Home Sweet Home

As some of you will have now realised... we are now HOME!!! Our six month adventure has finally come to an end and we arrived back in rainy England yesterday after a turbulent 12hr flight.

For our last week we were back in Thailand. We had four days on the lovely Ko Samet, which is the nearest island to Bangkok. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side... it rained quite a bit and we only managed about one day's proper sunbathing :o( Ko Samet is a Thai National Park, which means it's protected from any major building work and it's nature is conserved. The roads on the island are basically mudtracks, and as it was raining for most of our time here, these turned into total mud-slides, with massive puddles everywhere! The only way to get around the island was to hire out a dirt bike, put on some old clothes, and prepare to get muddy!! Me and Jon hired out these total monsters, really old bikes with massive dirt wheels, and we spent two days just exploring the island and getting dirty! It was a shame not to get much proper sun for our last week but we had loads of fun anyway so it didn't really matter :o)

We then travelled back to Bangkok for our last three days!! We'd booked into a fancy hotel in the middle of the shopping district.... oh what bliss it was to finally be in a bit of luxury!! Our room was small but perfect... we had a HUGE bathroom with a mirror that looked out onto the bedroom. We gave ourselves a good scrub, washed off six months of dirt and then headed out for some retail therapy!
The first thing on my agenda was to get a proper haircut. Unfortunately they don't have any Toni and Guy's in Cambodia etc so I'd let my hair grow long and the colour had started to fade. Thankfully Bangkok had a decent hairdresser's (Essensuals) so I booked myself straight in there and pleaded with them to do something with my unruly mop. Fast forward two hours and I was feeling like a new woman and ready to shop! Me and Jon blitzed one shopping centre, then watched the new Spiderman 3 in a huge cinema and ate chicken and chips! Perfect evening :o)

The next day we went to Siam Square, which is the biggest shopping centre in Asia. It's basically like three massive Bluewaters all in one, they have every kind of shop you can think of there, from super designer boutiques (Chanel, Gucci, Prada etc), to cheaper, Western names (Zara, Mango, Diesel etc), to really cool Asian designers (me and Jon bought loads of really cool one off creations - so cheap too!).
We'd booked a meal in a super swish restaurant that evening - Vertigo. It's on the 61st floor of a five star hotel in Bangkok! I'm not the biggest fan of heights and was panicking a bit about going up there, but once you reach the top the views are that amazing that it takes away any fear you have. We had the perfect table looking out onto the Bangkok skyline, and thankfully the weather was warm without much of a breeze so everything went well for us. We both ordered a HUGE steak (mine was like a brick) and a lovely bottle of wine. It really was the perfect way to end our travels. It cost probably more than we spent in a month in Laos but was worth every penny :o)

One day left in Thailand, and we spent it doing more shopping, and getting the last of our Thai massages. Finally made it to the airport on Monday evening and done more shopping before catching our flight back to Britain. We both felt a bit down about returning... it feels quite hard to leave Asia after spending so long there. I certainly will miss the crazy ways of Asia life, the warm weather, the beautiful scenery and the friendly people. It's scary to think we will be job and house hunting when we get back!! I'm certainly not looking forward to doing loads of interviews!

The flight was quite turbulent and we didn't get a great sleep, but the views flying in over London were amazing. It cheered us up to see the London Eye, Tower Bridge and Big Ben as we approached Heathrow. We've missed it!!

It was great seeing my Mum again when we landed. I've certainly missed her Sunday Roasts... infact she even made a Tuesday Roast for us specially last night... bliss!

Can't wait to see everyone again, we've missed all our friends so much, luckily we have a great summer to look forward to so it won't be too hard on us coming back. Besides, we need to be back home to start earning money to pay for our next trip! :o)

The Final Countdown...

So we are almost at the end of our travels and counting down the days til we're back to good old Blighty. How fast the time has gone!! It seems like only yesterday we were saying our tearful goodbyes and getting scared about the next six months, now we're saying tearful goodbyes to our travelling friends and still getting scared about the next six months so not much has changed haha!

We have spent the last couple of weeks travelling in North Vietnam. Our first stop was a beautiful mountain town called Sapa, which is right up North, almost at the border with China. It's been something we've looked forward to for a long time, as we'd heard so many good reports about this place, and in our book it looked amazing... green rice paddies perched on the side of mountains, hill tribe people going about their daily duties, low clouds circling around the town... we couldn't wait to get there. We took an eight hour overnight train from Hanoi and arrived in Sapa bright and early at 5am! The drive to the main town from the train station takes you up, up and away into mountains and the clouds!
We met up with our travelling buddy Alan and he told us how he was doing an impromptu trek that day with some Hmong hill-tribe people he'd met the day before. Jon and I aren't one to ever turn down the chance of doing something different, so, despite being very tired, we chucked our bags in the hotel and joined him for the day!
The Hmong people are a genuine hilltribe, they originated from China years ago and settled into the mountains in Vietnam, where they live in little wooden huts with no modern appliances. We met with Ku and Sa (Alan's hilltribe friends) and they took us on the most amazing trek through rice paddies, down into the valley where they lived. The scenery was absolutely amazing, and they took us right off the beaten track where most of the trekkers went. We visited Ku's Grandma in her house (mud hut) and she cooked us dinner! (Which consisted of pig skin, raw bamboo and rice - absolutely disgusting lol).
Carrying on the trek we walked along the river until we got to Ku's house. Whilst we waited for Ku's mum to cook us dinner (hoping it was a lot better than lunch!) we tried on some traditional Hmong outfits! So funny! The Hmong people all wear the same thing, dyed indigo loose pants and long waistcoat for the boys, and leg warmers, skirt and decorated wrap around jacket for the girls, complete with funny hat! (See pictures on blog for a proper example!) We had dinner sitting in a little wooden hut right up in the mountains, while kids riding buffalo went past.... how amazing! One of those times in travelling I will always remember. We could hear a storm approaching, and we were about two hours walking back to Sapa, so we left Ku's house and started the long walk back (getting caught in the storm and thoroughly soaked by the rain!). The next day we all hired out motorbikes and zoomed around the hills in Sapa, another great day with picturesque views. Imagine riding a bike on mountain roads, about 1000m above the valleys, with clouds settling down all around you, driving past little hilltribe children working in the rice fields. Such an amazing place. The hotel that me and Jon were staying in told us that night that if we wanted to carry on staying there we would have to pay triple the room price from now on, as it was a Vietnamese holiday (thirty something years to the day when Vietnam won the war with America). So it turns out that EVERYTHING in Sapa has tripled or quadrupled in price - the hotels, the restaurants, even hiring motorbikes!! We thought about leaving but when we went into the travel agents they told us all the trains were booked up until Tuesday! (This was Friday). Oh no.... we're trapped in Sapa! We spent a good half a day tramping round the hotels in Sapa trying to find a cheaper room, before finally finding one above a cake shop (perfect!). The town was getting overrun with Vietnamese tourists by this point, you couldn't even walk down he road because there were so many people. Me and Jon retreated to our hotel room with a cup of tea and a cake :o)

I must mention at this point that the weather in Sapa was FREEZING!! Because it's so high up, the clouds settle right down on the town and it rained heavily while we were there. Me and Jon being totally unprepared as usual, hadn't brought any warm clothes with us. I had a woolly hat that I bought in Thailand, and I had to resort to buying a rather unfetching pink fluffy cardigan as I didn't have anything with long sleeves for our time there! So after four cold but interesting days in Sapa we finally managed to get a train back to the warmth of Hanoi.... oh the joy at going out in flipflops again and not wearing that shocking cardigan!!!

Our next stop was the beautiful Halong Bay, a prime tourist spot in Vietnam. Halong Bay is famed for it's huge limestone rocks that jut out of the water - now I thought maybe there'd be about 20 or so big rocks to look at, but I'm not kidding there are HUNDREDS! It's like someone has just planted these massive chunks of rock in the middle of the ocean and left them there. Very cool to see. We visited the area on a pre-booked tour from Hanoi, which we don't normally do but it seemed there was no other way to get there :o$ We spent one night on a boat in the middle of the ocean, this was really nice, the food was good and me and Jon had a wicked little room on top of the boat looking out onto the sea! The next day we done some kayaking (very hard) and also a mini bike ride around an island, then we were dropped off at our hotel for the night. Next day back to Hanoi for the third time, checked into yet another hotel and done some shopping! We also done the regular tourist spots in Hanoi, the Water Puppet Theatre (pretty bad show of puppets in water.... hard to explain lol) and the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum - very strange - Ho Chi Minh is the former leader of Vietnam, the one who won the war. Basically they have embalmed his body and put it in this huge vault, where everyone walks past and pays their respects to him. It was FREEZING inside, and it didn't even look like a real body, it looked fake! Oh well.... weird to see anyway.

We left Vietnam on 6th May and flew to Bangkok for our last week... eeeeek!! I must admit it does feel good to be back in a modern city, with nice food and clean hotels! We have a few days topping up our tans on Ko Samet, an island about four hours away from Bangkok, before we check into our five star hotel for the last three days and shop, shop, shop! I can't wait! Not long to go now before we are back to reality... we've already started looking at jobs and finding somewhere to live! How scary.... we are going to make the most of our last week in Asia before we fly home on the 15th May.

Good Morrrrnnnning Vietnam!

Pretty typical email title but anyway...!

We have spent the last couple of weeks in amazing Vietnam! We'd heard lots of mixed reviews about Vietnam on our travels... some people hated it, others loved it. After having a brilliant time in Laos, and a trying time in Cambodia, we didn't quite know what to expect. Anyway, so far we have not been disappointed.

We spent three nights in Ho Chi Minh City (which is crazy!!! So many motorbikes!) and done the regular tourist things. We saw the Cu Chi tunnels which were dug during the Vietnam war for guerrilla fighters to move through. These tunnels were TINY! They had specially enlarged one of them for western tourists and even these were scarily small. Our group went into one... OMG if you are claustrophobic you don't want to ever do this! The tunnels go down and you have to crawl on your knees in the pitch black, the air is hot and dusty and you cant see a thing! I got really scared in there and just closed my eyes and held onto Jon until we got out.
We also got the chance to shoot a real AK47 in the firing range. This was really cool, you cant imagine how loud these things are! As per most of Asia, Vietnam seems to have no health and safety policies so we were shooting with no ear plugs or anything! Sure I'm slightly deaf now :o$
We visited the war museum in the centre of the city. This was really interesting as it gave the Vietnamese point of view about the American/Vietnam war. Some of the stories and pictures were truly horrifying. It really brought home the tragedy of war, on both sides.

After Ho Chi Minh City we made our way to Dalat, which is a nice picturesque town about 1500m above sea level, so it was nice and cool there and made a nice break from the sweltering cities.
On the bus we met up with another couple, Steve and Jenny (also from London) randomly who we had done a cooking course with in Cambodia! Small world but we decided to travel together for a while and had a really nice time in Dalat. We hired out motorbikes for the first day and explored the town and surrounding areas. We went on some really high and scary cable cars and saw a really amazing waterfall. The next day we all decided to hire out mountain bikes and go on a 40k tour up a mountain! I was very dubious at first having not ridden a bike in about ten years but everyone was up for it and I fancied a challenge so off we went!
I'm soooo glad I done this - it was solid, hard riding from 9am until 3pm, in the heat, in the rain, in a storm... we went through everything but the feeling you get once you've finished is amazing!

We left the next day with sore bums and aching legs and headed straight to Na Trang, which is a beach resort. Unfortunately we made the mistake of going out on our first night and getting totally steaming drunk which ruled out any beach action for the next day! Then it got cloudy so we didn't really get a chance to top up our tans booo :o(

Next stop was Hoi An, which I was reaaallly looking forward to as it's the place where you can get tailor made clothes dirt cheap! I haven't done any shopping in a while and was in need of some creature comforts, so we all headed straight for the shops to find some new outfits! Jon had a lovely black suit tailor made, and also two shirts. I managed to squeeze in a couple of dresses which will be perfect for several things coming up this summer ;o) Everything was so cheap, considering the amount it would cost to have tailor made clothes done for you back home.
We befriended some Vietnamese people who worked in a restaurant, and they insisted we join them later on for some karaoke! I'm never one to turn down the chance to sing a song so the four of us went along, got merrily drunk and broke a few windows with our singing. As soon as our time limit had run out on the karaoke machine our new 'friends" mysteriously disappeared out of the room, leaving us with the entire bar bill!! We kind of expected that as they were ordering drinks like there was no tomorrow and we knew they wouldn't have enough money for it! Oh well, it worked out at only about a tenner in our money and we did have a laugh so maybe it was worth being ripped off for!

We loved Hoi An and spent three days there. The town is built in a french-style, with loads of little nooks and crannies to explore in, and a peaceful river running alongside it. We spent hours just walking round the market and taking in the views of everyday life.

After travelling all of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam on a bus we were getting seriously tired of being on one! So we decided to hire motorbikes out and complete the next leg of our journey from Hoi An to Hue. This turned out to be such a good idea! The road took us along the coast, up mountains looking over picturesque bays, past rice paddies with women working in them... it was great, well worth the money spent. We finally arrived in Hue after about five hours on the bike and found the nearest hotel with aircon and checked in! The weather here is really hotting up as it's approaching the rainy season so you definately can't have a room without a/c!

Hue is a nice enough town but nothing special in my opinion. For the most part it was too hot to go out anywhere, but we did hire out cyclo's (basically a guy on a bike pushes you about in a carriage) and see some of the town, which was a good laugh but I did feel a bit like Lady Muck being carted about by this poor guy in the sweating heat haha!

We are now in Hanoi which is the Northern Capital. The weather has changed dramatically and it's been raining heavily so far which makes a nice change. We have booked a train to the far North (a little place called Sapa in the mountains) but our tickets haven't arrived yet so fingers crossed they will at some point today. It's times like this I miss British organisation! Everything is so up in the air here in Asia... things just don't make sense! We leave Steve and Jenny here too after 10 fun days travelling with them. It's been cool having another couple around, it means Jon can bore someone else with his football talk haha!

We are loving Vietnam so far though. It seems to have a mixture of everything that the other countries we've visited have lacked. It has the modern shops and restaurants of Thailand, the beautiful, remote scenery of Laos, and the fantastic beaches of Cambodia... all rolled into one!

So we are well into our last month of travelling now! Can't believe how fast it has gone.... it seems not so long ago we still had three months left, now it's less than three weeks!! Our last few weeks here should be cool though, we've got some interesting things planned.

Corruption in Cambodia

Well, I finally got that beach holiday I had been waiting for so desperately!! Both Jon and I were getting a bit travel weary, our bodies were tired and our brains frazzled from the constant moving about! You wouldn't think it, but I was actually starting to feel quite low health wise simply because we hadn't stayed in one place for more than a few days.
The coast of Cambodia (Shinoukville) is a lovely beach resort. It's the same clear blue sea and sandy beaches like Thailand, but without the swarms of people. We spent one whole week here and done nothing apart from lie on the beach, drink beer, and read. We had a few nights out here which were a great release of energy after so much travelling!

Whilst we were in Shinoukville I noticed a poster about volunteering in a school in a remote village in Cambodia called the ETO (Education Training Organisation). The school was run by a lone man who had dedicated his life to helping poor children get an education. On paper it sounded great so me and Jon, along with a few others, headed out into the sticks ready to spend a few days teaching kids! Almost as soon as we got there we regretted it. The guy who claimed he was the "director" o the school could only talk about money money money. He made us pay upfront for our stay and rushed off to bank the money saying there were no refunds!?! Didn't sound good. By this time we had arrived in this remote village in the middle of nowhere. He took us to our "accommodation" - a straw hut with farm animals living underneath it, and gave us our "lunch" - boiled rice with cabbage (yum!!). Water wasn't included so we had to buy it from his neighbours at extortionate prices! Anyway to cut a long story short the whole thing was a scam. The "school" turned out to be about ten local kids who would amble in when they felt like it an expect to be taught. Me and Jon tried to teach a couple of classes - it was fun, there were some cool kids in this class, but it wasn't a proper school and no way did these kids see any of the money we'd given the "Director".
Because there were five volunteers there at the same time and just not enough kids to teach, we all decided to have it out with the guy and ask him where the hell this school was (he told us there were 3000 students!) and where had all our money gone? He denied everything of course and made excuse after excuse. We weren't buying anything and decided to leave there and then. We couldn't just walk out though because we were in the middle of the countryside so we asked him for a lift. Oh he agreed.... as long as we paid him another ten dollars!! This was the final straw, cue lots of shouting and demands for a free lift!! He finally agreed (just to let rid of us I think) and dumped us at a bus stand in the sweltering heat.
I couldn't believe it!! You try and do a good deed and help those less fortunate than yourself and it ends up blowing up in your face. It's such a shame because some of the local kids were really fun to teach and there could have been an opportunity for a proper school there had this "Director" actually spent money on it rather than his car and big gold watch!

We left there with a bitter taste in our mouths and headed for Pnomh Penh, the capital of Cambodia. After three days of eating boiled cabbage and rice, and living in a straw hut, me and Jon decided to treat ourselves and splash out to a room that cost $10 (a fiver) - complete with aircon, a TV, and a western toilet! Luxury!
Whilst we were in Pnomh Penh we visited the war museum (formerly a Khmer Rouge prison) and the Killing Fields, where 8000 victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide were buried in mass graves. This was a really sad day for us. For anyone who doesn't know the story, the Khmer Rouge were peasants who revolted against the government after the Vietnam War. They overthrew the police force, and evicted anyone who was middle class, or rich out of their homes and forced them to work in terrible conditions in the rice fields. They killed off anyone who was educated - teachers, doctors, nurses, students.... anyone who wasn't poor or illiterate was exterminated. The most cruelest part of this was that women and children (even babies) were ruthlessly murdered simply because of who they were. This genocide claimed the lives of almost 2 million Cambodians.
This truly opened our eyes to the horrors that were inflicted on Cambodia during the late 70's. The former prison was an eerie place with pictures of everyone who had been killed there. Out of 14000 people who had been sent there for "interrogation", only seven survived. The rest were sent off to the Killing Fields to be brutally beaten to death and buried in mass graves. So far 8000 bodies have been recovered from these graves and more are still being found today. It's a gruesome place with bones and clothes still sticking out of the earth.
Seeing how something so tragic could happen to a country so poor really brought it home to us. It was only 30 years ago - seems crazy that something like this was allowed to happen in our civilised world?? I really hope it will never ever happen again.

We spent just over three weeks in Cambodia and had a really good time. It is such a shame to see such a poor country ruined by war and political corruption. Even now the country still has a lot of problems. There is corruption from the lowest levels (dodgy guys claiming to run a school), to the highest level (the Prime Minister). How can a country ever claw it's way out of poverty when the very people who run it do not care about the poor? With the right governing Cambodia could eventually be like it's rich neighbours - it's has everything, the beaches, the mountains, the historical monuments... everything that could turn it into Thailand no2.... but at the moment it still has to recover from the horrors it has encountered over the past 30 years. I really want to go back and volunteer again properly. There are people there who really need our help!!

We left Cambodia a day ago and are now in Saigon, Vietnam. Only one month left of our travels!!! Who knows what it will hold....

P.S.... we had a lovely piece of news yesterday. Jon is an Uncle!! his sister gave birth to a little boy Louie on 5th of April and we cant wait to meet him :o)

Party Politics and Pyjamas

Well, my idea of an island paradise at the South of Laos turned out to be not quite what I expected! Laos is a landlocked country (no beach) but there is a place right at the bottom of it called the 'Four Thousand Islands" which is basically a load of islands on the Mekong River. So I had the idea in my head of relaxing on a hammock on the beach, cocktail in hand, a fancy bungalow with all the mod-cons....errr no! Quite the opposite. Turns out the island has only been accepting tourists for like, 5 years and everything was soooo basic! The best accommodation we could find was a wooden bungalow with a cold shower and a squat toilet - not quite the luxury a girl needs! The island only has electricity from 6 - 11pm so after that unless you had a torch you were basically stuck, the entire island was pitch black... scary! We did, however, have a fantastic time there. We met up with a guy (Alan) we'd originally met months ago in Goa, we'd flukely met up again in Luang Prabang and now we bumped into him again!! He was travelling with two Finnish guys and we all had a really fun few days together. The island was really going back to basics. It was a beautiful place, the tourist's bungalows are actually in the midst of the local's houses so it was great to hear and watch them going about their business every day (unlike most tourist resorts where the hotels are set up miles away from any local villages!) Me and Jon went on a five hour walk on our first day there and explored the island. We walked to a waterfall which was the most impressive one I've seen. Huge volumes of water cascading over these enormous jagged rocks and flowing down into a green pool. It was so powerful and amazing - and this is the dry season! We also found a secluded beach on the banks of the river, surrounded by huge rocks you would never know it was there. Clean, white sand and greeny emerald water - it was paradise! The island has a few bars with hammocks in which were perfect for sipping on a beer and watching the world go by. We also had the bright idea of hiring out two traditional Lao canoes to paddle around the island in. We'd seen the local kids doing it and it looked easy enough. How wrong were we!! No sooner had me, Jon and Alan got in ours it started wobbling furiously, the bars overlooking the river were filled with onlookers pointing and laughing at us. No matter how hard we tried to stay upright, more water kept pouring in the sides until finally our canoe capsized and sank taking us with it, much to the amusement of the onlooking crowds - how embarrassing!! The river current was so strong and was pulling the canoe and the oars downstream, we all had to swim frantically (me in my skirt and frilly top... grrr!) after everything to salvage it. Thankfully we managed to get it all onto the bank with the help of the Finnish guys and we dragged ourselves out, soaking wet and covered in river slime - yuk!
After three funny days on the island, we reluctantly had to leave. The island didn't even have a bank let alone an ATM and we were running out of money so we had to cross the border to Cambodia pretty sharpish. We done by minivan in about five hours. This was the most crazy border crossing ever! It consisted of us basically driving through a forest on a severely bumpy road, paying a Cambodian policeman a few dollars to get past the border, then we were in Cambodia!

So far in Cambodia I have noticed two things. Firstly, there are political parties EVERYWHERE. I mean, every village has at least three different party headquarters, there are signs up everywhere with party slogans, pictures of politicians etc. You kind of get the feeling that all is not totally happy here with the way the country is run. I done a bit of research on it and it seems that even now the country has a lot of corruption in it. The guy who currently runs it seems to be a bit of a dictator, anyone who goes against what he says is liable to be arrested. His closest political rival is living in exile outside the country after contesting the country's current state of affairs! It seems that even now after years of civil war and tragedy, things still aren't totally democratic here.

The other thing is that all the women here wear pyjamas!! Not just to bed but actually outside during the day and at work, it's quite normal to go into a shop to buy a drink and the woman serving you will be wearing a pair of flowery linen PJ's. It's quite surreal. I'm temped to go outside in my own sleeping attire and see how it goes down! Anyway we have been in Cambodia a few days now. We spent two days in Kratie where we hired bikes out and saw some dolphins (from far off anyway). We caught another bus to Siem Reap which took 10 hours!!! including being dumped in the middle of nowhere on our own for an hour or so until another bus came and picked us up.

Today we saw the famous Ankor Wat, which I would love to explain to you more but I don't know enough about it. I think some monks built it in the 11th century or something :o$ Anyway it's an amazing building and we got up at 5.30am this morning to watch the sunrise The weather here is still very, very hot. You cant actually do anything from the hours of 12 until 3pm, it actually hurts our skin being in the sun lol. Soon I will be on a proper beach sipping cocktails and away from all these towns...not long now...!!

Turning up the Heat in Laos

We have been in beautiful Laos for about two weeks now and it is getting HOT! I checked the weather today and it's a scorching 38degrees... and as we get further down South it will only be getting hotter - arrghh! Luckily we have sort of acclimatised a bit by now. We've been in hot countries for four months now so it's pretty normal to us to be waking up in a pile of sweat haha.

Laos is like Thailand's poorer but prettier cousin. I can imagine Thailand being like this about ten years ago, before tourism ruined certain places. It's nice to have some home comforts but when you travel thousands of miles away from the UK you want to go to places that DON'T have a Macdonald's or a Pizza Hut.

We started off our journey at the top end of Laos, a place called Huay Xai. From here we caught a slow boat down the Mekong River for two days. On paper this sounds amazing, but it was bloomin' hard work at times. The scenery was AMAZING... cruising down the river with mountains on either side, small villages perched on the banks with little children playing and swimming in the river (mainly naked - the boys would stand on rocks totally starkers dancing and waving whilst the girls would run shrieking for their sarongs... so funny!). On the first day it was a brilliant warm day and we drank beer and chatted with the other passengers. We also blagged some comfy seats so it was quite a fun journey. On the second day our boat had mysteriously disappeared and been replaced with a much smaller one with NO comfy chairs only hard wooden benches - not good when you have to spend 8hrs sitting on one! This day was hard work for me... it rained, our bums were sore... there was NO BEER!! When we finally arrived at our destination both of us felt pretty ill. Boating down the Mekong River was amazing, I'm glad I've done it, but would I do it again? Maybe not!

The boat dropped us off in Luang Prabang which is a gorgeous town in the Northern part of Laos. It was totally NOT how we expected Laos to be! I'd had in my mind the image of dirty streets, dusty villages, chickens everywhere etc. Well Luang Prabang is about as far away from that as you can get. It has been built in the style of French village, there are five star hotels and restaurants here, a great night market where locals sell their handicrafts, and lots of sites to see. I would quite easily recommend this town to all of my friends (even the high maintenance ones!) to go and see - it's beautiful. The town is based between two rivers so it's perfect for anyone who just wants a few lazy days wandering around the streets.

It isn't however, the "real" Laos. We spent four days here and then caught a songthaew (basically a truck with seats in the back) up to a little mountain town called Nong Khiaw. This was real Laos for us. Only a few guesthouses, a couple of little Laos restaurants, none of the home comforts that we'd had before! The town is nestled in between two mountains and on the banks of a river. It's soooo beautiful... it was one of those places where I wish I could have had all of you there for just one minute just to take it all in with me. It's the kind of place that when you step outside in the morning and the clouds are settled around the mountains and on the river and it just takes your breath away.

After two days in Nong Khiaw we started to move back down South. Our next stop was a town called Vang Vieng, again on the banks of a river! (Lots of rivers and mountains in Laos!). We'd heard Vang Vieng was the new "Khao San Road" - basically meaning a place where loads of young travellers gather - so we had mixed feelings about going there. After Nong Khiaw did we want to spend any time in a place with loads of beer'd up idiots? Luckily it wasn't that bad and we actually had a good laugh there. The famous "sport" of Vang Vieng is tubing, where you are taken about 20mins North of the town by tuk-tuk, then put in a rubber ring on the river and left to slowly float down back to Vang Vieng all day! It sounds strange but it was brilliant! Every 5mins on the river there are bars with massive rope swings that everyone swings off into the river. Some guys even have competitions doing crazy stunts, back flips etc. It was such a nice day, we met some cool people and just drank beer all day in the sun with them. We stayed with the same group in the evening and had a funny night out in the bars - it was good to have a night out at last!
Oh - and I found a place that done the best roast in SE Asia... God knows I had been craving one for about three months, well this one was great, Yorkshire puddings and everything YAY!

From Vang Vieng we had a long bus journey to the capital, Vientiane. As capital cities go, this one was rather nice. It's only small, kind of the same size as a town back in the UK (Watford?) which was nice because it meant we could walk around it quite easily. We done a day of sightseeing, we saw the Victory Monument which was erected when Laos finally gained it's independence from all the countries who had invaded it, and we went to the museum which taught us loads about the Lao history. It was amazing how this small little poor country has had to put up with so much hassle from the Western world! First France invaded and took control of the country, then America waded in with their bombs and caused widespread devastation. It took years until the Laos people finally managed to gain their own independence and be recognised as a country of their own, rather than being just a French province!! It's crazy, the mess us Europeans and the USA have left over in SE Asia. I've heard it only gets worse once you reach Cambodia.

The next stop on our journey was Thakkek, South of Vientiane. We'd planned on hiring out motorbikes here and doing a tour called "The Loop" which was in our guidebook. Apparently it's a 3day bike ride which takes you out into the heart of the Laos countryside, passing some tiny villages along the way. It sounded great on paper, but when we made enquiries we found out that the whole road was being dug up at the moment to make way for a new road which will be able to take tourist package coaches!?! Plus the bikes themselves were very old and we heard a lot of people had had problems with them (breakdowns, punctures etc). So... we decided to do the sensible thing and not risk another Bec and Jon travel disaster and didn't do "The Loop"!! Instead we got a songthaew out to a remote village called Mahaxai. This place was TOTALLY remote - only one actual building in the whole town - the "guesthouse" which conststed of about ten dilapidated rooms with paint peeling off the walls, squat toilets, and the biggest mofo spider we've EVER seen in our lives. I'm talking tarantula size here - very scary! Anyway beggars can't be choosers and it was a choice of sleeping here or sleeping in a straw hut with the rest of the villagers so we opted for the spider room haha.
It was a cool place to visit though... the kids there were amazing, always running up to you to say "Sabaidee!" and some even knew how to say "Good Morning" in English! Tourists are a rarity there so everyone was so warm and friendly. They have nothing, most huts don't even have electricity let alone any basic appliances but they are all so happy. There are animals everywhere, chickens, pigs, goats, dogs!! I guess when you've never had money you'll never miss it, it was certainly an eyeopener for us. The kids here were always playing and smiling, yet they've probably never even heard of an X-box let alone played on one!
We realised while we were here that we're in the prime area for the Bird Flu virus at the moment. Two people have died in this area already and there are posters up everywhere warning people of it. We've stopped eating chicken and eggs for now until we are in a safer area. We have both had so many jabs for travelling, plus our Malaria tablets which we take every day are an antibiotic so I'm sure our bodies are pumped up full of enough drugs to fight off any viruses!

From here we had another looooong bus journey to Pakse, the town I'm writing this from! I have to first of all describe the bus journey. Laos doesn't have a railway yet so we have done all our travelling by bus. You normally have a choice of a VIP minibus, or the normal public bus to go between towns. We'd always chosen the public bus... it's half the price, and you see so much more than whizzing through towns in a private car. So far all the buses had been ok, all left on time and all had loads of windows so a nice breeze goes through as you're travelling. Anyway, the bus from Thakkek to Paske was like HELL ON EARTH. Firstly, it had no windows, only tiny A4 sized gaps in the side which allowed air in. there was no emergency exit, so if the thing caught fire or crashed you were basically trapped! They piled on about 30 extra people than there were seats, so everyone was squashed in, people were sitting on eachother's laps just sweating in the heat. the drievr stopped at literally every village on the way (a 5 hour journey turned into an 8 hour marathon). They don't have bus stops in Laos, so if 10 people on a street want the bus, it pulls up at EVERY house to pick them up, even if they are 50 yards apart. it's ridiculous!! It's the worst journey I've ever had - if you think the UK transport system is bad times it by 100 and you have the Laos system! I'm surprised we didn't die of heat exhaustion but thankfully we made it to Pakse ok. We have a few days here before heading down to the "Four Thousand Islands" area (basically the bottom of Laos) which is like a beach resort, only on a river! I plan to spend as long as I can lying in a hammock and drinking cocktails - I need it!

Goodbye Thailand

I'm writing this sitting in a restaurant overlooking the magnificent Mekong River in the North of Thailand. This river separates the country from Laos. It's amazing to see a different country just over the river, and even more exciting to think we'll be there tomorrow!!

We caught an overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in the North. We reserved our own private cabin on the train (your own room, with a sink to wash in etc) as we'd been told it was worth doing... hmmmm... well not sure I'd agree with that. The cabin itself was pretty old and dirty, plus for the price we paid, it wasn't worth the money. The food was horrible and they had the aircon on all night which meant it was freezing! Having said that, it was nice having our own space and we had a couple of drinks each and put our Ipod speakers on and watched the Thai countryside go by without any disruptions, so it was nice to have our own space.

From Chiang Mai, we caught another minibus to a little town called Pai. This was a place recommended to us and it sounded beautiful... high up in the mountains, chilled out cafes and live music. It was definately one of our favourite places in Thailand. The drive up to Pai takes you up a steep, winding road through the mountains, past rice paddies and rivers. The town itself is nestled in a valley with mountains all around it.
On our first day we picked up a map and found a hiking trail (7km) to a local waterfall. We fancied a bit of exercise so we headed off in search of it. On the way we met a monk, and also a cool Brit/NZ couple who we befriended and walked with. Three and a half hours, several river crossings, uphill climbs, and nests of spiders later, we realised that this short stroll to a waterfall had in fact turned into a bit of a trek!! We had been following the monk the whole way, he was adamant he had done the walk before and knew the route. Having said that, he didn't have a watch on, and each time we asked him "how much longer" he would answer "half an hour, only half an hour". This went on for at least two hours! By this time it was 3pm, and we realised that if we didn't turn back soon the light would be running out, and we'd find ourselves stuck in the middle of the jungle with no food, water, or shelter! We asked the monk what he was doing - turns out he was sleeping at the waterfall for the night! On this thought, we turned around and quickly made our way back to civilisation. By now me and Jon hadn't had a drink of water for a good few hours, and we'd been hiking in the boiling heat, so we were both pretty dehydrated by the time we made it back. What a surreal day!

On the next two days, we hired out a bike each and ventured out and around Pai. We went to another waterfall accessible by road (much more sensible!). We found it easily and stayed there a while watching the local Thai kids slide up and down a makeshift slide into a little rockpool. We also drove around and saw a Chinese tribal village, and also a Lisu village. Later on that evening we met up with the couple we had met on the hike and some of the people they'd met in their guesthouse, and we all had a cool evening sampling the local beer.

After four days in relaxing Pai we decided to head off. We could have easily have stayed there for another four days as it's such an amazing place to chill out and meet people. It's quite hippy-orientated though so be prepared if you don;t like crustys with their hair braided it's the wrong place for you! Me and Jon had a good laugh comparing some of the hippy styles we saw so it's a good place for people watching heehee ;o)

We went back to Chiang Mai via the local rust bucket (bus) and spent a few days there doing boring stuff like sorting out our visa for Laos, posting things back home (Mum - expect a big box to arrive in about a month), getting photos developed.
Chiang Mai is a beautiful but big town. It has great shops with different goods than in the South (lots of items are portrayed as distinctly "Northern" style) but unfortunately we had agreed not to buy anything until Bangkok so we had to make do with window shopping :o(
We did catch a bus out to the local elephant camp, where we saw the cutest little baby elephant! (Well he looked cute until he let off the most rip-roaring fart in front of us!! - Much louder than any of Jon's surprisingly). The elephants put on a show for the guests in which they performed tricks such as painting, darts and elephant football. It was quite fun to watch but you can't help wondering whether it's a good thing for these amazing animals to be "dancing" in front of a group of tourists - hmmm I think not.

After Chiang Mai we caught a bus to Chiang Rai - a bit futher North. Here we hired out another bike and took an amazing ride through the mountains of North Thailand to another hill tribe village. It gets so cold in the mountains - me and Jon had gone out in shorts and t-shirts, we must have had icicles hanging off our noses by the time we'd got back to our guesthouse - what the locals must have thought of us, they were all wrapped up in their winter jackets with scarfs hahaha... typical tourists!

So we leave Thailand tomorrow after two months here. We've had such an amazing time, even though thing's haven't always gone our way. It's said it's easier to travel Thailand than India, which is true, but whilst being here we've had to encounter illness, losing our bank card, breaking our camera and spending far too much money than we'd planned! Hopefully we will make it up in the next few weeks.

We both can't wait to reach Laos and start exploring a country that only opened it's doors to tourism ten years ago - so much of it will be untouched. Thailand is great but when you can buy a Maconald's happy meal and shop in Boots in most of the main towns, it get's a bit too much like home!