Wonderful Laos

"Sabaai-dii" - hello in lao, was the first happy little word that greeted us on our arrival into the country. We were taken off the plane by the smiling ground crew and immediately I thought 'I am going to like this place'. This was in marked contrast to our journey into the country. We flew with Lao Airlines. In the Lonely Planet they have some candid words to say about this outfit

" It is uncertain whether the repackaging of the old Lao aviation into Lao Airlines will have any effect on the airlines efficiency or safety. Safety records for Lao Airlines aren't made public, but many international organizations and western embassies advise staff not to use the airline".

Great - just what I needed to read before we boarded our flight from Chaing Mai. So with that in mind we sat down in our seats and prepared for take-off. The seat covers were individually embroidered, a nice touch, but it just made me feel that this was not a corporate company. The take off was thankfully without incident but once we were up I couldn't help worrying about the landing. It is only a short flight from Thailand. The weather is very changeable in this area and we had quite a bit of turbulance and often the clouds and mist mean you can only see land just before you hit the runway. The pilots use visual techniques to land the plane as they are not equipt with autopilot, so they look for a space in the cloud and then go for it. So I held on for dear life and prayed like mad for a safe landing. It must have worked because we touched down safely much to my and the other passangers relief. There was even a small round of applause.

As I said, once we landed all the trauma was forgotten as we took a cab into Luang Prabang and saw the city for the first time. It is a magical place. There is a strong french influence in the architecture with many large buildings and shuttered windows overlooking the Mekong river and the pace of life is very relaxed, so consequently it doesn't take long before you feel very at home.

We checked into a small guesthouse overlooking the river, which was clean (a first), light and airy. We found our way to a local cafe and sat drinking great coffee and eating real french baguettes - which was a real treat and watched the local kids were practicing for Pi Mai.

This buddhist festival honours the Lao New Year and celebrates the legend of Pi Mai. The legend tells of an angel who is set a riddle to solve. The angel takes this riddle to a scholar and bets him that he cannot solve the riddle within 3 days. The scholar accepts the challenge, and discovers the answer to the riddle on the 3rd day. To fulfit the bet the angel has to surrender his head to the scholar, and each year his daughters used to go to the grave to sprinkle water on the head as a sign of respect. Now people celebrate each year over 3 days by cleaning houses and temples, making sweets and treats to honour their anscestors, and meeting as a family to discuss any arguments they have had throughout the year and to promise forgiveness. This then ensures they have luck in the following year.

A major part of the festival is the huge waterfights that take place in every town and village in Laos. We sat and watched the kids dowsing passersby for hours. There was lots of screaming and laughing as people tried not to fall off their mopeds.

In the evening we went to the market, where each stall is lit by an electric bulb dangling from a bamboo cane. They were selling clothes, trinkets and really good Lao food.

The following morning we went on a tour with Tiger Trail, a local company that sponsors an elephant project in the hills. We trekked for 3 hours in the jungle and through some farming land. They were just firing parts of it before the rains arrive. Then we walked on to a small village where we sat for a break. The village was incredibly clean, really unlike anything we had seen in Thailand, or in S. America and there was a local school where kids were educated until they were 10 years old. Most children married before the age of 13 here, and then farm go to work on their parents farm.

In the afternoon we went on to the project where we saw the four elephants that were being cared for. 2 elephants had recently died after contracting an illness, so they had their work cut out to protect the remaining animals. The elephant carers spoke a tiny bit of English, so we managed to find out that the elephant we were with was a girl, who was called Eni.

She was beautiful, with very long eyelashes and a small head. After the elephants have eaten you are taken for a ride as they go and bath in the Mekong. The carers sit on top of the elephants head and tickle their ears to make them go left or right. We waded into the Mekong and the elephants had a great time throwing water all over us with their trunks.

We also went on a biking and kyacking day down the Mekong, which was great fun, apart from when Ben was trying his best to capsize the kyack.

We stayed in Luang Prabang for a week, ditching on initial plans to travel around. The temples around the city are really worth seeing and the longer we stayed the less I wanted to move on. But of course, time can wait for no man (or woman) so eventually we had to head down to Vientiene, the capital to catch a flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia.

The journey to the captial was one of the most memorable we have done. We were sold tickets number 49 and 50 on a 'VIP' bus which only had 46 seats. I started to smell a rat when I noticed that in the isle there were some tiny fold down seats, and it turned out these were meant for us and the other westies on the bus. The girl in front of me only a plastic stool. So we set off on our overnight journey with 5 per isle, and no aircon or toilet and the heat from the engine blowing under our seats. Magic.

The journey was interrupted several times as we got a puncture that was repaired three times. So we got off to stretch our legs. But it really was the pitts. We arrived after 12 hrs 30 mins in VT, looking like a couple of sweaty tramps, but at least we made it on the plane. We were warned about bus travel by a couple of people in Luang Prabang, but we both said 'it can't be that bad'. Well that is a lesson learned. But it didn't spoil what was a really fantastic time in Laos. I just wish we had been able to explore the south of the country. Maybe next time..

x

Thailand

We arrived in Bangkok and didn't even make it out of the airport as we immediately jumped on a plane to Phuket to see Si Twist because there was one available pretty much straight away. So, we turned up without warning - typical travellers, but Si was great and picked us up and took us back to his apartment.

Thailand really blew me away when we first arrived. It was such a change from Singapore. The smells, the food, the people. I spent the first morning walking round in abit of a daze. We headed down to Surin Beach which is a 5 minute walk from the apartment and got our first taste of the south islands life. Miles of white sandy beaches with little huts and bars as far as you can see. It ain't half bad. The sea is wonderfully warm and unlike Oz we didn't have to watch out for sharks or jellyfish so that was treat. I presume most of you know about my Jaws phobia.

I felt quite sheepish for the first day as our knowledge of the Thai language was non-existent and I didn't want to offend anyone, but we managed to get to grips with hello/goodbye and thank you pretty quickly. It is amazing how many people speak at least a little bit of English, which was a good job as we had no other way of communicating.

In the evening Si took us to a little restaurant on the beach which served great Thai food. The following day we spent time around the pool at Si's apartment and in the evening we went out with his family for dinner. After a relatively quiet start to the night we went on to a bar and then we insisted we went to Patpong beach, which is an interesting little spot. The main road is full of bars with dancing 'girls' gyrating. On closer inspection we found that some of these ladies had adam's apples and rather large feet, which was a bit of a giveaway. But one of them took a real shine to Ben, much to my and Si's amusement, but as you can imagine, Ben was not very impressed.

I am not sure what time we got back to the apartment, but I do know we had drunk a few Thai whiskey's (which is actually rum) so when Si woke us up saying we had 20 minutes to get to the harbour in the morning I was not feeling too rosey. We just managed to get on the bus to the ferry and were the last people to board before it left for Koh Phi Phi.

The journey over was not my favourite boat trip. We were squashed on like cattle and the boat was listing from side to side, which did nothing for my nerves. So we did like the locals and tried to get some shut eye. When I woke up we were just turning in towards the island. It is an amazing sight. The island rises up out of the sea, like a scene from the movies. James Bond beach is just around the corner, so you can imagine what it looks like. They also filmed 'The Beach' on Phi Phi.

On our arrival we walked off the pier and we were greeted by loads of poeple trying to sell us acomodation. It was quite frenzied and not really what you want after a night on the whiskey so I took retreat in a cafe and sent Ben to survey the acommodation options. He returned about an hour later looking decidely sweaty, but he had found us a great little bungalow 10 metres from the beach. The only downside, which we had yet to realise, was the morning/lunchtime/afternoon/evening call to prayer from the mosque which was about 3 metres from our place. It was done over the loud speaker so no-one missed it.

Anyway, apart from the loud speaker it was bliss. We sunbathed on the beach for a few hours and found our way around the island and just marvelled at the scenery. But we were walking back from the bar and I noticed a picture on the mosque wall which showed the devastation wrought by the tsunami in Dec 2004. The picture was taken from high up on the hill and showed how the waves swept across the most narrow part of the island causing complete destruction. It is hard to believe how far they have progressed with rebuilding much of the resort, but as you pass across the two sides you can see how much construction work is still taking place. There are still trees and debris washed up about 20 metres from the shore. I also got the feeling that Phi Phi's best days as an unspoilt island destination are far behind them now, as more and more backpackers are passing through each year.

We left Phi Phi after a few days of lounging around and headed for Krabi, as we needed to get back to Bangkok, so we took another dodgy ferry, but this time I was prepared and sat on the very last row, (near the exit) and knew where my lifejacket was in case of emergency. Luckily my paranoia had no founding and we safely arrived and tried to sort out a ticket to Bangkok. As the funds were running a little low we decided to take the bus - a first in south east asia, and it brought back many memories of central america. Very hot and sweaty. Numerous unshceduled stops, but on the whole not a bad trip. We arrived at 5.30am, looking less than glamorous, but we had saved a fair few quid so I was feeling pretty pleased. We walked up the Khao San Road, which is quite nice at that time in the morning. No techno music, very few hawkers, just a few blokes asleep on the pavement. So we sat down, ate some breakfast and found our bearings. We got a room in the Siam Oriental hotel. It was a little box room with no windows but it had a shower and the bed wasn't crawling with little friends so we were pretty happy. After messing around trying to sort out taxi's and flights out of Bangkok we decided to go to the Chatuchak weekend market.

What a place. It was absolutely fascinating. You can buy anything there. Clothes, shoes, food, small animals, lighting, luggage, TV's. My favourite stall was a watch shop where you are presented with catalogue of swish watches and you pick the one you like, Rolex, Omega, Tag anything you want, and the guy goes out the back and brings you your very own. I don't know if it really looks like the real deal, but for a few dollars you can't grumble. It is a bargain shoppers paradise. Nic told me I would love it and she was right. We spent 6 hours there being amuzed by the general craziness. I was even outshopped by Benny boy. So many bargains so little space in my ruckie. Anyway, we had a great time and then came back and walked around Khao San soaking up the neon. The next day was the election in Thailand, (after several weeks of demonstrations an election had been called), which meant no booze on sale for 48 hours. Ben's face was quite a picture. So we went sightseeing during the day and were going for a nice sedate evening sans alcahol when Ben spotted a bar showing the footy with some suspicious looking plastic glasses on the bar. It seems that rules are meant to be broken here and the bar owner felt it was fine to serve westies as they wouldn't be voting anyway. So we settled in for a cultured evening of thai beers and football.

We had planned to go to Chaing Mai from Bangkok and all the local tour agents were quoting ridiculous prices so we took a cab to the airport to see what they could do there. We spied a strange looking desk called Nok Air, (which has a ducks face for a logo), and decided they were just the company we were looking for. We arrived in the airport at 12.45 and booked onto a flight leaving at 1.15! It was amazing. They just sell you the ticket and you fly instantly. No beaurocratic rubbish to slow you down. So within 15 mins we were sat on the plane waiting for takeoff.

Chaing Mai was lovely. It is very green and has a very relaxed feel (especially compared with BK), plus our hostel was great, providing us with lots of local info when we arrived. We went out to the night market which sells just about anything you need, plus lots of things you don't and the place was lit up like a Christmas tree. The smell from the food stalls was incredible and all the different food we tried was fantastic.

The following day we booked to go on a trek into the hills and visit an elephant project, but somewhere along the way we must have had a communication issue as when we started the tour the next day we were heading towards the Golden Triangle, capital of the former drug smuggling trade, and home to lots of tourist tat. We drove for about 3 hours to see a temple and then on to see the famous golden triangle sign, which is just a rather large concrete monstrosity signalling you are at the borders between Thailand, Laos and Myanmar (Bhurma). So at this stage we were not particuarly impressed with the tour.


Luckily it did improve slightly as we were offered the chance to go on a rocket boat up the Mekong to Laos for a bit of shopping - although of course this was extra. So we got in a very small open wooden boat which was about 6 inches from the water and we absolutely flew down the river, propelled by a motorbike engine. The boat was swaying from side to side and at one point I did think we were going for a swim. I was pretty petrified, but it was good fun.

I am glad we did go and visit Laos proper after our small introduction during the tour. At Don Xei where we stopped there were many stalls selling Laos whiskey with various animals inside the bottles, including snakes and scorpions, but there was not a lot else to look at. After this we were taken to see a hill tribe, and this was interesting as they still practice many rituals that have been around for centuries. The people there believe that if a woman gives birth to twins then they must both be killed as one must be an evil spirit. The practice is outlawed in Thailand but still occurs in secret today. After giving us a bit of history about the village Chai our guide insisted that these people didn't mind one bit having their photos taken, (which I found very hard to believe) so that was all the excuse one german guy needed to start sticking his camera in the local's faces.

So really the tour was a bit crap. Instead of the promised eco tour, we spent 8 hours in a minibus to go sightseeing for 3 hours. But enough of my moaning. We did get to meet some great people on the tour, and it all adds to the experience.

Happy Easter by the way!

x

NB. I have been trying to add photos to this blog for about an hour so I think I will give up and go and have a beer with Benny boy. I will try again tomorrow.

Stopover in Singapore

We flew into Singapore and headed off to the city to meet Martin who kindly agreed to put us up for a couple of nights. The heat was overwhelming when we arrived. It hits you like a brick. So by the time we arrived at his place we both looked like we had jumped in the bath. I was immediately impressed by how clean the place is. No litter anywhere, which is quite a change from S. America. We met Martin in Boat Quay for a few beers and sat by the river watching the boats zoom past.
Martin left the next day for a little trip to Myanmar (Burma) and the crazy man let us stay in his appartment unsupervised, which was very kind of him. His apartment is great and we made the most of having a place with air con, a washing machine and the use of a TV with a DVD player.

We only had one day there as we were on a stopover to Bangkok, so we didn't get to see much. We did a little walking tour around the city and took in various sights including Martin's cricket club at The Padang, where guys were playing cricket in 40 degree heat with the full kit on.

We then found our way to the famous Raffles Hotel, but we didn't indulge in a singapore sling as we are too stingy.

After that we found the shopping malls and I spent an hour drooling over the clothes before Ben was accosted by a man in who tried to get him to by some prime UK real estate, which was a bit odd, plus they were hosting a London fashion show there, so it was like being back home for the day.

The next day we flew into Bangkok so it was a very short but sweet visit.

Oz

Ben writes -

We left Christchurch and flew Quantas to Sydney where we connected for our domestic flight to Adelaide. Incidentally Quantas is a great airline - almost as good as American was bad. Lots of good quality food and drink and good legroom. After a few weeks in NZ and now Oz we were getting used to things working better and everything being easier. It felt a bit like we were cheating after the relative hardships in S. America but we were not complaining.

This leg of the trip was going to be nice because we would get the opportunity to catch up with some old friends who live and work in Australia and family too, as Tig's Mum and Dad were going to come out and see us in Sydney later.

We were met at Adelaide airport by Natalie, Tig's friend from her days at the FSA, as she had invited us to stay with her while we were in South Australia. Some of the Aussies we had met on our travels previously had queried Adelaide as a destination 'What d'you want to go there for?' but our first impressions were very positive as the airport was brand spanking new. Nat's house in the suburb of West Beach was quintessentially Australian, with a great pool and a really large open area for barbies and only a five minute walk to a massive beautiful beach which had great sand, very few people and a few man eating sharks. Nat told us a few hair curling stories about this so we didn't go in for a swim . We were reminded of my sister's warnings to us in Peru 'Don't swim anywhere in Australia if you want to live.' Really, she can be a little melodromatic at times.

Nat had kindly made herself availiable to show us around for a few days so on the first day we stopped off at the neighbouring suburb of Glenelg where they have some nice restaurants and a monument to the earliest settlers. The next day we drove down to Victor Harbour about 100kms south of Adelaide down the coast. It reminded me a little of an English seaside town with the promenade and stands selling fish and chips. The weather was very different obviously. Nat showed us some of the new building that is happening down there at the moment - loads of new beachfront constuction and retirement homes since the Oz property market went throught the roof a few years ago. They have so much land it is incredible but as you get further from the main cities less and less people are interested in living there. Victor Harbour was one place that suddenly became in demand as people's idea of what was too far away from town shifted down the coast a few miles.

On the way there we visited a wildlife park with all the lovely fluffy animals you would expect plus a few more interesting nasty ones. Tiggy was popular with a few of the Kangaroos and we got to pat one of the koalas. You have to be careful or they will wee on you.

Australia has 20 of the 23 most poisionous snakes in the world and we got to see most of them on our trip. We saw a few crocks here too. Just look at those snappers! The big male was real mean. He definately wanted to eat his handler.

On the way back we drove through the Mclaren Vale which is a large wine producing area. It was beautiful there but there was sadly no time for sampling the local produce as we needed to get back to the house to experiance our first aussie barbeque - it was a real sizzler.

The Adelaide fringe festival was on while we were there, so we went down to that for a day. It is the second biggest festival of it's kind in the world (behind Edinburgh) so it was pretty spectacular. We saw this amazing Italian wire act with hundreds of performers that was staged at night over the Torrens River in the middle of the city.

We visited the German town Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills and enjoyed some strudel (Aussie cakes are really excellent by the way - everywhere we went they were very impressive). The hills were beautiful too. We saw some wild koalas up there sleeping in an old gum tree. They don't really do an awful lot if the truth be told. But they looked happy.

We visited the Barrossa Valley for a spot of wine tasting - absolutely fabulous. We just drove around the valley and were given loads of wine to sample. The atmosphere in the tasting rooms was completely relaxed and unpretentious - very unfrench you could say. The quality at all levels was very good. No wonder the Aussies are cleaning up in the mid price market and no one is bothering to buy French table wines. We tryed some cracking sparkling reds - which was a type of wine I hadn't seen much of before. We bought some to bring home but of course very little made it out of the state let alone the country. Any tips? Well Grant Burge does a good Merlot and all the wines we tried by small winemaker Murray Street were fantastic - but could be difficult to find in the UK.

We said goodbye to Natalie and flew to Sydney. We had originally planned to drive there via Melboune but that was unrealistic - we had just run out of time. The vehicle hire could have been problematic as well.

The first thing we needed to do in Sydney was sort out our visas for China, Mongolia and Russia for later on in our trip. We had been let down by Trailfinders who had first said they would sort this out for us when we arrived in Australia and then said 'Oh we don't do that for UK passport holders'. Swines. Each visa would likely take a few days so we had a problem. The best we could do was take them round to each consulate in turn and pay for express processing where possible. When we told our cab driver we needed to go to the Russian embassy he first asked me if I was Russian and then proceeded to lay into the Russians - 'don't trust them'. He was a Polish immigrant - hence the animosity. He did tell me how to drink a shot of Vodka in one though:

'Don't drink with a Russian as with them it is always competition. If you must drink shot of Vodka do it like this - deep breath out, then deep breath in as you drink, then deep breath out.' So now you know.

Incidentally he was not the only one who thought I was Russian - all the Russians in the consulate spoke to me in Russian first and even Christina the nice Cypriot lady in the hostel asked me if I was Russian before laying in to them after Tiggy told her of our Visa problems. The Russians aren't too popular in Cyprus either then it seems - 'Gangsters, bad people.'

We met Paula on the steps of the opera house and went out for a for a drink. She has been living in Sydney for a few years and was on great form. We were able to visit her home neighbourhood of Manly on the ferry from Circular Quay. Great beach again. Paula has a perfect journey to work - that ferry trip takes some beating as a commute. Sometimes they will divert the route for a few minutes if they see a pod of dolphins - that doesn't happen on the Northern Line.

The next day we met Tig's Mum and Dad for our trip around the Blue Mountains. It was great to see them and we all had a look around town and the opera house before heading off and picking up the van.

Our van was a luxury winnebago and we wasted no time in leaving Sydney: destination Blue Mountains. As it turned out we were heading in totally the wrong direction. It was absolutely the navigator's fault and as that was me we will gloss over that one. Luckily, we still managed to arrive in Katoomba before nightfall and got the van parked. The caravan site had it's own resident Cocatoo, which was a bonus. He was a bit cheeky.

The Blue Mountains are so called because the thousands of Eucaliptus trees there give off a oily haze so from a distance and with the sun behind them the whole mountain range appears blue. It is very special.

The caravan park was just over the road from 'Scenic World' which had it's own railway and cablecar as access down into the valley where we could see all the amazing wildlife of the area. There were some fantastic ancient trees down there in the forest as well as the remains of an old mining post.

We were able to wander around these on a system of walkways that they had set up. There were great views of the 'Three Sisters' from down there which are these beautiful rock formations with cultural Significance for the aboriginal people.

Going back up the Scenic Railway to the top of the valley was an experiance - it is the steepest in the world so is more like a rollercoaster than anything, plenty of people were screaming. We also saw saw some lovely formal gardens in Loura which also had spectacular views over the valley.

We planned to move on up to the Hunter Valley next and enroute we visited the Jenolan Caves wich were massive - this bit was called the dragon's head.

Unfortunately we rather underestimated the amount of time it would take to get up to the Hunter Valley and we found ourselves out in rural New South Wales for the night. This was a world away from the bright ligts of Sydney - proper bush country. A bloke we met there who gave us directions was like an extra from Deliverance. So we stopped for the night at Wiseman's Ferry and camped on the banks of the MacDonald River. The ferry was a low tech push me pull you affair which was fun.

We made it to the Hunter Valley and set about a bit of wine tasting. It turned out that we had miscalculated our timings as to when we had to return the van so we got a whole extra day in the valley. Excellent!

Our drive back to Sydney was not without incident. We were in a hurry to get off so managed to scrape the roof of the van on a low carport at the exit of the caravan park. It seems we all missed the sign saying 'caravans follow other route'. The air conditioner got a bit dinged but the guys at the caravan park came running out to let our tyres down so we could free ourselves and then pumped us up again.

When we got back to Sydney we had to rush to pick up our visas from the Russian Consulate. Luckily all had gone well so we now had the visas we needed for our train journey. The rest of the day was spent getting some sun on Bondi Beach - not too shabby!

We said goodbye to Derek and Elaine the next day. They were heading off to Singapore on their way home which was our next stop after Australia. It had been great to see them and we had a great few days together. It would not be all that long until we saw them back in the UK.

We flew up to Byron Bay and enjoyed a couple more sunny days there before getting the bus up to Brisbane where our friend Sophie met us. She had kindly offered to let us stay with her while we were in Brisvegas.

Sophie and Clive have just had a little baby. Her name is Charlotte and she is beautiful.

Tigs and me got the ferry out to Tangalooma on Morton Island - a massive sand island similar to better known Fraser Island but a little smaller. It was really peaceful there. At one point we found hundreds of starfish washed up on the shore so we did them a favour and threw them back in.

We went out with Sophie the next day to the Sunshine coast at Moololahbah and were able to also visit the lunatic Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. The Zoo had more cuddly and nasty creatures to enjoy but we sadly failed to meet the great man himself.

Then off to the airport to catch our flight for Singapore. Good on ya Oz.