Watch this little mini documentary about it at FutureStates.tv and enjoy your long weekend saturday!

For those of you keeping up on our where-abouts you should fully know it’s been 4 months since we made the last leg of our journey to home. During this time I’m sure you also all noticed our blog entries died down to pretty much a sudden stop. Adjusting back to the real world has been some awesome fun, lots more work then we are used to, busy busy busy, and we can’t forget about the gambit of emotions to go along with all that!

Luckily we did not jump back into the work force right away and planned to have 2 months of seeing friends and family, espcially since we did not have a home yet. Our condo still had renters in it until July 1st. So, we stayed mostly with my parents, with sleep-over extended visits to various friends houses here and there.

The start to life back in Canada was a short visit to Calgary. Our great friends Steve and Karen who traveled with us for 2 months through Europe were great hosts for these couple of days and made us one of the best dinners we had in a long ass time. We love steak, especially Triple A Alberta Beef. You’ve never have beef until you have eaten this. Trust us! We tried steak all over the world and nothing came remotely close to Alberta Beef. Our friends showed up Gordon Ramsay in their own backyard. No fancy gourmet kitchen or posh restaurant with a ridiculous priced menu. Take that Gordon!

We then flew home to Vancouver filled with extremely happy family/friends to see our return. Welcome home BBQ’s, parties, simple get togethers, outings and repeat. We truly felt missed and were quite thankful of my parents letting us live with them until we got our condo back.

However, on top of all this hub-bub, we really had a hard time getting out of bed and doing anything during the day. We were still quite used to sleeping in and then relaxing all day on a beach or in a pool. Plus, I’m sure we had a large dose of jet lag in our systems as well.

May long weekend we drove out to Salmo B.C to help PK Sound with the Village stage tear down at Shambhala. Demolish parts of the stage and clean up the forest during the day and drink with friends around the giant bon fire at night.

After May long we drove back to Calgary for a couple weeks to do some much needed renovations on our loft in order to get a new renter for July 1st. New paint, new carpet, replace some light fixtures, replace the bathroom door, hang up curtains, clean it up, list it, and interview possible renters. When I look back at the work we did it doesn’t sound like much. But, like most renovations things never go as planned and ended up being quite the headache. It sure felt good once it was completed! I wanted to move back in after pouring my heart and soul into it. It looks SO good and in result rented quite easily. Unfortunately we were so down to the last minute we completely forgot to take after photos!! =(

Another highlight for us was participating in our first scavenger hunt with Alex and Heather. We named our team Gang Green, wore all green clothing, and decorated my car for some extra bonus point team flair and scavenged the city for items and photos. It was a blast and we won second place!! Can not wait to do it again next year. Much thanks to Mike Awesome for hosting this!!

Suddenly July long weekend approached us and that meant three things. First, Scott would be going back to work at his old job. The second was one more weekend spent at The Village helping now with the beginnings of the new stage construction. Third, we got to move back into our home! It was a busy week of driving, constructing a stage, moving, unpacking, and Scott adjusting back to the work life.

As great as it actually was to live with my parents for the past two months. We truly have an amazing relationship with them. Which was only made stronger when they both traveled all the way out to Thailand for a month with us. It’s now amazingly great to truly and finally be home.

We still have a ton more stories to share from our travels. Vietnam, Cambodia, and one last week in Thailand are still to come, even some tales from on the road in Canada. Also, coming up are more things to share about our adjustment back home and stories about the music events we have attended. I’m sure Furry Friday will also make a big come back appearance soon enough!

Sorry to have been on such a hiatus. But really… we are not sorry! We’ve been really enjoying life and every moment of being home. Hope your summer was as awesome as ours.

I read many other peoples travel blogs while we were traveling. When I read Gillian and Jason’s report of Soppong and the Cave Lodge I decided we had to go check it out!

What about you? How do you figure out where you go while traveling? Do you value the advice of blogs over guidebooks? Is there one site that’s inspired you?

Hooray we finally made it!!

After a week and a half of sleeping in, playing queen of spades, eating dinner, then getting drunk with the A-Team, we finally made it tubing on our last day in Vang Vieng, Laos. The sun was shining, we didn’t wake up hung-over and were rip roaring ready to go!

Typical sight to see in Vang Vieng, Laos

There are two tubing stations on the same street which are impossible to miss. Depending on the day of the week depends on which tubing station you go to. There really is no difference between them. Same style/quality tubes, same rules and timelines and same line up of tuk tuk’s outside waiting to take you and as many others they can fit into the back. A tube rental costs 55,000 KIP (about $7 CDN) plus a 60,000 KIP deposit (about $8 CDN). All tubes are due back by 6pm. If you return it late they only give back 30,000 KIP of your deposit. Reasons why its best to leave earlier then later to go tubing! The river runs slow and take about 4 hours of floating time to get back to town. That does not include the time you might spend drinking away at any of the riverside bars along the way.

Various menus and treats you can find at any bar

The bars however are all placed right next to each other except for “The Last Bar” (and in our opinion the best bar!). The music of each one is blaring at full decibel level and train-wrecking with each other. Bars also have giant swings, giant slides, and other means of random entertainment aside from cheap buckets and beers. But really the main reason to stop at any bar is to have a drink. However, their “special” menus do also tempt the curious. Or maybe you wish to try some snake whiskey? Really, you can find whatever you want if you just look for it!

Gorgeous!

Everyone is in good spirits and having the time of their lives. How can you not be gleeful as you float down a river in a tube? Which is really the best part of the whole experience. Just sitting back and looking at the sky and amazing mountain scenery with your feet latched onto your friends tubes and just letting the river take you away. Some spots are so slow and peaceful while other spots have a wee bit of a rapid. My favorite parts of the day were when no bar was in sight or earshot and it was only you, your friends, your buzz, and mother nature. Perfect.

Fishing for tubers at “Last Bar”

Because of our time spent drinking at the bars, watching Adam use the giant swings, and talking to randoms we did not make it to the end of tubing. We tried our best but it quickly turned dark out and became quite scary and cold on the water. Once you past “Last Bar” there is nothing for a long time. No lights, no nothing! So we decided to head to shore, walk up a dark farming road with hopes we can make it to a major road to find a tuk tuk. Luckily we were successful!

Good times!

I really wish we managed to get ourselves tubing earlier, as we all agreed if we were staying in town longer we would totally do it again and spend less time at the bars so we could just enjoy the float part some more. So, if your heading to Vang Vieng don’t be like us and wait till your last day to go! Skip those buckets for one night and make it out there early!

There we were spending another night rolling the dice with the A-Team for free buckets at the Sakura bar in Vang Vieng, Laos. Our original plan was to play some pool with each other for a bit and make it an early night so we could get on some tubes for my birthday the next day. Every thing was going according to plan until a traveling team of Aussies arrived and challenged us for our pool table. Conversations of whose country is best was started and tales of how loved ones met each other. Somehow, things got blown out of proportion and we found ourselves drowning in buckets, and horribly loosing at pool. Next thing we knew, we lost the table and were sitting as just the 4 of us again in a small booth. Maybe it was the Aussies plan? Drown us in their tales of love, sorrow, and country battles and get them real drunk so we graciously bow out and let them take over the table…

Suddenly, as we sat there in our small booth exchanging the typical “I love you guys” drunk babble while also holding the most important conversation with Anna about the movie Milk, her Casio watch flashed midnight. It was now my birthday! The next thing I knew, I was being serenaded by the best bucket fueled version of “Happy Birthday” while another round of buckets was presented infront of us. It took us awhile to finish these buckets, and it really might not of been the best idea to even finish them, but we did. We then figured we really should get to bed with the best intentions to go tubing for my birthday.

Well, we awoke still drunk in the late morning to a sky filled of mopey grey clouds. The air was even cool and when the wind came ripping through it was almost like winter. None of us felt comfortable wearing swimsuits and being partially wet all day and we also were feeling like ran over trash from the night before. Group consensus, as much as it sucked, no tubing on my birthday.

We decided to get ourselves a good breakfast to try and fight the hangover, choosing a restaurant with a river view. But their breakfast menu was not looking very impressive to me. I flipped through the rest of the menu and voila! I see they have poutine on the menu! Just days before we were talking about how we missed it with some Canadians we met on the river. It sounded like the perfect thing to bring a little sunshine to my day. Who says you can’t have poutine for breakfast on your birthday? Apparently, Laos does. Unfortunately to match with the theme of the day, my poutine arrived looking like soup. Boo-urns!

After breakfast we decided to part for a bit to relax and made plans to meet up later to play some pool. This is when Scott and I decided to head back to Sakura to use their free wifi, drink some coffee and maybe watch a movie. Apparently this was a bad idea. Soon as we got online, we found our website with absolutely no content on it. All of our posts and hard work on this blog over the past 6 months was gone. No rhyme or reason, no back ups, no nothing. Just gone! Even better yet, we couldn’t even post on our site. We would just get error messages. WTF?

So yeah, Happy Birthday to me! Wake up feeling like shit, the weather is too crappy to go tubing, had a soupy train wreck of a poutine breakfast, and all my work on this blog that I have poured my heart and soul into is completely gone with no sign of ever coming back! At that moment I just wanted to crawl back into bed and hopefully this would have all just been a bad dream. But no, it was now time to meet up again with the A-Team.

Luckily, Adam and Anna are great people and really helped to lift my spirits for the rest of the day. We played some pool and for the first time I actually did decent. They also surprised me just before a game of Queen of Spades with the most thoughtful present ever! Scott had forgotten our Altec Lansing speaker in our bungalow on Koh Samui. We had been traveling now without any speaker for our iPod and casually mentioned it to Adam and Anna in a conversation days ago. Somehow, they remembered this and came up with the brightest idea to buy me a new portable speaker for my birthday, paired with a great handmade card!

They worked with what was available in Vang Vieng, which really isn’t much… And of course, being backpackers much like us were on a pretty tight budget. With these strikes against them they still manage to find a delicious looking portable speaker for me. Delicious because it came in the shape of an apple that folded out into two speakers with a holder for your ipod. How awesome is that? I was super pleased!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, ate some dinner and made it an early night. With only 1 day left in Vang Vieng we really needed to go tubing the following day no matter what the excuse. It would be a shame to spent almost 2 weeks in Vang Vieng and never tube down the river.

I really shouldn’t of tried out my new speaker on the day of my birthday just before bed. With the already huge lists of things not working out. We plugged it into our ipod and all we could hear was static interference unless it was turned on way too loud to enjoy it. I must of jinxed it, just like everything else that day! Too Bad… But it was the thought that counts as receiving that gift truly was the best part of my birthday! THANK YOU ADAM AND ANNA!

As for loosing all of our posts on our blog, the next day we updated our wordpress and magically everything reappeared just like how it was before! Even though our database showed we had 0MB, it just reappeared! It truly was just a bad day where anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Meet Leonard the lazy leopard. We met him when we went to Safari Park in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Much like us, he likes laying around and playing all day. Hunting humans, eating food and enjoying the good life. But we’ve got a bunch of posts lined up for Vietnam, so stay tuned!

The Otherside Bungalows

We arrived to the small town on a craptastic “VIP” bus from Vientiane, however our ride really sounded like nothing compared to Adam and Anna’s story of their 20 hour bus ride from Hanoi involving puking girl who was sleeping on Adam’s lap with the chickens. We found ourselves some well built bungalows located on the other side of the river from town. They were called “The Otherside Bungalows” with perfect distance away from the nightly sound of thumping top 40 music and hooting and hollering from the “I had five too many buckets” group. You could even say we were staying in the countryside as every day around the same time a herd of cows would come and eat the grass.

The bridges of Vang Vieng – super safe to cross on when your stumbling on your feet!

Vang Vieng is a interesting town. It compromises of about 3 main streets which all are filled with restaurants, internet cafes, hotels, and shops filled with junk from China or tubing souvenir shirts. There really isn’t much variety in anything. Most restaurants have the exact same menu as another one and all shops sell the exact same garbage. Any bridge is built out of a mishap of wood and bamboo, just looking at them is scary enough let alone walking over them in various states. But for some reason you are able to spend many days here. Its probably the fact that everyone is in a constant flux of hangover and never want to bother moving onwards in their travels as the thought of getting into one of the horrible buses just makes them want to vomit.

Buckets- The drinking method of choice

At night an island lights up that is filled with a variety of outdoor bars. Each one seems to have its own sort of theme set by music selection. There are also a few bars located on the streets and every single one of them has bucket specials. From rolling the dice to get free ones, 2 for 1 and half off specials, or even just arrive between 9-10 and get a free bucket. As excessive as it is, it really is the most logical way to drink in Vang Vieng. But, be prepared! Your mornings become write offs and before you know it days have passed where you have done nothing but sleep all day, eat, then drink the night away again! Good times!

Hmm… which sandwich/pancake cart should we choose?
flickr photo credit: mariachilly

We can’t forget about the gauntlet of sandwich and pancake carts (again all with the exact same menu) that are impossible to avoid on your stumble back to your room. Its 3am and some easy to access food sounds like the best idea in the world! With them all set up right next to each other there is no need to wait in a big line. Just order, watch them make, and enjoy! Sandwiches like Bacon, Chicken, Cheese on a french baguette or roti pancakes like Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate. Mmmm….

One of many pool games that I constantly sucked at

So yah, our days spent here in Vang Vieng with the A-Team were fantastic. Almost too much drinking, many many games of Queen of Spades, constant pool championships, and just some plain old relaxing. We were having the time of our lives and hadn’t even gotten onto the infamous river yet! Days we made plans to hit it up we always seemed to find an excuse… the sky was too grey or our hang overs were just too much. Also, we thought we should hold off on the tubing until my actual birthday in a few days.

Probably telling Scott he is doing it wrong

We did however manage to get on the river one day with some kayaks. The sun decided to come out in its full glory, we didn’t win that many buckets by rolling the dice the night before, and we figured it be a great way to size up the bars on the river for tubing. It was my first time ever on a kayak. Scott took the back and I took the front. I felt Scott didn’t steer good enough as we often found ourselves getting stuck, almost hitting tubers, and even totally bailed and flipped right over in some strong currents. Lucky we had our camera in a dry sac (that worked this time!) I then decided to take more control on the steering and found we avoided things perfectly. Hmmm… Next time I think I will try taking a kayak myself and figure out where the problem was. Me, Scott or most likely both of us with some really bad teamwork.

Can’t wait to go tubing now!!

It was super nice though on the river and made us really excited to get on some tubes for my birthday! Stay tuned for that story!

We upgraded our room to relax in Vientiane

We could almost spend our whole trip in Thailand, especially in a laid back town like Chiang Pai. But there’s more of Asia to see, so we took a plane to the border town of Udon Thani to cross into Laos and get into Vientiane. Unfortunately while I was grabbing money for our tuk-tuk in Udon Thani I slipped on a curb and rolled my ankle. I didn’t break it or anything but couldn’t walk very well.

When we were in Sweden Dee did a similar thing to her ankle, and we kept walking on through Latvia and Russia. Her foot ended up hurting her quite a bit and for a long time, so I wanted to make sure to stay off my foot and let it heal. So for our week in Vientiane we really didn’t end up doing too much. We went to the Vietnam Embassy to get our visa’s, but the rest of the time was spent watching movies on our laptop.

We were staying at the Beau Rivage Boutique Hotel which was super nice, and they had a great restaurant attached to it called the Spirit House. The food was amazing and had a French influence to it, which was nice after spending so much time in Thailand. It was nice to have things like caesar salads with pumpkin soup, because the Thai’s really don’t do salads very well. But one of their best items was the blue cheese arancini balls. They’re fried rice balls coated with bread crumbs and spices, coming from Italy. If you see them on a menu do yourself a favor and order them! Or better yet, if your in Vientiane, do yourself a favor and treat yourself at the Spirit House restaurant. (located on the river)

After 4-5 my foot stared feeling better. Which was good, because we were planning on meeting up with our friends Anna and Adam. We had met them on Koh Phayam and for New Years in Koh Phangan, and had managed to work out to meet up in Viang Vang to party for Dee’s birthday.

]]> http://dreamalittledream.ca/due-to-injury-we-didnt-really-see-vientiane-laos/feed/ 3 http://dreamalittledream.ca/furry-friday-20-eviction-notice/ http://dreamalittledream.ca/furry-friday-20-eviction-notice/#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 21:44:51 +0000 Dee http://dreamalittledream.ca/?p=2401
How could you evict these faces?

We are back in Canada and have been happily reunited with our cats, Charlie and Kerrigan. However, we don’t get possession of our condo until July so in the meantime Scott and I have been living at my parents place with our cats. My mom has two dogs, Heidi and Peppe, both of which are small chihuahuas. Our cats have been living mostly in my parents “looking room” which is a large mostly unused room with some couches and a dining table. (basically a living room with no TV)

Anyways, Scott and I had to leave for the week leaving our cats to be watched by my parents. I have recently received this notice from my mom on facebook:

To: Deidra & Scott

Official notice of eviction of Charlie & Kerrigan from the Looking Room
Eviction took place today & cats have been relocated to the Elvis Room (Note: my mom’s computer room is full of Elvis pictures)

Reasons for eviction.
1. Behaviour: Both cats were observed sharpening there claws on furniture.
2. Threats: Both cats were threatening other members of the pack & endangering a life {Peppe’s life}
3. Noise: Meowing at the closed doors on repeated occasions.
4. Elopement: Constantly attempting to escape resulting in stress of sitters.
5. Poop: Not using their own bathroom. Evidence was found on floor.
6. Restricted area: Using the dining room table as part of their marathon. (Note: Our cats like to run a marathon every night back and forth every night. Maybe they are exercising?)
7. Boundaries: Have been found sleeping in sitters closet.
8. Mess: Have been leaving hair on couches and horking hair balls.
9. Damage: French doors have evidence of damage

Outcome of Eviction

All there possesions were moved to the Elvis Room. So far the cats have adjusted very well and behaviors have improved. Extra attention & love has been given to them to help adjust to there new environment. Only Kerrigan has attempted to return to the Looking Room. With the Elvis Room door being left open it has somehow created a calming effect. So far the whole pack are respecting there boundaries. Peace at last.

From the Sitters

]]> http://dreamalittledream.ca/furry-friday-20-eviction-notice/feed/ 4 http://dreamalittledream.ca/our-side-trip-to-soppong-thailand/ http://dreamalittledream.ca/our-side-trip-to-soppong-thailand/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 20:31:30 +0000 Dee http://dreamalittledream.ca/?p=2386
Ready for an adventure!

After realizing 2.5 weeks just passed us by as we did practically nothing in Pai we started to feel we should get out there, somewhere, and see/do something! After some humming and hawing we decided to drive ourselves to Soppong, spend a day, and then drive back. Soppong is a very small town located between Pai and Mae Hong Son. It offers very little in tourist services except for a few guest houses. But, it offered a not to far away location for us to adventure to on the back of some scooters.

Our mode of transportation

From what we could tell, the drive involved heading up over a mountain and then back down again with a guarantee of some steep roads and tight turns. Not wanting to repeat what happened in Phayam, we decided we should be smart with our scooter rental for the trip. First of all, helmets of course! Second, we each ride our own scooter and third, spend the extra money and rent the more expensive scooters. Something that is guaranteed to not break down and have enough oomf in the motor to get up that mountain! In Pai, the best you can get will only cost you a mere 150 baht per day.

Scenic mountain views

With a dag bay packed and the rest of our stuff stored safely with Peter and Anne back at Darling View Point Bungalows we were ready to hit the road! The ride through Thailand’s mountain country side was quite spectacular. Being the dry season the terrain was often quite dry, so dry infact control burns were in effect just a few metres away from the highway to help prevent forest fires. We could hear the roaring sound of the fires and then feel the extreme heat blast our faces as we whizzed right by. The fires were so close to the road we felt it wasn’t safe to stop and take a picture. But, mixed amongst all the dry terrain and burned up ground was bountiful green plantations of rice filling valleys for as far as we could see.

One of many turns of the drive

The ride is definitely not a newbies drive. I would not recommend it if it’s the first time you’ve ever been on a scooter. Tight turns at the bottom of a steep hill, or tight turns that suddenly lead you straight up a steep incline. The first time I ever driven a scooter was only a few weeks earlier on Scott’s birthday but that day sure helped me feel confident enough to do this ride.

Found the best road in Thailand!

A couple hours later we arrived to Soppong. We decided to stay at The Cave Lodge which is located a bit outside the town, but the road that leads you to it was one of the best and most interestings drives we’ve experiences in all of Thailand. It winds you through many hill tribes of smiling faces as you pass by. Also, a large chunk goes through forest only on a beautiful freshly paven road. Something you barely ever find in Thailand! The need for speed comes on strong here and Scott and I soon found ourselves zipping along faster then usual and taking corners like a pro.

Our serene front porch at The Cave Lodge

The Cave Lodge is a great guesthouse in Soppong, located on the cliff side of a river bank with extremely easy access to many caves, hill tribes, and trekking. We didn’t make use of any of the treks they offered as we felt we got our fill of cave experience for this trip in Khao Sok! Instead, for the day we spent our time enjoying the peaceful serenity of the area, took another ride on the awesome road through the forest, met some nice people, and enjoyed the fresh bread from The Cave Lodge’s bread oven. They even made us a home made stew for dinner!

Looking back at the road we just drove up from the summit of the mountain between Pai and Soppong

Now driving like pros, the ride back to Pai went far faster then the ride to Soppong. We both feel quite confident on the back of a scooter. (Well, by ourselves that is!)

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