on earth according to LP). But that's how it was. So we begrudgingly paid more for a breakfast than we would have done in Thailand (only about £2 more, but still). And then we wandered around the streets of Luang Prabang, which had a very French feel to them (the French occupied Laos at some point in history and lots of things like signs are still in French). There were lots of boulevards, with cafes and old French style buildings, with Buddhist temples scattered around for good measure. It was a really nice town with a good vibe and not too many tourists. At night there was a night market, so we wandered around those and then went for dinner in a restaurant on the main street.

One of the temples

The next day, we took a minibus to go to the waterfalls nearby. We were joined in the bus by a group of British travellers travelling with Stray Travel. It was a weird mix of people, some older (in their 50s) and some very young (just finished their GCSEs), but all terribly posh. We assumed this must mean Stray is an expensive company to travel with. We got dropped at the waterfalls and had about 4 hours there. Jemma and I decided to walk to the top tier first and work our way down. This was no easy feat: it involved scrambling on muddy branches and climbing some really steep rocks to get to the top, but when we got there, we were glad we'd made the effort as the view was lovely and there was nobody else up there (all the tourists were at the bottom tier). It was the closest thing I have seen to Iguazu falls, except you could swim in it. We climbed back down to the lower tiers and then got in for a swim, jumping off a waterfall and into a deep plunge pool which was lovely.

There were not many fish there this time, which made it even nicer than the ones in Thailand. There was also a rope swing, which people were queuing up to go on, with everyone watching and cheering. I decided to have a go, and did the most pathetic plop ever off the rope into the water.

Someone getting ready to swing off

As I swam back to the bank, something (probably a fish) bit me really hard on my leg and drew blood! Also in the same river, were a group of locals washing their hair! We assumed they must have paid the £2 entry fee to have a wash in the clean water as it must beat washing in the dirty Mekong. Perhaps they do this once a week to get really clean? I will never know because we didn't ask them, so this is just a theory. After rope swinging into the river, it was then time to leave, so we got out and walked back to the minivan, stopping to have a look at the bears on the way back (there was a little compound with black bears in it). One of the bears started to get aggressive, and there was only a small fence holding them in, so I told Jemma to get away and we walked swiftly off. If that had been Australia, there would have been at least two 6metre fences between the tourists and the bears!

That night, we went to the night markets where we had an all you can eat buffet for less than a £1 from stall where there was a boy stood wafting the food with a plastic bag on a stick to keep away the flies. God knows how we didn't get food poisoning. After this, we wandered to a lovely bar called Eutopia.

Wine by the river

Eutopia is a famous bar in Laos that is set next to the river, with cushions for you to lie on and has an excellent chilled out vibe. We ordered a big bowl of wine each (thanks to the French, Laos has good wine and good baguettes) and we settled ourselves on some mats facing the river. It was really relaxing.

Whilst we were eating our buffet, we had noticed a poster asking for people to go to the Library to volunteer to teach English, with no experience required. So the next day, that's what we did.

Jemma teaching English

We went to the library, where there was a room full of young boys, mostly young monks, and each English speaker got assigned to a pupil. A man came in and said it was time to start and then we just had to speak with them and help them practice. Jemma had a really good student, who already spoke very good English and wanted to know more about the grammar, whereas mine could hardly say anything and I had to go right back to basics with him. Jemma's was from the Hmong tribe outside of the city and was really poor. His family could only afford to send one of their children to school and had sent him. Jemma wanted to offer to take him round the rest of Asia with us and treat him to a nice meal but in the end, she refrained. After teaching, we were going to hire bikes and cycle around the city, but Jemma has had a really bad back for a few days now so we decided to just walk instead, and went to our favourite bar Eutopia for an early tea. They did really nice food, and I had a tuna baguette with chips (despite promising myself that Laos would be the beginning of my chip ban). The chips in Laos are the best I've tasted in Asia, if not the world (UK notwithstanding (or Flunch)). That was our last night in Luang Prabang and we had organised to leave the next day, with a minivan to pick us up from our hostel and take us to the bus station where we would catch the VIP bus to Vang Vieng. That was when we had our first experience of 'Laos time'...

Some nice Laos grub

Laos photos

Thailand to Laos (Non stop Lee Mead for 22 hours)

2012-06-08T09:14:00.000-07:00

The White Temple in Chiangrai

We first took a minibus out of Chiangmai to Chiangrai and this took about 4 hours, we stopped in Chiangrai briefly to take pictures of a white temple, and at some point, whilst doing this, I either lost or had my precious mp3 player stolen :( It wasn't an expensive one, but it was more the fact that it had all of my round the world songs on that I'd collected from the start, and I now had to do a 22 hour coach journey with no music or any form of entertainment!! :( I think it may have slipped out of my pocket on the minivan and the driver stole it when we got out to go to the toilet but I will never know.

So, we carried on with our 22 hour journey, with nothing but Jemma's mp3, which she rarely ever cracks out, and was given to her by her mum in haste just before we left. It has nothing but songs from musicals on it, which is not my favourite genre of music, but beggars can't be choosers.

When we got near to the Thai – Laos border, we all got herded off, waited outside a wooden shack for a bit and then got herded onto a rickshaw, which took us to the border. We queued at the border, got our passports stamped and then were directed onto a little wooden boat, which crossed a river (the Mekong) and hey presto,we were in Laos. Whilst on the boat, a snake slithered along side us in the water and I was scared it might slither into the boat, but luckily it didn't.

Snake in the Mekong

At the other side of the river (about 30 metres from the Thai side), we got our visas for Laos from a little office. We paid about £35 for them, which was a bit steep, I thought. Good job we had US dollars because those who only had Thai currency had to pay more. We waited in the boiling heat whilst the whole group got their visas, and then a woman came and directed us up a street, where we were put onto a little bus, that looked like those trains you get at Disney Land. She said she hoped we all had Laos money because there'd only be on stop for food on the way to our destination and they would only accept Laos kip. I was not happy to hear this, as I'd not eaten since breakfast and we hardly had any Laos kip on us, which meant I'd have to go hungry for another 22 hours. The Disney bus dropped us at a bigger 'VIP' bus (a normal coach) and on that we sat for the next 22 hours. It was a very bumpy journey, not too dissimilar from what we had experienced in Bolivia.

Laos is mainly rainforest

I took my last remaining travel sickness tablet, which really helped because the roads were very windy. We were worried when one girl told us you can't buy sickness tablets in Laos and that we should have stocked up in Thailand. Schoolboy error. After about 5 hours of listening to Billy Elliot and Wicked songs, the battery ran out on Jemma's ipod(hooray!) and we stopped at a cafe for food. (When I say cafe, I mean a hut that sold pringles and sandwiches). Luckily, the accepted Thai Baht, so I gorged on my first Lao tuna baguette and crisps. We paid 30p to go to a squat toilet in an outhouse near the hut, and then we all got back on the bus, ready for the 18 hour journey ahead. I was very happy for the sickness tablets at this stage, as there were locals all around us throwing up into plastic bags (they're not used to riding on buses, and the Laotian roads are windy by anyone's standards). Another advantage of the sickness tablet, was that it more or less knocked me out, so I slept better than I ever have on any overnight bus, despite the uncomfy seats and bumpy roads. I woke up every hour to look at the clock, until finally it was 5.30am and we pulled into our destination; Luang Prabang. We arrived just in time to see the daily procession of monks, walking through the town collecting food off the locals who had gotten up early to offer them. We could tick this sightseeing activity off our list. The bus kicked us out at the bus station, and at first, nobody got off because I don't think anybody clicked that this was Luang Prabang, I for one, had been expecting somewhere a little bigger, seeing as it is Laos' second city, but it just seemed like a town in the middle of nowhere. We were all so sleepy, we stumbled off the coach and into the first tuk tuk that would take us.

Where we got dropped off

Back to the Chiangmai vortex (damn you luxury hotels, making us stay longer than intended)

2012-06-08T08:34:00.002-07:00

Northern Thailand, home of the Longnecks

After we left Pai, we went back to Chiangmai and stayed there for a few days, unsure what we wanted to do next. We didn't know whether we should go to Chiangrai or go straight to Laos because it was getting nearer and nearer to the time our Vietnam visas would begin and we didn't want to eat too much into our time there. In the end, we were so indecisive, that we ended up wasting 2 days in Chiangmai doing nothing because our hotel was so nice. We did venture out at one stage to go to the mall, which was nice, but nothing compared to what we'd seen in Bangkok. On the third day, we kicked ourselves into gear and did a bout of sightseeing. We hired a tuk tuk driver for the day to take us to all the places we felt we should go. Actually, there wasn't anything we really wanted to do, but we felt guilty for doing nothing, so I decided we should go and see a hill tribe and a temple. Lots of people go on treks in Chiangmai to see the hill tribes, but we'd heard they weren't that good, and as we'd already been on elephants, we didn't want to do that again. So rather than go on a trek, we just took a tuk tuk to go and see a tribe, which I'd read was going to be very touristy, and not a real tribe at all.

There were even signs pointing to where each tribe was

In fact, there is some controversy surrounding these tribes and questions as to whether or not they are forced into dressing up just for the tourists. Anyway, we went, and saw the long necks tribe, and it was so staged – just like Lake Titicaca had been – we had to pay £5 to go into a 'village' made up of different tribes, which looked like they had just been dumped there and dressed up for the tourists. Oh well, at least it got my need to see a tribe out of my system.

After this, our driver took us along a really windy country road that made me feel really sick, especially because of the fumes coming out of the tuk tuk. We went to the most famous temple in Chiangmai which has views over the city. It was quite nice. Once again, once you've seen the temples in Bangkok, this doesn't really stand out. It was nice though, but we couldn't look round too long because a monk told Jemma off for wearing shorts and we had to get out.

I felt like we had finally accomplished something in Chiangmai after our day out in the tuk tuk rather than just staying in the hotel all the time. We went back to Chiangmai and could finally book our tickets out of there – a night bus to Laos, via Chiangrai.

Mmmm Pai

2012-06-05T09:04:00.003-07:00

Team China

For the rest of our stay in Pai, 'Team China' were inseparable. We did everything together. From drinking, to Thai boxing and moped riding. Dinner breakfast and lunch, we were together. Why team 'China'? Well, that's an inside joke that we came up with on our first night out, where we got very drunk and went to every bar in Pai, including a bar/club called Bebop which had live music and a resident tranny. It was right on the outskirts of town so I had to get on the back of Inge's push bike to get there. She cycled faster than most people go on mopeds.

Jemma on Inge's bike

After the first night out clubbing, the bond within our group was officially sealed, and when me and Jemma were immobilised in our guest house the next day with the worst hangovers ever, they came to check on us and to invite us out to dinner.

Our first night out

We went for dinner together (as we did every night) and then we went to a festival in Pai, where there was fire dancing and live music. We only had one drink that night. They also had a fire skipping rope there, which I have heard/seen a lot about online but have never actually seen one in the flesh. I was very excited to watch and video the drunken travellers jump over the skipping rope on fire, but I would never do it myself!

The next day, we all went fro breakfast together in our usual cafe just next to our guest house (It did excellent full English breakfasts with big hash browns, milkshakes and hot chocolates and it was cheap). Then it was decided that we should rent mopeds and ride into the hills to look for the caves. Myself and Inge were the only ones who were scared of doing this, so we begrudgingly agreed to get on the back of other more experienced driver's bikes. Jemma was keen to rent her own. SO off we went, me on the back of Dutchie Nicole's and Jemma on her own moped for the first time ever.

Scenery on the moped ride

At first she was shaking with fear, but after a while, she loved it and you could see she had found a new passion for motorbike riding. We rode quite a way up into the hills, when some of the bikes started flashing on empty. Realising we didn't have enough petrol to get us to the caves, we stopped at a view point and then swapped bikes so that the people on empty didn't have two people on the bike. Then we rode back down to Pai. It was an amazing ride through the hills, with stunning scenery and it is a nice feeling being on a moped, zipping along with the wind in your face. I relaxed into it by the end however I was still relieved nobody had gotten hurt.

That night we went for tea at the local markets and then decided to hit the clubs and pubs again. Pai is such a small place, that by now, we recognised nearly all of the faces there and kept bumping into people from the previous night out who would wave at me and I wouldn't have a clue who they were. This time, the night out wasn't so messy for me, I was the one who looked after everybody else, and when we got to our last bar, bamboo bar, where I had been incredibly drunk last time, I noticed there was a lady boy behind the bar called Sara who everyone was friends with and knew. This shows how drunk I was because I had no memory of her. Also there, was a bar man who told me I had tried to barter him down the night before for a portion of chips. I also had no memory of this! A few people in the group got drunk and then we all walked back home together, and on the way home, we stopped at 7eleven for a snack and a bloodied boy came stumbling in, saying that he needed to go to the hospital. He had ridden his moped drunk and had fallen off, cutting out a massive chunk of his chin and leaving his legs and arms bleeding everywhere. This was the second such person we had seen in Pai and really made me never want to get on a moped again. We took him to the hospital which was just up the road, and left him there with his friend (who was also drunk and insisted on riding his moped to the hospital). The boy had to wait 2 hours to be seen because there was only one nurse on duty and she was treating a local man who had something in his ear. We left him there with his friend and by the time we got to bed it was 6am and the sun was coming up!

Relaxing by the pool

The next day we all had a lazy day, and after meeting again for breakfast at 12.00, we all went to Pai's swimming pool together. 'Fluid' the swimming pool, is located up a hill just on the edge of town and is a perfect place for hippies and travellers to relax. It has little bamboo covers to lie and shelter in, tatami mats to put on the grass to sunbathe on and there's a DJ who pumps out chillout tunes all the day long.

It is the perfect place to recover from a night out, and of course, all the Pai characters were there, except Rochelle the tranny, who isn't a true tranny really, rather a retired Ozzie man in a dress who sprinkles everyone in Bebop with glitter.

So we relaxed by the pool for a while, listening to the music, chilling and eating at the bar. And then we went home to relax and shower, before meeting up again for tea. Before tea, we all met at Inge's for cheese and wine on her porch. She and Nicole were both staying in the same resort, which had a lovely fairy light-lit path outside and decorated trees and fish ponds.

Wine on Inge's porch

After this, we went for tea somewhere I had been on about going for ages: Burger Queen. It does the best burgers in Pai, for an excellent price, and I was not disappointed, in fact, to everyone's astonishment, I managed two, because someone else placed the wrong order and didn't want theirs with BBQ sauce on. After Burger Queen, everyone just wanted an early night and a few of us had agreed to get up early the next morning to try out Thai boxing with Inge.

The next day I got up a 7am and walked down to the Thai boxing place to meet Inge, Nicole and Andre. Inge had been really keen to try it as its a good workout and convinced the three of us to do it with her. I walked the 30 min walk on my own through Pai centre in the early morning to the boxing ring, observing the locals go about their daily business before all the farangs (foreigners) got up. It was a nice walk. I waited for Inge and Nicole outside the hospital where they had said the boxing place was, but it got to 8.00 and they never showed up! I asked a few locals where the Muay Thai school was and they pointed me in the right direction. Eventually I found it, and Andre was there all ready to go, but no Nicole or Inge. I looked around and was a bit apprehensive about being the only girl, but the Canadian owner said it was fine, and told me to get in the ring and start warming up with all the others. After about 20 mins, the two Dutch girls showed up and started warming up with us. What followed, was one of the most intense, but enjoyable workouts of my life. I learnt the Thai boxing methods first on a kick bag, and then was able to get in the ring with a little Thai boxing champion who kept laughing at me every time I tried to feebly punch or kick his big mits. It was really great fun. At the end, we all had to get in the ring and do about a thousand sit ups and press ups. That was really hard. Needless to say by the next day, I couldn't move. I felt like I'd gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson.

Inge in the ring

After boxing, we went back for a shower and Jemma picked me up on the moped. We then all went for breakfast together and everyone decided they wanted to go out to the caves and actually find them this time on the mopeds. I wasn't keen, so whilst everyone else went out mopeding, I spent the day relaxing by the pool and had an oil massage. We all met again for tea that night, and had our last ever dinner together at the curry shack, our favourite local, that does excellent curries. And then Nicole starting feeling really ill with a fever, so Inge took her home and we decided not to go out drinking because we were worried about her. She turned out to be fine in the end, and the next day, Jemma and I finally caught our bus out of Pai back to Chiangmai, which we were originally meant to catch 5 days earlier, but had changed our tickets twice due to loving Pai so much and getting stuck there. We were sad to leave our little group and to leave the Pai community, but we knew we had to move onto our next destination, if nothing else because the time clock on our Vietnam Visas was ticking.

For the rest of my Pai photos: Pai album

Pai: Team China is formed

2012-05-31T09:50:00.004-07:00

Beautiful scenery

We set off for a bike ride on a very hot and sunny morning with John from Ireland and it was a scorcher. Jemma and I hired cheapo bikes with only 3 gears (they cost us £1 for the whole day, can't complain), except I was complaining, half way up the first hill, when my lowest gear was 3 and my legs couldn't turn the pedals. Still it was amazing fun, and for every hill we had to push the bikes up, there was another long hill to free wheel down, with the wind in our hair, cooling down our dripping wet bodies and the amazing green mountains all around us. We stopped half way at a view point, with psychedelic swings and chairs and amazing views over the hills. The ride was 8km in total (to get to the waterfalls) and when we got to 6km, I was so exhausted, thirsty (having drank my whole 2 litres of water) and weak, I couldn't pedal any more. What a pleasant surprise it was then, to stumble upon a little farm, in the middle of nowhere, with a sign saying 'stop here for fresh juice and fruit'.

Boiling hot and served fresh iced juice!

A man waved us over and we stopped, unable to cycle any more. We sat down at a little table in front of a quaint little farm, where we were served as much iced red sorrel juice as we could drink (reminded me of Ribena ice lollies I used to have as a child). He also served us passion fruits, tamarind and potatoes with jam and peanuts. It was so refreshing! I was literally dripping in sweat, on the verge of collapsing, and this lovely local Thai man and his wife were waiting on us, topping up my glass with fresh iced juice every time I finished a cup. At the end they even produced a bottle of red sherry and insisted we all have a taste! And all they asked for was a tip, the amount being at our discretion. We gave him a £2 tip and he was over the moon, telling us to come back after we had visited the waterfalls, which he encouragingly told us were only 1km further away. Revitalised and pumped full of fruit juice, we cycled on along the mountain path until we finally heard the sounds of running water. Jemma and John had gone on ahead (because I don't like going down hills fast) and as I was coming down the last hill to the waterfall, a friendly Dutch girl came past me on a moped and asked if I wanted a lift. She was looking for the waterfalls too and I told her they were just down the hill. Once at the bottom, I saw Jemma and John already in the water, having dumped their bikes and run straight for the river. We chained all of our bikes up and climbed the steps to the top tier, where we saw a massive waterfall coming down from a canyon, with not many people around.

Jemma and John cooling themselves

We all rushed in and cooled ourselves underneath it, and then I got out and sat on the rocks and got chatting to the Dutch girl (Nicole) and a Brazilian girl (Danielle). Jemma came out and then slipped on the rocks and fell back in, which everyone found amusing (apart from me because I didn't see it). When we had all dried off, Nicole let me and Jemma have a little go on her scooter and told us that we must hire one because they were so much fun. Jemma and I have avoided mopeds like the plague this trip, after meeting far too many people who have had accidents – I just don't feel it is worth the risk. However Nicole insisted that they were quite easy to ride and as long as you went slow and weren't drunk, they were fine. I must admit, it was nice to ride on (for the 6 metres I went on it), but I was still too scared to hire one, even though Jemma really wanted to hire them (they cost £2 to hire for 24hours! That's £1 more than the pedal bikes cost us!). Nicole told us that she was meeting with another Dutch girl that night for dinner, along with Dani, the Brazilian girl and an Aussie boy. I asked if we could join them and we agreed to meet at 7pm outside the bike shop. By this time it was about 3pm, so we'd have to get our move on to get back to Pai in time to shower and make it out for tea. Thankfully the 8km ride home was a lot easier than the ride there and we stopped at our little farm on the way back, where we didn't even have to get off our bikes: they brought the iced drinks to us until we had quenched our thirst! The ride home was mainly downhill, and we got home In time to have a shower, before heading out to meet our group. We all met outside the bike shop. First there was me, Jemma and Nicole from Holland, and then there was Inge, a Dutch girl Nicole had met earlier that day, accompanied by Andre, an Aussie guy Inge had met the previous day, Dani, a Brazilian girl, Nicole had met at the falls and finally John, the Irish boy we had picked up on the bus to Pai., who completed team China, our first proper unenforced team of friends on our rtw trip.

Team China (left to right): Nicole, John, Inge, Andre, Dani

For more photos of the first 2 days in Pai: Pai

First taste of Pai...

2012-05-31T08:30:00.003-07:00

The twisting road to Pai

We set off from Chiangmai at 10am in a minibus, and 762 bends later, we arrived in Pai; the most perfect little hippy village I have ever had the pleasure of discovering. Pai is right in the north of Thailand, 4 hours by bus from Chiangmai, and it is nestled in the most stunning countryside of green hills and mountains. When we first got there, we were a bit underwhelmed. We had taken travel sickness tablets for the journey because we had heard it was a winding one, and as a consequence, when we got to Pai, in the midday sun, we were really drowsy and just wanted to sleep. We sat down at the nearest cafe and had some pizza to try and wake us up and then we got in a taxi and asked it to take us to a hostel we had been recommended: Spicy Pai. We took one look at it and decided it wasn't for us. We then drove to another, more luxurious hotel, which was in the same area (out of the town centre) and we really wanted to stay there but they were booked up. Finally, when we were too tired to look any more, the taxi driver phoned a friend and took us to some huts in the city centre that his friend owned. We walked with our big rucksacks, across a precarious bamboo bridge to the huts and checked into the first hut they showed us, for just £1 each a night! At the time I was so tired I didn't realise that the floor of the hut had massive gaps in it and the bathroom was covered in ants and other insects.

The hut we checked into

Looking back, I think it was fate that the nicer hotels on the outside of the town were booked up, because if we'd have stayed there we wouldn't have ended up having the time we had in Pai... but before we could have an amazing time, we first had to get through the first part of the story. We put our bags down in the hut, and walked out into the town to try and book a trek or some other activity. We had come to Pai for the white water rafting but everywhere that did this was closed because it was the dry season. There was one place offering tubing (where you float down the river in a rubber ring) but I wasn't keen on this (the river looked dirty and we saw a Chinese girl who had just finished it and was far from raving over it. She said it was basically just a long ride down a dry, dirty river). As she was walking back from the river, we saw some locals scold her and tell her to 'put some clothes on, you're not on a beach!' even though she was dressed in a full swimming costume that was not revealing at all. Having ruled out tubing and rafting, we began to look at treks, but they were all more expensive than the ones in Chiang Mai, with one man even wanting £90 to take us on his 'special trek' where he would teach us to make a camp out of bamboo! I wasn't sold on this, although Jemma wanted to do it, in the end we said no. We wandered back to our hut a little subdued, and I lay on my bed under the fan (the hut was like a sauna), reading the guide book. I read about another hotel that was just down the road and cost £2.50 a night, but was a sealed concrete bungalow, with a good fan, tv and bathroom with hot water and flushing toilet. I checked it out online (even huts have wifi) and it seemed to be a popular place among backpackers, so we went down to have a look at it, and decided there and then to take it and check in, and waste the £1 we had paid for our hut. It was dark by this point, and we hauled our bags from our hut, over the bamboo bridge, to our new accommodation.

Our new 'sealed' guesthouse. Mr Jan's

On the way we met John, an Irish boy we had talked to in the minibus on the way to Pai and he was on a bike. He rode with us to our new place and then we went for dinner with him, followed by drinks in a bar called 'edible jazz', which was a bamboo hut with cushions on the floor. We agreed to meet the next day to rent bikes and cycle to Pam Bok waterfalls, which we had read in the guide book were meant to be quite good. By the end, John was quite tipsy and stumbled off back to his hut (which, coincidentally was the same place as we had checked into originally) and we went back to our lovely sealed bungalow. I was so relieved I didn't have to sleep in a hut with holes, especially as it had no lighting on the outside: it would have been a nightmare to get back into in the dark. Also, there are loads of stray dogs in Pai, and on our way back to our bungalow, a pack followed us. Luckily Jemma was able to put them off while I ran back to the room, asserting on the way that I didn't like Pai and would be leaving as soon as possible. The next day, we got up and went for breakfast in the town (our new accommodation was smack bang in the middle which was convenient) and then we met John and rented some bikes. Within the next 24 hours, Pai was to turn from just another town, into one of the highlights of our round the world trip...

Pai town centre

Chiangmai

2012-05-28T04:00:00.001-07:00

Learning how to cook my favourite dishes

The blogs have been a bit sparse recently because we have been stuck in Pai, having the time of our lives. We intended to stay here 2 days but its ended up being 6. But before I write about Pai, I need to catch up on Chiang Mai. After Kanchanaburi, we took a bus to Auyttya, or something like that, which is a cultural place, best known for having a Buddha's head in a tree.

Buddha in a tree

We went there just for a few hours whilst we waited for our night train to Chiang Mai. I didn't really think much of Ayutthya: after we had looked around the ruins and the Buddha in a tree, there wasn't much else to do and it was a bit more costly than Kanchanaburi, but we had to kill several hours waiting there as our night train wasn't until 9pm. We did this by having a meal and walking around the markets, and then it started to rain heavily, so we ran back to the tourist agency where we had left our bags and took cover. During this run in the dark, I tripped on a piece of metal and cut open my toe at the nail. I had to sit in the tourist place for a while dabbing away the blood and putting on a plaster. The rain was very heavy, and we caught a tuk tuk to the train station, getting quite wet in the process. Once at the train station, we waited an hour for our night train to come, and to our delight, it came on time!! (Only a 15 minute delay! :o). This night train was a lot better than the other one we had taken to Bangkok: we were in our own little cubicle with another woman, and Jemma was on the top bunk and I was on the bottom. It wasn't too bad at all. The next day, we got to Chiang Mai around 11 in the morning and took a taxi to Litlle Bird hostel - a hostel that had been recommended to us by numerous people around the world, including one boy in South America who absolutely raved about it. Chiang Mai is really cheap for accommodation, so we didn't really need to go in a dorm, but as this place had had such good reviews, we thought we'd check it out anyway.

Food is so cheap here, I am indulging every day

We paid £2 each for a bed in a 4 bed dorm, and we got what we paid for. I absolutely hated it. It was boiling hot, with just a small, rotating fan to keep the whole room cool, ants everywhere and a filthy en suite with a shower over the toilet that you had to flush with a bucket. Luckily, our room mates were lovely (two young girls from the USA) and we got on really well with them. They had been studying in Chiang Mai for the past 6 months and offered to take us out to the weekly night markets and show us around. We went round the night markets with them and had food and then when we came back that night, we stayed awake talking until 3am! After that, I didn't really sleep well anyway because of the intense heat and the next day me and Jemma decided to check out and treat ourselves to a £7 hotel around the corner. For that, we got a hotel room, with air con, satellite TV, a really nice bathroom, a fridge with free water and big comfy beds - it was bliss. The next day, we didn't do much, because we loved the room so much and spent most of the day catching up on sleep from the 2 previous nights and watching TV. In the evening, we met up with Tony, our friend from China, who has been doing a similar route to us and who we have met at various places. We were sad to hear that he was cutting his trip short and going home early because he had caught Dengue fever and had had to be in hospital in Chiang Mai for a few days.

Our teacher showing us around the food garden

The following day we were more productive and did a cookery course which was excellent. we cooked 6 Thai dishes which were all delicious and by the end of it we were so stuffed. The cookery school was in the Countryside and they had their own vegetable garden and it was all very tranquil. At the beginning of the day, the guide took us around the morning market to show us what ingredients we'd be using and at the end of the class we all got a cook book. That pretty much sums up Chiang Mai. We didn't do much there other than cook because we are going back there after Pai and are deliberating over whether to do a trek but probably wont.

More photos of Chiangmai in my facebook album, but for now I am off for an oil massage, got to make the most of cheap massages.

Chiangmai photos