Hey there readers, I hope you're sitting down, I've got some surprising news that may lead to you incurring the wrath of gravity.... I've been sunburnt! As always with these things, it was totally not my fault.... However if you ask for any qualification of that point you'll have to give me some time to figure out exactly why. So, since we last spoke not much has changed in terms of my start and end point, I am still writing from the same hostel in Hanoi and enjoying the exact same tuna melt (by the way, finest tuna melt I have ever had...) and the beauty is, I'm still loving it. One of the finest touches is that this is the first, and potentially last, hostel with my taste in music, such places do exist!! But, let's talk Sapa!
Sapa is a small mountain village which up until 5 years ago was only a small farming community. But since capitalism has come to Vietnam it has become a small trekking base in the midst of rice paddy country for backpackers and tourists. The town itself is one of the strangest places I've ever seen and the closest I've come to entering the Silent Hill universe. The place itself though was quite a distance from Hanoi, so we had to get another sleeper train over to a nearby train station and then mini-bus over to Sapa from there. Whilst we're on the subject, I think it's seriously time for the Brits to start considering bringing sleeper trains over to England. When I used to go over to Aberystwyth it would be an arduous long-winded journey (albeit a rather exciting one!) but install a bed and you have the making of a relaxing journey through the valleys, rivers and hills of rural Wales (it's amazing the difference being horizontal can make to one's perspective!). So, back to Silent Hill. When we landed in Sapa, me and Ben had seen an observation point overlooking the town, it's lake and all the surrounding mountains. As it was a perfectly clear day, we thought we'd scout up ahead and see what our new home was like! As we were up on the observation point doing our finest tourist impressions, the clouds swept over the town and in the matter of a minute it had gone from clear blue sky to not being able to see the hand in front of your face, and to finish the magic trick, the clouds then disappeared and it was back to perfection again. I've got a small video that I'll put up once I leave Vietnam, it doesn't do it justice, but it proves it wasn't a drinking-induced hallucination at the very least!
The trek itself lasted for two days with a one night homestay at a local house in the middle of the mountains. Sadly, because we're still in the midst of a winter-y rainy season, the photos aren't as good as the ones you'll pull up from Google image search, but the experience was irreplaceable! The first day mainly consisted of being overwhelmed by the beauty of the valleys and rice paddies, a 18km mountain trek and a bit of information provided to us from our legend of a guide Vanh. We also were escorted by a group of locals, or minorities as they're called here, who mainly stuck around, helped us for the difficult bits and offered to sell us some of the tackiest purses/bags you have ever seen in your life. Luckily they were pretty inoffensive and were good at dealing with rejection so there was no retribution from my refusals at their very generous offers. The first day was a very easy going trek and ended with us being welcomed into our village for the night by some very inactive mating pigs (think of the British porn sketch from Family Guy and you've got the jist), a pool table and our comfy lodgings for the night. That first night was also the first night we found rice wine, which is a 25% gin and rice based spirit which has the miraculous feature of being an alcohol which leaves no hangover. Therefore, we promptly engaged in a bit more traditional British over-indulgence with our guides and a very reasonable 1am bed-time ready for the hardest day of trekking I may ever experience!
Just before I go into the second day, one important detail worth mentioning is that at 4am or so, we had two hours or pretty hard rain.... That is all, we gave it no attention at all, why should we? Well, the reason we should have is that the soil around the Saba region is mainly a clay based soil with a very (I may be wrong here....) low (?) watertable i.e. very prone to flooding and bogging. This was a major concern one hour into our mountain trek when we were unable to push off of our standing foot without slipping, falling over and (optionally) making a girly screamy sound. This was also the day I had my first genuine near death experience and the day I made a friend for life in one of the minorities who had the presence of mind to know a stupid tourist when they see one and leapt to my rescue. There was a very thin ledge with a sharp bank above and below surrounded by bamboo. Just below us, was the bamboo that had recently been harvested, and above was some bamboo roots and a marauding and very unstable buffalo. One other essential detail is that when they harvest bamboo, they axe from four separate sides crafting a form of spike with the point facing up. We were al edging along, unable to just trust our footing, so clinging onto the protruding roots and loose bamboo for support. The problem came when I was edging along and grabbed a root that had neither the strength nor will to hold my weight, and came lose. I fell backwards, and if it wasn't for my lifelong friend, I'd have been spending the night with a bamboo spike through my chest.... All fun and games in Vietnam! I'm aware I'm rambling, so to sum up, the trek lasted 8 hours or so, we met some very disgruntled older Americans on the way who despaired at the low level of health and safety regulations, saw a beautiful waterfall, walked across a VERY rickety bridge and had the time of our lives! It's the type of activity I can't morally recommend, would never do again, but will never forget and, quite frankly, it's one of the best days I've had since my adventures began!
When we ultimately arrived back in Hanoi at 3am, covered from head to toe in clay and mud we promptly moved our Halong Bay trip back by one day and spent a day trying to unearth the human that we knew was about 4 layers of filth down and tried to go about correcting some of the promises we'd made to non-specific deities during our near-death day of slippery mountain trekking. Also, I watched the A-team, fantastic film by the way! So when Halong Bay came, we had a bit of cabin fever going on, and wanted to get out for a bit of quite culture, beautiful scenery and some relaxing boat time. We got only one of these on our trip. One thing I will say about Halong Bay, it is just as beautiful as the pictures of it suggest and no amount of camera trickery can make it look any where near as fantastic as it does in person. It will stick with me forever, but my photos won't do it justice and at no point will I suggest they will. It was breath-taking. As for the culture and relaxation, we didn't realise it was just a drinking boat, now we do and in hindsight, I can't really believe I didn't see it coming. Everyone was under 24 years old, it was our guides last ever tour of Halong Bay and it had a small restaurant-cum-club downstairs with a chilling area up top on deck. So after our kayaking ride and exploration of some island caves, we headed back, drank, found some much improved rules for Ring of Fire and slept. The next day was mainly about recovery and falling asleep on deck (hence where the sunburn came in!), it was a fantastic night but all I'll say is my body still isn't quite forgiving me for my excess and I'm looking forward to a week or two or sobriety so I can try and uncover that briefly exposed patch of humanity again.
Tonight we're headed by sleeper bus to Huan, which is small beach town on the East Coast and about 18 hours by road away. Despite the fact we're now in the middle of our 6th week travelling, this will be our first beach and, although my skin is freshly grilled, I'm rather looking forward to it! A few things I don't think I've mentioned up to this point. Vietnam has firmly planted it's flag into the Communist regime and has banned Facebook, there's a few computers here that can bypass it, but it's quite difficult and quite illegal. Therefore, all photos will have to wait until Cambodia until they see the light of internet. Additionally, my contact with Facebook will be heavily depleted and even Skype is proving as issue. If anyone wants to get in contact or just send me some more of that delicious fan mail, send it to RichardHarrison13@live.com. I really appreciate all the niceties people are sending me concerning my blog, it's a true pleasure to keep on writing and updating this and it's also good for my aging memory as I don't want to let any of these details slip through the crevices of time and age. But ultimately, this blog is for the people back home and for anyone who is interested in what I'm up to and where I'm headed and in which specific ways I'm making a tit of myself. My friends, I can promise you I'll keep you abreast of all of these details! I've been a way long enough now that I can say you're all being missed and that, although we're meeting lots of very cool, friendly and awesome people, they don't quite compare to some of you guys that I've left behind. So take care of yourselves, and hopefully, maybe I'll be seeing a few of you before eventually touchdown in Grand Britannia in 2012!
R
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Saturday, 19 February 2011
Back in 'Nam
First of all, I want to dispell all of the controversy that's been whipped up by the media in England, I did not die in a rather tragic accident in Halong Bay and am still very much alive and kicking. Thanks for all emails, be they emotional or rather humorous, but it'll take more than a bit of water to see this old bastard off! As you may have guessed from my hilariously unique title, I have left my first country permenantly and am free of Laos and into the lush wilderness of Vietnam! Although, I must say you wouldn't know it at the moment, as cool a city that Hanoi is, it is just a city... But none-the-less, it beats Vientiane hands down, so I can't even pretend to be disappointed as to my new home! For a start, I've nestled in to my finest hostel yet! It's a 7 story hostel called Hanoi backpackers, incredibly clean, modern, friendly, run by a group of backpackers and with the most vibrant social feel we've had yet. But first, as is my ever predictable format, I'll bring you all up to date with my progress!
We're still in the delightful presence of Cass and Paige, the two Canadian girls who we met in Pai and re-met in Vang Vieng, although we're down to our last day tomorrow (it's amazing how many emotional goodbyes you need in my business!). We decided to stick around in Vientiane for the full 3 days and had a great time, but most likely owe it all to Paige and Cass, me and Ben can only be so entertaining! The one problem with hanging around in capitals, is you find your days revolve simply around food, drink and sleep; not unlike my old student lifestyle. One night we decided to go and watch the Laos national football team take on China Taipai (not the big red China, the small little one), you know you've had a rather uninteresting day when you're linking arms and shouting along with some locals for Laos to score that much needed equaliser (I'm probably telling you what you already all know, but it was a thrilling 1-1 with a red card for Laos moments before an equaliser of epic proportions!). So aside from a bit of eating and a bit of drinking, add in a late night playground session, with added customisable obstacle course, some swimming and a very very late night session watching Arsenal vs Barcelona (HOW GREAT WAS THAT MATCH?!), you get the jist of our time in Vientiane!
I found that our most eventful story in Vientiene was actually our journey/escape out! As I've said before, our Vietnam visa didn't start until the 18th, so we were thumb twiddlers for most of our time in Laos and did a bit of research into how to get out. The options were as follows:
Local bus (w/ chickens, no space and rude Vietnamese drivers)
VIP bus (minus chickens, but with no space and rude Vietnamese drivers)
Sleeper bus (only a 10% chance of chickens, no space and rude Vietnamese drivers)
VIP Sleeper bus (no livestock of any kind, no space and rude Vietnamese drivers)
Plane (65% survival rate, but a journey time 23 hours less than all previous alternatives)
All buses, cost about the same and the plane was £120 more expensive. What else was there to do readers? I'm a cheap travel-y backpacker type, but with strong middle-class roots! We went for option number 4 of course! All I'll say is no matter the comfort, 24 hours is a very long time to spend on a bus. The pictures won't do it justice but it was a bunkbed type situation with a capacity of about 20 and 30 people onboard. I was below Paige and within breathing distance of Ben, yet we still managed to gain a Vietnamese person (who appeared to have the world's most everpresent and boney elbows I have ever seen) in between me and Ben on the ground floor. I'll also tell you we had a screaming baby (compulsory to all above choices), 7 chronic snorers, a nation that is quite OK with with public displays of body function and a bus driver who it appears had just been bought a new extra loud bus horn and was willing to show it off whenever overtaking, being overtaken, behind or infront of someone, passing a traffic light, waiting at a traffic light, when on the correct or incorrect side of the road etc etc etc..... Not such a great night sleep, but I have never seen a more effective Ipod commercial and have written off the email to Mr Jobs this very day! In the end, after a rather protracted visit to the Vietnamese immigration (1 hour to stamp a &"!*ing passport?!?!) we arrived and settled it at our greatest hostel ever.
The hostel is incredibly international, we've met some Finnish, Canadian, American, Aussie, Irish, Chinese, Japanese and even a gent born in Guildford! The people are fantastic and everyday we have a new theme in the both the bars. In order we have:
Monday- Live music with free wine
Tuesday- Beer and Pizza for 50p each
Wednesday- Pub quiz (that's right guys! I'm back in the game)
Thursday- Beer pong
Friday- BOGOF cocktails
Saturday- BOGOF drinks for ladies and crossdressers
Sunday- BBQ with free beer and a punk rock band
Tonight, I'll be resisting the appealing of transvestitism to go to one of the "corner bars", which are holes in the wall on busy intersections where you take a seat and drink 15p pints of beer. Imagine a health and safety man taking his inspection to that! Also, as a brief preview, we've booked our trip to Halong Bay, despite the indefinite ban on sleeping on boats because thankfully our hostel has it's own private paradise island where we can stay and party in the wee hours. At the same time, we've booked a trek into the mountains for a bit of kayaking, waterfall swimming and a house stay with a family who runs a rice paddy farm, can't get more authentic than that!
So, that's so far all I've done, relatively small update for such a long time I know, but that's the effect living in a capital has on you! One more thing, for those eagle eye'd readers out there, you may have noticed I've mentioned I'll put up some pictures of our trip on the bus.... Yup, I've recruited a new camera! It's a small little green number that matches my eyes which is advertised as drunk idiot proof (they picked the perfect target market round here!). It's water proof, dust and sand proof, fall proof and freeze/heat proof. The only thing is it's not drink related amnesia proof so I'm going to have to make sure I superglue it to my hands or risk an extensive lawsuit when I sue them for false advertising! It's a very sexy little camera and I'm quite proud of it, I'll post some pictures of it when I can get my small brain around the logistics of taking a picture of the item you're using to take the picture... Either that, or wait til I get back to England! You guys know me best, you pick the most likely outcome!
R
We're still in the delightful presence of Cass and Paige, the two Canadian girls who we met in Pai and re-met in Vang Vieng, although we're down to our last day tomorrow (it's amazing how many emotional goodbyes you need in my business!). We decided to stick around in Vientiane for the full 3 days and had a great time, but most likely owe it all to Paige and Cass, me and Ben can only be so entertaining! The one problem with hanging around in capitals, is you find your days revolve simply around food, drink and sleep; not unlike my old student lifestyle. One night we decided to go and watch the Laos national football team take on China Taipai (not the big red China, the small little one), you know you've had a rather uninteresting day when you're linking arms and shouting along with some locals for Laos to score that much needed equaliser (I'm probably telling you what you already all know, but it was a thrilling 1-1 with a red card for Laos moments before an equaliser of epic proportions!). So aside from a bit of eating and a bit of drinking, add in a late night playground session, with added customisable obstacle course, some swimming and a very very late night session watching Arsenal vs Barcelona (HOW GREAT WAS THAT MATCH?!), you get the jist of our time in Vientiane!
I found that our most eventful story in Vientiene was actually our journey/escape out! As I've said before, our Vietnam visa didn't start until the 18th, so we were thumb twiddlers for most of our time in Laos and did a bit of research into how to get out. The options were as follows:
Local bus (w/ chickens, no space and rude Vietnamese drivers)
VIP bus (minus chickens, but with no space and rude Vietnamese drivers)
Sleeper bus (only a 10% chance of chickens, no space and rude Vietnamese drivers)
VIP Sleeper bus (no livestock of any kind, no space and rude Vietnamese drivers)
Plane (65% survival rate, but a journey time 23 hours less than all previous alternatives)
All buses, cost about the same and the plane was £120 more expensive. What else was there to do readers? I'm a cheap travel-y backpacker type, but with strong middle-class roots! We went for option number 4 of course! All I'll say is no matter the comfort, 24 hours is a very long time to spend on a bus. The pictures won't do it justice but it was a bunkbed type situation with a capacity of about 20 and 30 people onboard. I was below Paige and within breathing distance of Ben, yet we still managed to gain a Vietnamese person (who appeared to have the world's most everpresent and boney elbows I have ever seen) in between me and Ben on the ground floor. I'll also tell you we had a screaming baby (compulsory to all above choices), 7 chronic snorers, a nation that is quite OK with with public displays of body function and a bus driver who it appears had just been bought a new extra loud bus horn and was willing to show it off whenever overtaking, being overtaken, behind or infront of someone, passing a traffic light, waiting at a traffic light, when on the correct or incorrect side of the road etc etc etc..... Not such a great night sleep, but I have never seen a more effective Ipod commercial and have written off the email to Mr Jobs this very day! In the end, after a rather protracted visit to the Vietnamese immigration (1 hour to stamp a &"!*ing passport?!?!) we arrived and settled it at our greatest hostel ever.
The hostel is incredibly international, we've met some Finnish, Canadian, American, Aussie, Irish, Chinese, Japanese and even a gent born in Guildford! The people are fantastic and everyday we have a new theme in the both the bars. In order we have:
Monday- Live music with free wine
Tuesday- Beer and Pizza for 50p each
Wednesday- Pub quiz (that's right guys! I'm back in the game)
Thursday- Beer pong
Friday- BOGOF cocktails
Saturday- BOGOF drinks for ladies and crossdressers
Sunday- BBQ with free beer and a punk rock band
Tonight, I'll be resisting the appealing of transvestitism to go to one of the "corner bars", which are holes in the wall on busy intersections where you take a seat and drink 15p pints of beer. Imagine a health and safety man taking his inspection to that! Also, as a brief preview, we've booked our trip to Halong Bay, despite the indefinite ban on sleeping on boats because thankfully our hostel has it's own private paradise island where we can stay and party in the wee hours. At the same time, we've booked a trek into the mountains for a bit of kayaking, waterfall swimming and a house stay with a family who runs a rice paddy farm, can't get more authentic than that!
So, that's so far all I've done, relatively small update for such a long time I know, but that's the effect living in a capital has on you! One more thing, for those eagle eye'd readers out there, you may have noticed I've mentioned I'll put up some pictures of our trip on the bus.... Yup, I've recruited a new camera! It's a small little green number that matches my eyes which is advertised as drunk idiot proof (they picked the perfect target market round here!). It's water proof, dust and sand proof, fall proof and freeze/heat proof. The only thing is it's not drink related amnesia proof so I'm going to have to make sure I superglue it to my hands or risk an extensive lawsuit when I sue them for false advertising! It's a very sexy little camera and I'm quite proud of it, I'll post some pictures of it when I can get my small brain around the logistics of taking a picture of the item you're using to take the picture... Either that, or wait til I get back to England! You guys know me best, you pick the most likely outcome!
R
Monday, 14 February 2011
Escape
I write to you from the very image of luxury! We have a hotel room, with a fridge, TV, bath and A/C (with remote!). We have decided to ignore the rigorous budgeting standards we set ourselves and splash out the necessary £6 for the night in paradise. So far, it may be up there with the finest £6 we've spent/invested so far on our trip. We finally managed to escape the allure of Vang Vieng with it's free whiskey, tubing and looped Friends episodes and I couldn't be more happy to get out of there. In fact, if it wasnt for the brilliant company of Paige and Cass (our shiny new Canadian comrades), I honestly don't know how my sanity would have held up against the strain of temptation and sin. I'll briefly recap the Vang Vieng adventures, and then give you an insight into my organisational musings about the next week or so.
So, by now, you know all there is to know about Vang Vieng and my opinions upon the subject of the god-forsaken place. The only thing that may confuse you, is that I have to say, I had an awesome time there! The first day, we took to the river and started our tubing experience. 4 bars in (out of 16 or so) we had to head back and dump Ben back in the hostel after he.... overindulged in the local whiskey/coke buckets (yea, alcohol comes in bucket sized in Laos). The second day was very much spelt wasting time and this is so far my only regret of the trip, to waste time in England is to be employed, to waste time on holiday is to abandon common decency. On the third day we said farewell to Sim and the Baron who decided to go on to Vang Vieng a couple of days early, however, having bumped into Cass and Paige who we'd originally met back in Pai, we had two ready and eager replacements in the wings and I owe them more for their company than I can put into words!
The first day with new friends was a total success. We tried our hang at tubing one last time and had a supremely fun day! With the rope swings, spray paint tattoos, whiskey buckets, slides, beer pong and flip cup (with a generous helping of really sociable people along the way) it was a guaranteed win from the off. The second day, our dynamic quadrupio rented some road bikes and headed off on the most ill advised and poorly planned off-roading journey we've done yet. Needless to say, sitting down still presents a very active problem in my life, I will never complain about the M25 road surface ever again! But our destination, the Ban Nathaong caves and blue lagoon made the sterility a worthy sacrifice! Basically, it was a deep turquoise blue lagoon with a rope swing or two that was host to a entire eco-system of exotic fish, followed by a cavern network that was once used to hide marauding Chinese criminals and thieves. We got lost within the pitch black cave for an hour or two and felt 10 years old all over again! There was no development, no tourist feel, just natural rocks and stalagmites to clamber over and explore and once we found a deserted small corner of the cave to relax at chat within, even the terrifying cave spiders (which I shan't go into detail over) became a minor worry. To finish off the day, we stayed up until 6ish chatting on the banks of the Nan Song with a Lao Beer or four and so ended our Vang Vieng experience!
Since yesterday, all it appears we've done is wake up, stumble across our travel agent where we booked our transit to Vientienne and get told that the roads are "broken" so a 45 minute Tuk-Tuk ride was in order, which was highly incompatible with my aforementioned lower body bruising, followed by a four hour bus journey and now we've made it to the city! So, after checking into our luxurious new home, we had a bite to eat and celebrated the fact that Valentine's Day is very ignorable over here and returned home for our first early civilised night in a week! Sadly, we're not allowed into Vietnam until the 18th, so we've now got to decide whether we stay in the capital for 4 days, move down South to the 4000 islands region which is a giant river delta, last remaining home of the endangered pink river dolphin, or move North to the hils and go on a trek to the hill tribes. The decisions of a traveller do weigh heavy on my mind.... Perhaps I'll have a lie-in tomorrow? Maybe a massage.... maybe both! But don't worry, don't be feeling sorry for me just yet, it's not all bad! It's Valentine's Day and I haven't seen a single rose or heart shaped box of chocolates yet! Bliss!
R
So, by now, you know all there is to know about Vang Vieng and my opinions upon the subject of the god-forsaken place. The only thing that may confuse you, is that I have to say, I had an awesome time there! The first day, we took to the river and started our tubing experience. 4 bars in (out of 16 or so) we had to head back and dump Ben back in the hostel after he.... overindulged in the local whiskey/coke buckets (yea, alcohol comes in bucket sized in Laos). The second day was very much spelt wasting time and this is so far my only regret of the trip, to waste time in England is to be employed, to waste time on holiday is to abandon common decency. On the third day we said farewell to Sim and the Baron who decided to go on to Vang Vieng a couple of days early, however, having bumped into Cass and Paige who we'd originally met back in Pai, we had two ready and eager replacements in the wings and I owe them more for their company than I can put into words!
The first day with new friends was a total success. We tried our hang at tubing one last time and had a supremely fun day! With the rope swings, spray paint tattoos, whiskey buckets, slides, beer pong and flip cup (with a generous helping of really sociable people along the way) it was a guaranteed win from the off. The second day, our dynamic quadrupio rented some road bikes and headed off on the most ill advised and poorly planned off-roading journey we've done yet. Needless to say, sitting down still presents a very active problem in my life, I will never complain about the M25 road surface ever again! But our destination, the Ban Nathaong caves and blue lagoon made the sterility a worthy sacrifice! Basically, it was a deep turquoise blue lagoon with a rope swing or two that was host to a entire eco-system of exotic fish, followed by a cavern network that was once used to hide marauding Chinese criminals and thieves. We got lost within the pitch black cave for an hour or two and felt 10 years old all over again! There was no development, no tourist feel, just natural rocks and stalagmites to clamber over and explore and once we found a deserted small corner of the cave to relax at chat within, even the terrifying cave spiders (which I shan't go into detail over) became a minor worry. To finish off the day, we stayed up until 6ish chatting on the banks of the Nan Song with a Lao Beer or four and so ended our Vang Vieng experience!
Since yesterday, all it appears we've done is wake up, stumble across our travel agent where we booked our transit to Vientienne and get told that the roads are "broken" so a 45 minute Tuk-Tuk ride was in order, which was highly incompatible with my aforementioned lower body bruising, followed by a four hour bus journey and now we've made it to the city! So, after checking into our luxurious new home, we had a bite to eat and celebrated the fact that Valentine's Day is very ignorable over here and returned home for our first early civilised night in a week! Sadly, we're not allowed into Vietnam until the 18th, so we've now got to decide whether we stay in the capital for 4 days, move down South to the 4000 islands region which is a giant river delta, last remaining home of the endangered pink river dolphin, or move North to the hils and go on a trek to the hill tribes. The decisions of a traveller do weigh heavy on my mind.... Perhaps I'll have a lie-in tomorrow? Maybe a massage.... maybe both! But don't worry, don't be feeling sorry for me just yet, it's not all bad! It's Valentine's Day and I haven't seen a single rose or heart shaped box of chocolates yet! Bliss!
R
Friday, 11 February 2011
Sin City
Hey peeps! Howsit going? I write to you from Vang Vieng in Laos, home to tubing, sin and cirrhosis (most probably in that order). It's a small town somewhere between Luang Prabang, where we came in from Thailand, and Vientienne, the capital. It consists of about 3 major streets consisting solely of bars, souvenir shops and travel agencies. Each of the bars sell litres of beer for about 80p and have a choice of either 24 hour Friends, Family Guy, Southpark or Simpsons. The town itself is pretty hellish.... You can only do this for so long before you realise it's what you spent 4 years of University doing and have relapsed back into old habits. However, the one saving grace for Vang Vieng is tubing.
Tubing is the equivalent of a bar crawl on a river. Therefore, you can throw in some giant rope swings, ziplines, mud volley-ball, free whiskey, beer pong tournaments and some generally friendly people! One addition is that Vang Vieng has taken a leaf out of Colonel Sander's book and sell's all types of drinks in bucket form and, as with the chicken, this only decreases the "good idea factor" by a good factor of 10. All in all, one thing that these factors combine to create is a general feeling of genuine danger if done recklessly. There's a rumour floating around across the town that the tubing circuit itself has been closed for the day as a girl was pushed in to a shallow portion of the river yesterday.... You get the general jist of the outcome and dangers. Our good friend Ben became a tragic victim of excess himself last night, and he was far from the only one around here! The guys that work as reps and barman around here are generally guys who were just stopping in for a day or two and ended up working here for 3 weeks. The one sage piece of advice they give to all tourists they meet is to get out ASAP....
So, as is the way with places like this, I can't report any nice scenery, appropriate stories or snapshots of Laotion culture..... Bit of an anti-climax! We're off to Vientienne on Sunday for a day or so, I'll buy a camera and then we're off down South to a place called 4000 islands which is home to the very rare pink river dolphin and a bit of beauty. So far, I'm afraid to report Laos hasn't stood up very well with Thailand, however you can never be upset for experiencing too much now can you?! I'll be giving an update of merit within the week (I hope....).
Hope all's well!
R
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Inevitability
Hey guys, spoiler warning, this is going to get pretentious and deep for a minute! I've got to vent somehow, and you guys can't technically punish me for doing so, I believe the phrase is captive audience? So, inevitability!
Inevitability is a strange concept, it highlights that we are powerless to act against the forces of the world, nature and society. It states that we have no ability to alter our destiny and that whatever occurs up until the inevitable act is predetermined and had already happened before we began. Buddha and Buddhism says that fate cannot exist, because it relinquishes all responsibility from the agent (or person) and transfers it to external influences. Buddha taught that to achieve true enlightenment (which is a state outside of time and space, a place outside of suffering and pain) you must engage in good karma. Karma is not an end result, something that you accumulate, instead it is the result of an action. Performing a good deed, can create (or uncover) good karma. All evil that occurs within this life or the next is a direct result of something you did in a previous life which was evil. So, keeping this in mind.... I lost my camera and contracted food poisoning.... Inevitable or not? Discuss.
But yes, I'm afraid my camera had enough of my mistreating hands and decided to scraper whilst it still had the battery power. So therefore, I'm going to be "describing blind" for the next week or so whilst I find a replacement in a town where satellite dishes, power showers, traffic lights or street lights are yet to make their long awaited debuts. How did it get lost I hear you cry? Well, it all started from when we left Pai and a good friend/carer called The Baron (yes, for all intents and purposes, that is her real name) was left behind. However, brief catch up, on my last day in Pai we decided to rent scooters as it was such a result in Chiang Mai. Our good scooting fortune turned out to be another success and we visited a waterfall (where some rather hairy footage of me sliding down and jumping down things was filmed, don't worry! I'm still fine!) and to some hot springs in the mountains where it was just cold enough that hot springs at 2pm in Thailand isnt as crazy as it sounds. We then got back onto our scooters, drove bac... oh, no.... we didn't. We simply got as far as our scooter and Ben went to retrieve the keys, needless to say, another batch of inevitability hit, and we were stranded with no key due to it currently being preoccupied with being at the bottom of some God forsaken 200 degrees pool of hot watery pain. Once we were rescued and paid the rather reasonable sum of £2 for doing so, we had one of the most emotional farewells ever towards a hostel owner (I may have mentioned our host Darling previously?), who gave us our own handmade waterbottle holders, a good luck bracelett and a few precious photos which are on my camera... you'd be amazed how often that realisation hits. So on our way to Luang Prabang, Laos. What could go wrong?
Well, first of all, the begin with it's a simple 7 hour minibus ride. The only problems are
a) There are quite a few VERY windy mountain roads between Pai and Laos
b) The driver was obviously very proud of his super cool air conditioning and was determined to show it off to the maximum
c) I was wearing very shallow pockets which a camera can quite easily slip out of onto, say, a minibus seat
d) We eventually got there at 4am when you're too tired to check the seats for, say, a camera.
So, relieved of the burden of the third-most valued possession I own (behind passport and debit card), we headed to the beginning of our 2 day long boat trip along the Mae Kong river. It was beautiful. Simply put. I'd show you, but I don't know if I mentioned that I lost my camera.... The first day we sat next to a splendid Australian couple in their thirties and met a few other good guys, played some cards, drank a bottle of 80p whiskey (yup!) and ended up in our town with a population of approx. 60 people for the night. Nothing out of the ordinary, shown to our rooms, showed the toilet facilities, told when breakfast was going to be, offered opium on room service and then given our keys... It is a very strange country, Laos. Needless to say, the drug abuse etched into our host's face and very being is a potent enough anti-drug advert that all you'd need is to televise him trying to pick up a pencil he dropped, pop it onto every television network in the world, buy the necessary 18 minutes of advertising time you'd need to see the end result and I think we'd be one step closer to a drug-free existence.
Sadly, the second day wasn't as fruitful as the first, we sat next to the type of Americans that the insult "douchebag" was invented for. They drank heavily, got topless, cracked out as acoustic guitar and sang about content was too complex for them to contemplate and simply ruined a few very classic songs for me for quite some time. I don't know what happened to them in the end, but if anyone asks, they fell into a river and were eaten to death by leeches, a man is allowed his dreams isn't he? So now, we are in Laos. It is a very odd country, possibly more Buddhist than Thailand, and therefore even more friendly. We visited some temples built deep within some riverside caves only accessible from the river this morning, then I was struck down with some type of food poisoning and now here I am writing my blog to you fine people. We'll be staying here for 3 days, waiting for the previously mentioned Baron to fly in and meet us, and then we are onto for Vang Vieng for some tubing, and that my friends is the tantalising cliff hanger I'll leave you on for now. If you don't know, I feel you'll be very jealous as to what it entails, I myself can't wait!
Hope all is well! I hear Hull City won 5-1? Seems I need to leave the country more often...
R
Inevitability is a strange concept, it highlights that we are powerless to act against the forces of the world, nature and society. It states that we have no ability to alter our destiny and that whatever occurs up until the inevitable act is predetermined and had already happened before we began. Buddha and Buddhism says that fate cannot exist, because it relinquishes all responsibility from the agent (or person) and transfers it to external influences. Buddha taught that to achieve true enlightenment (which is a state outside of time and space, a place outside of suffering and pain) you must engage in good karma. Karma is not an end result, something that you accumulate, instead it is the result of an action. Performing a good deed, can create (or uncover) good karma. All evil that occurs within this life or the next is a direct result of something you did in a previous life which was evil. So, keeping this in mind.... I lost my camera and contracted food poisoning.... Inevitable or not? Discuss.
But yes, I'm afraid my camera had enough of my mistreating hands and decided to scraper whilst it still had the battery power. So therefore, I'm going to be "describing blind" for the next week or so whilst I find a replacement in a town where satellite dishes, power showers, traffic lights or street lights are yet to make their long awaited debuts. How did it get lost I hear you cry? Well, it all started from when we left Pai and a good friend/carer called The Baron (yes, for all intents and purposes, that is her real name) was left behind. However, brief catch up, on my last day in Pai we decided to rent scooters as it was such a result in Chiang Mai. Our good scooting fortune turned out to be another success and we visited a waterfall (where some rather hairy footage of me sliding down and jumping down things was filmed, don't worry! I'm still fine!) and to some hot springs in the mountains where it was just cold enough that hot springs at 2pm in Thailand isnt as crazy as it sounds. We then got back onto our scooters, drove bac... oh, no.... we didn't. We simply got as far as our scooter and Ben went to retrieve the keys, needless to say, another batch of inevitability hit, and we were stranded with no key due to it currently being preoccupied with being at the bottom of some God forsaken 200 degrees pool of hot watery pain. Once we were rescued and paid the rather reasonable sum of £2 for doing so, we had one of the most emotional farewells ever towards a hostel owner (I may have mentioned our host Darling previously?), who gave us our own handmade waterbottle holders, a good luck bracelett and a few precious photos which are on my camera... you'd be amazed how often that realisation hits. So on our way to Luang Prabang, Laos. What could go wrong?
Well, first of all, the begin with it's a simple 7 hour minibus ride. The only problems are
a) There are quite a few VERY windy mountain roads between Pai and Laos
b) The driver was obviously very proud of his super cool air conditioning and was determined to show it off to the maximum
c) I was wearing very shallow pockets which a camera can quite easily slip out of onto, say, a minibus seat
d) We eventually got there at 4am when you're too tired to check the seats for, say, a camera.
So, relieved of the burden of the third-most valued possession I own (behind passport and debit card), we headed to the beginning of our 2 day long boat trip along the Mae Kong river. It was beautiful. Simply put. I'd show you, but I don't know if I mentioned that I lost my camera.... The first day we sat next to a splendid Australian couple in their thirties and met a few other good guys, played some cards, drank a bottle of 80p whiskey (yup!) and ended up in our town with a population of approx. 60 people for the night. Nothing out of the ordinary, shown to our rooms, showed the toilet facilities, told when breakfast was going to be, offered opium on room service and then given our keys... It is a very strange country, Laos. Needless to say, the drug abuse etched into our host's face and very being is a potent enough anti-drug advert that all you'd need is to televise him trying to pick up a pencil he dropped, pop it onto every television network in the world, buy the necessary 18 minutes of advertising time you'd need to see the end result and I think we'd be one step closer to a drug-free existence.
Sadly, the second day wasn't as fruitful as the first, we sat next to the type of Americans that the insult "douchebag" was invented for. They drank heavily, got topless, cracked out as acoustic guitar and sang about content was too complex for them to contemplate and simply ruined a few very classic songs for me for quite some time. I don't know what happened to them in the end, but if anyone asks, they fell into a river and were eaten to death by leeches, a man is allowed his dreams isn't he? So now, we are in Laos. It is a very odd country, possibly more Buddhist than Thailand, and therefore even more friendly. We visited some temples built deep within some riverside caves only accessible from the river this morning, then I was struck down with some type of food poisoning and now here I am writing my blog to you fine people. We'll be staying here for 3 days, waiting for the previously mentioned Baron to fly in and meet us, and then we are onto for Vang Vieng for some tubing, and that my friends is the tantalising cliff hanger I'll leave you on for now. If you don't know, I feel you'll be very jealous as to what it entails, I myself can't wait!
Hope all is well! I hear Hull City won 5-1? Seems I need to leave the country more often...
R
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Short and Sweet
Hey peeps! This will be short enough to compensate for the previous two monsters I've written for you! Am currently sat in the hostel, waiting for half 7 when we depart for Laos. The trip will consist of 7 hours on a minibus and a couple of days on a boat, I'm going to be incredibly grumpy, but have never had a better time to get to know some of the lesser known music on my iPod. Now, not to induce a sense of melancholy across my readership, but Laos lacks the fantastic internet facilities of Thailand, so I may be undergoing radio silence over the next two weeks, but at the very least, we'll be back with a bang when I reach Hanoi in Vietnam on the 18/19th February. Got a few bits to report on my last days of Pai, but it may have to wait for another monster blog come Vietnam! To conclude though, I do NOT want to leave Pai, it's like breaking up with a much loved girlfriend only I get to keep all my stuff and I'm going to be using Laos as my rebound... If only women could be so courteous!
R
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