Laos: Trials and Tribulations!

Well Laos as a country shouldn't have been enjoyable at all with the amount of crap we had to endure, but surprisingly I think it's one of my favourite countries in the parts of the world I have been to. Laos is a beautiful country with really nice people, who although do try to rip you off, it's nothing like Vietnam or even Thailand.

The first drama occurred whilst we were still in Thailand so I guess I can't blame Lao. There were "technical difficulties" on our plane and so we ended up being taken back to the waiting halls whilst the Thai Airways staff tried to fit us on a flight to Bangkok so we would make our connection. With a lot of worrying, running and amazing airport staff we did make our connection, apparently however, our bags did not, and so here starts the fun and games of Laos. Trying to get our bags back was a huge task. Obviously they just hadn't made the flight but when we called and they still weren't there and they needed bits of information we never got it was ridiculous. This story does have a happy ending though, when we came back through Vientiane (the capital) on our way back to Thailand our bags were finally awaiting us.

Vientiane as a city is really nice, it has some beautiful building and temples that are incredibly impressive. The worlds largest gold-leaf stupor is just one building that makes you stand up and pay attention to this tiny country. We decided we'd bicycle around town. It was so much fun but by this point we were exhausted and all we wanted was food, bed and clean clothes. We did see however an Arc De Triumph inspired building which is quoted as being "a monster of concrete up close", not great advertising on the Laos' governments part, but I thought it was really cool. From a distance this monstrous building looks very European but the closer you get the more Asian it becomes, very impressive! We also went to That Dam and a few other temples around town, finishing off of course with cocktails and great food.

The next day we were straight on a bus to Vang Vieng, minus any clothes or toiletries, pretty safe to say we smelled...... The bus took about four hours and by the time we ate lunch, found a hostel and decided on what we wanted to do in the next three days we only really had time to take a quick stroll around the city, stopping at a few street food stands and a temple. For dinner this night and every night we ate Western food and watched Friends, the food thing wasn't by choice but there was a crazy lack of Lao or Asian food on anywheres menus, watching Friends was our choice though, love it, most restaurants in Vang Vieng play Friends all day everyday, just working their way through the seasons.

Well the next day was interesting to say the very least. We originally had a tour booked to go caving and kayaking all day however, when I woke up my eye was at least twice the size it should have been (we're having great luck so far). After a few minutes of, "oh it'll be fine" I started to worry about the fact that I couldn't open my eye properly and so Kristal helped me get to the hospital. We were seen to straight away and the doctor spoke enough English to help me but, he used a torch (a huge camping flashlight style) to examine my eye and then just prescribed me anti-biotics and eye drops. Once my eye finally started deflating later in the day I found a bite mark and came to the conclusion that I was bitten by a spider, it was a scary experience. The whole episode ruined the day for us and so we spent it at a restaurant eating and watching Friends, it sucked that it happened but it could've been a worse day I suppose and luckily we could move our tour for the next day.

Finally something went our way and we were on our kayaking tour by 9am. We first went caving which included going inside a water filled cave (with the original name of Water Cave) on a tube. You get fitted with head lights and a tube and off you go, following a rope and a guide through the inside of a cave which stands hundreds of metres above sea level. It was incredible, cold and dark, but the experience was very humbling, makes you realise just how insignificant and recent human history is. The cave was by far one of my favourite moments in Laos and one of my favourite things I've done in Asia. From here we went inside another cave which has a huge reclining Buddha inside it. Kristal hoped to redeem her horrible luck with fortunes and so asked our guide to translate a Lao fortune for her. Apparently Lao Buddhists like her about as much as Thai Buddhists telling her she'll graduate and that being the end of her good luck. Kayaking was next, down the Nam Song River back to Vang Vieng. Kayaking was so much fun, again cold (in the water) but a lot of fun. There were a few white water parts and we stopped to walk along a really high, dodgy looking bridge. I got to the top, walked a bit out and decided I value my life too much, Kristal was braver than me and one guy in our group braver than her, walking across the whole bridge. On the way back there was also a series of "floating bars", not so much floating but they are situated on the bank of a river and they're definitely bars, the people we met were not by any means sober! I tried a giant water slide that probably sat about ten metres off the water and another ten metres from top to base of the slide. It was so scary, a lot of fun, but scary and a little bit painful.... I'd do it again though. In the end our only real day we got to spend in Vang Vieng was amazing and definitely worth the wait.

From here we started the LOOOOOOOOONG journey back to Hong Kong. Bus to Vientiane (sitting on broken seats with no air-conditioning), trying to get our luggage back (a task), a bus from Vientiane to Bangkok (not really a sleeper like promised, more so a bus that you can in theory, sleep on) and then a plane home to HK. It was a long two days. I know that I have made Laos sound horrible but, it was amazing, beautiful and just a lot of fun, I hopefully will go back one day and actually see more of the country, free of lost luggage and spider bites.

Thailand, part two!

Bangkok to Koh Samui took far longer than we'd ever imagined it would, it was a little frustrating that a train, two buses, one boat and a cab took us over twenty hours to be in our dodgy dodgy residence. Our hostel was the most horrible place I have ever stayed in in my entire life, and bare in mind I've stayed in a lot of hostels. One day I woke up not only to find no hot water, but no water at all, i couldn't even wash my face. The toilet had a lovely bucket of water next to it as a flush, the bed didn't even come with a fitted sheet and the guy running the place was a joke, I never actually saw him do anything but sit on his arse and order his family around. Don't stay at Ko Kheow 40! WANKER!

Other than that, the five days were incredible, such a nice place, warm weather, (semi) blue skies, great food, thousands of tourists, a beach, a full moon party and bars on the beach. We basically spent our days on Koh Samui Island eating fantastic food, lying on a beach reading books (Life of Pi for me, very fitting I think) and meeting people to party with. Kristal and I met up with Jia on the second day and went to the full moon party with him, we also found Tracy and Lydia on the first night and lay on the beach relaxing and hearing about the travels around Indonesia and Malaysia. There was a really cool Reggae Bar close to where we were staying which is where we did most of our nights out on the Island, it's major downside was you had to walk past all the Go-Go Bars to get to it. Not such an issue as females I don't suppose, still a little disturbing at points. The other great area to drink was on the beach, lying in reclining "hookah" beds and having a few drinks while watching people light off fireworks and lanterns. Even had monkeys dropped on my lap, not once, but twice, they were so cute, i wanted to keep them. This is where we spent our last night with some Adelaide guys we met on the first day and Mark, was a great way to cap off our time in Thailand, and also a great way to stay awake until our early morning flight.

Now for the full moon party, which actually happened somewhere in the middle of all this fun. It was incredible, we awoke to a torrential downpour, need I even mention this was the first time it had rained since leaving Hong Kong. It literally didn't stop raining until we finished our late lunch in Koh Paghnan. Good news though is once it stopped the rest of the night was relatively dry, other than the sleeping on the sand which was cold and wet. Buckets of Vodka, flaming jump ropes, tens of thousands of drunk twenty-somethings and at least fifty beach side make-shift clubs later and you have one Epic Party. Kristal and I went for a walk along the beach at around 8am to find a huge group of people still raging away (clearly not just alcohol fueled) and multiple people with bleeding feet or being stitched up, it was insane. Breakfast, some Friends watching and a huge wait for a ferry (where we miraculously happened to bump into Mark) and we were headed back to Samui where we slept for a few hours before starting again.

I loved Thailand, getting to Laos we had some dramas and Bangkok to the Islands is a bit of a hike, but it was soooooooooooo much fun and I'll definitely be back there someday!

Thailand, part one!

The Thai adventure started ridiculously early after a huge night of drinking for Kristal's birthday. First was a cab ride to the border town, Poipet (or the armpit of the east as some like to call it) which is a horrible little dust bowl that thankfully our stay in was short lived. Then it was a bus from Poipet into Bangkok. The whole journey was really uneventful and a lot easier than past travellers made it sound, as long as you're smart about it, the journey doesn't have to take 3 days and thousands of baht, nor do you have to get on any sort of Koh San Road related bus, which generally is correlational to getting screwed!

Once we got to Bangkok we decided to check into the lavish hotel my lovely parents were supplying for Christmas. It was amazing, one of the nicest places I have ever seen in my life (then again I haven't exactly been living in luxury) and the best part, the rents payed. From there we headed to a mall which was attached to the giant hotel, nothing too new as i've been living in Hong Kong, but it was still impressive. We wanted to see Madagascar 2, but in the end it wasn't coming out until the 25th so we settled for Disco Bowling, inside a mall. Interesting, but I sucked, oh well it was technically Kristal's Birthday, i totally just let her win. Then there was Birthday cake, or more to the point cake, a highlight for the both of us. Originally the plan was to wait up until the family showed up, but i couldn't keep my hungover eyes open any longer and so fell asleep to be awoken around 1am. It was fantastic to see them all again, didn't realise how much I missed them, or how much I had to tell them. It was horrible though, my little baby sister is now taller than me, I feel so jipped!

Our first day in Bangkok was not a huge one. It started with a mammoth buffet breakfast in which everything you could possibly ever want for breakfast (and some things you'd never ever want) were ready to be attacked. Next on the list, after much filling in of the past four months, was the National Palace. This place was the most intricately decorated, beautifully gawdy micture of architecture I have ever seen in my life. The place was spectacular, I don't know how the Thai's managed to pull it off, but the place should be aesthetically horrid, instead it is magnificant. Kristal and I also spotted a small replica of Ankor Wat and seeing as we forgot to take a photo of us in front of it in Cambodia we fulfilled our stupid ambitions in Thailand, go figure! Later in the evening we went to a night market. By this point in my travels night markets are somewhat of a bore however, this place was massive, one of the biggest markets I've been to and it was fun to impress the parents with my ruthless bargaining and watch the parents falter. I must have taught them something in the end though as eventually mum got the hang of it and was maybe, just maybe, getting the price us white kids can pull out of the locals. After a few drinks Kristal and I headed to Koh San Road to see what all the fuss was about, have a few drinks and relax as we do best, at a bar, with very cheap drinks

Christmas Day in Bangkok was possibly the most vastly different Christmas to anything I have ever experienced. It was sublime, buffet breakie, street meat, markets, massages, more food, madagascar 2 in IMAX (me and my families first experience), more food and drinking whilst listening to a live band. There is no more words necessary, except that Madagascar 2 was awesome!

Boxing Day was where the real tourism began, getting up at around 530am so we could have some breakfast before a huge day of touring. The first stop was the Bridge over the River Kuai and the Jeath Railway (yes I can spell). It was a really surreal experience, similar to Cambodia where you are well aware of the indignities people have suffered in the past and yet know there is nothing you can do about it. The conditions the Thai and Allies suffered under whilst the Japanese forced them to build the railway were incredible. Lunch was at a floating restaurant along the river and the food was soooooo much better than what Kristal and I are used to with our budget tours, this was actually edible and enjoyable! Amazing what a few extra dollars gets you. From here we went to the Tiger Temple, which is where tigers are reared under the watchful eyes of Thai Monks. There were so many tigers, ranging from adults to cubs, with my favourite being two cubs who were play fighting in a man made pond. We also had the opportunity to have our photos taken with the Tigers, it was incredible, kind of nerve racking in theory but there is no way that the tigers lie there naturally, the Monks can swear until they're blue in the face that they are not drugged, but no animal is that sleepy while there heads are lifted and bodies moved around. Dinner at a traditional Northern Thai restaurant and amazing cocktails at a little hidden bar and we were happy!

The following day was another huge day of touring. We took another early day trip to the Ancient Capital of Ayutthaya about an hour out of the city. We were dropped at three separate sets of ruins, it was a very different environment than what i was expecting, with these ruins incredibly out of place in the middle of a city. I thought they were impressive but having seen Ankor Wat less than a week beforehand they were a little overshadowed by how amazing Siem Riep is. Having said that, Thailand's third largest reclining Buddha is there and that is impressive, huge, so much bigger than I expected of something that's title isn't so impressive. From the ruins, a bus took us to the port where we caught a cruise back to Bangkok, the scenery was nice, but nothing fantastic, the buffet lunch however was great and it was nice to just hang out with the parents for a bit, having not seen them for so long. After a not so Thai dinner we went back to the hotel and watched Titanic, yeah that's right, we're cool!

Another very early start was not everybodies idea of a good time but it was definitely worth the horrible alarm clock going off at 530am to see the floating markets.I was really surprised first up that we didn't end up in the river the way our boat driver was driving and then even more surprised to see locals using the floating markets also. I was under the impression these markets were just for the tourists, however, there were hundreds of locals bargaining for fresh fruit and veggies, lunch and dinner foods. We sampled spring rolls, dumplings, coffee, fruit and Kristal even bought a bag she'd spent all week looking for. The markets were a lot of fun and definitely a must do while in Bangkok as they're not as touristy as the tigers or National Palace. After the markets I had to say good-bye again which sucked, five days wasn't long enough to catch up on six months of missed moments, but, Koh Samui and the Full Moon Party were awaiting us over the next five days, which brings me to Thailand, part two!

SE ASIA: Cambodia

We left Ho Chi Minh in the morning on a six hour bus across the border into Phenom Phen, Cambodia. The journey was surprisingly easy, visa for twenty US at the border and a bus that didn't take as long as we were told, plus I read and slept the whole way which made it infinitely better.

Once we got the Phenom Phen, things got a little more difficult. There were tuk-tuks everywhere but I had my stupid HK suitcase to give to the parents and in theory our hostel wasn't too far away. In reality, it was, it took us at least a half an hour in the heat to find it, then longer again to check in for our one night in the capital. We didn't plan on doing a whole lot in our day but we did head to S-21, which is a prison Pul Pot used to torture and imprison Cambodians who seemed to oppose the government. It was another really depressing museum and so I'm glad we didn't stay there too long. The stories of people and the seemingly endless barrage of faces makes you want to cry, you'd truly have to be a heartless person to not have that prison reach you. From here our private tuk-tuk driver took us to the killing Field for more depressing history lessons. Walking around the huge open area there are a huge amount of open burial pits that have been excavated in the past ten years. In the centre of the complex stands a huge structure full of sculls. Very sobering. Our first night in Cambodia was hilarious, we got the usual dinner for five and then headed to find a bar with happy hour. We did find one, with an older Kiwi, Middle-Aged American and younger American guy sitting around talking. Stanley (the kiwi), hails us over and buys us a drink, the conversations and quotes that followed were hilarious and will never be forgotten, it was such a great night!

Our second day in Cambodia we caught the bus to Siem Riep, it was another six-ish hours and not at all bad. Our lunch at the rest-stop was about the worst part of it, mainly because it was so expensive. Once we got to Siem Riep we went about trying to find our hostel and from there headed to Ankor Wat to watch the sunset over the ruins from the top of 'the hill'. It was gorgeous, truly spectacular and something I will never forget, even if we did experience it with at least five hundred others.

Our second day in Siem Riep we spent exploring the ruins at Ankor Wat. You could literally walk around for weeks and still not see everything, it's such a huge area, but we did the 'small tour' which takes you to the major sites and that took us a whole day. My favourite temple is one where there are hundreds of heads built into the structure, it's a little ominous and somewhat creepy but looks really cool. The complex was so big that we got lost inside it and had no way of knowing which entrance we had come in. Our last stop was the namesake, Ankor Wat, the place is huge in itself but not as big as some of the other places, such as Ankor Thom, which literally has trees growing through it, around it and between it, it is intense! We met some kid at Ankor Wat that showed us around, he clearly only wanted money, but Kristal gave him our crackers instead, I totally would have eaten them!!!!! The temple is still being restored itself but it is really impressive! In short the whole of Ankor Wat is amazing and definitely not in danger of losing it's world heritage site label. Somewhere everyone should try and get to, it's beautiful!

The last night in Cambodia and Siem Riep backed onto Kristal's 22nd birthday. We had planned, as usual to have a quiet-ish night, didn't end up being like that. First stop was Mexican food and frozen Margaritas, next was pitchers of Ankor Sunrise, then shots with our Japanese/American friend Kensho. The result was a horrible hangover, a 5am start and a 12 hour drive to Bangkok, HORRIBLE!

pictures: The Killing Fields centrepeice. Ankor Wat Sunset.

SE ASIA : Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I'm a bit behind in the posts, mainly because I haven't actually stopped since I left Hong Kong and am currently updating my blog in the freezing cold city of Beijing, but for now, Saigon.

As with the first time in Vietnam, the country proved to be a lot of work. It's the sort of place where you have to be aware twenty-four seven that you're going to get ripped off and taken for a ride. The first instance of this was exiting the airport and having some extortionate cab drivers try and charge you 500,000dong, or 50AUDS to go some 6km. Sure it was peak hour traffic and it took a good forty minutes to get there, but even the 200,000 I ended up paying was way to much. Once I finally arrived at the hostel I met up with Kristal (who had been travelling around Malaysia), had a few drinks and spent the night relaxing in Ho Chi Minh City which is such an amazing place. Power cables hang so low you could grab them with your hands and there are so many cords going into the one socket you're sure that the city is going to catch alight. People clap and whistle at you on the street, even had one guy grab my butt, gotta love/hate Vietnam!

The first trip we did was the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tour we went on included a stop at the Kao Dai Temple. Kao Dai is a religion which is purely Vietnamese (well sort of). The religion is a miss match of Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism and has basically taken the best and most believable aspects of the religions and made them a new religion. To me this is a totally far-fetched idea, but it is obviously pretty prominent in Vietnam as the colourful temples are littered around the city. The temples are amazingly intricate, huge buildings with a mass of different colours and worshippers. From here we took a bus to Cu Chi. The Tunnels were insanely depressing and the war is too new to have any sort of objective information given to you, all the signs, guides and videos speak of how the innocent Vietnamese built these tunnels to escape the "American Devils" and trap the "American Killers". In all fairness, the Americans shouldn't have been there but it's a very one sided argument at the tunnels themselves. Kristal and I got to shoot AK-47's and that was an experience!!!!! Our ears were ringing for a while afterwards and it definitely wasn't a cheap thing to do, but where in Australia would anyone with a right mind give me a gun....? Crawling inside the tunnels was pretty scary and a lot of hard work, you definitely wouldn't want to be claustrophobic that's for sure! There was only enough room to crouch or crawl and the tunnels were extremely dusty and dirty. One of the coolest things we did at the tunnels was attempt to fit into these tiny holes (which have been widened!) and we actually did fit. It was a pretty proud moment! The Cu Chi Tunnels was a great day, it was definitely my favourite thing to do in south Vietnam!

My second day in Vietnam was basically a day to just explore the city. We didn't have huge plans, just hit a few of the major sites and enjoy the city at our own pace. Speaking of pace, we decided we'd take a cyclo to Notre Dame Cathedral, we could've walked but were feeling lazy and it was worth the experience, or so we thought. These wanker Cyclo drivers didn't take us to the Cathedral but first to some temple. It was cool but once you've seen one temple in Vietnam, you've seen them all, even if that does sound culturally insensitive. Eventually we did make it to the cathedral but our ten minute journey ended up taking almost two hours, at which point the drivers wanted to charge us by the hour instead of our agreed upon price, hell no! we handed over our 30,000dong and ran. The post office followed shortly and then book buying and the War Remnants Museum. The Museum was really sad and graphically disturbing but definitely a must-see in the city. We ended our site seeing by going to the zoological and botanical gardens, it was good by Asia standards, but still reasonably sad. Dinner, a few drinks and cards is how we ended our time in Ho Chi Minh, it was a fun few days and I do like and appreciate Vietnam but I hate how hard you have to work to like it. Vietnam is no Vacation!

Photos: Cu Chi Tunnels Guide, Me and an AK-47 at Cu Chi Tunnels, Notre Dame Catheral.