Daft punks

On a bus to Vientiane we sat behind the weirdest girl.
It started with her singing out loud along with her ipod. Then she started cutting some dance moves in her seat. Mental. Bus ride was 4 hours long- she kept us entertained the whole way.
You meet some strange people when you move around.

Vientiane is damn hot. All we have done so far is ride a motorbike up and down to find a swimming pool. The pool was good.

That's it for now. Back to the pool.

Space Planet, Vang Vieng

Ok, so all we've heard for ever (from Mr P. Smiley) is about this little town in the middle of Laos where you go tubing. Everyone's like "Dude, you gotta go- it fuckin rocks!" (Maybe this'll clue you into the type of people who told us this.)
So we did and luckily, I survived to tell the tale.

We came here and actually kinda ruined ourselves on the first day. Spent the evening eating pizzas and drinking Beer Lao and headed to 'The Island'. A small island in the middle of the river the borders the town, which is covered in makeshift bamboo bars.
We lay in hammocks in front of a bonfire, drank from our over sized beers while Irish jigs played and felt like (Irish) pirates. It was St Patricks day, and it ended in carnage.

The next day was a write off, but the day after we headed out tubing. You hire a large tube, and get dumped in the river, which is lined with more bamboo bars and ladies yelling out "Free Lao Lao!" Music (bad, nasty Vengaboys style) is being pumped out and there are mad swings from all the bars out over the river. This is like at 11.30 am.

So we drank beers and lounged on the riverside and tubed the rapids. Toby took off like Tarzan and did every swing. We made friends with a German/Israeli couple- and Pascal pushed Toby to greater heights. "Swing longer Toby! It is a swing so you must SWING!. Embarrassingly I climbed one and then climbed back down. It may have been how intoxicated I was, but I just went weak at the knees. Shame.

As the sun was setting, we were drifting down a much quieter part of the river, which is lined by massive karst formations- huge mountainous rocks pushed out of the earth. It was very, very cool. It was beginning to get cold so fifteen of us piled into one tuk tuk- a major feat with fifteen tubes piled on the roof.

We had a great day- it was fun. However, unlike the first girl I met that day- I don't think we will be doing it for 2 weeks in a row. There seems to be some people who just can't get enough and stay in Vang Vieng for weeks just tubing. That's a bit much.

Today we hired a motorbike and went exploring some caves which was really fun. Also we went swimming in the Blue Lagoon- an amazing freshwater spring from one of the caves that was so, so blue. It was beautiful and made me realise what brought people here in the first place. It wasn't the bars. It was the beautiful ruggedness of this landscape and the friendliness of the Lao people.

Laos, wow (which rhymes, actually)

So heres a long overdue update - we've been in Laos for a week now and had a pretty incredible time. Its a very different culture and pace to Thailand - a little less touristy which is kinda refreshing but also just a lot less manic. It's an interesting mix of influences - the french colonial era, 30 years of communism and isolation from the rest of world, the 'secret war' CIA bombing throughout the 60s and current Thai pop culture have all left huge, really tangible imprints on the whole look and feel and mood and character of the place. Its a poor country with a lot of hurdles to overcome but you get the strong impression things are on the up here.

We started our trip here with a two day slow-boat ride down the Mekong River from Huay Xing to Luang Prabang. We'd heard a lot of mixed reports about doing this trip but we had a blast - the boat was basic but the trip was really relaxing and quite social and we got to watch countless villages and fishermen and water buffalo and cheeky kids cruise by while we kicked back and made a whole gang of new mates. Thankfully it seems we left behind the significant proportion of "We've got two weeks off work, lets go to somewhere cheap and get PISSED" style backpackers at the Thai border. (Not that I haven't drunk my fair share of Beerlao already, but thats not the point!)

Luang Prabang was pretty incredible too - the guidebook said it's a travel photographers dream, and sure enough Sonya went nuts on the old Minolta. The central city is all well-preserved french colonial architecture mixed with beautiful pristine old temples. Monks everywhere, palm trees, two rivers, hardly any traffic, stalls selling top class fresh baking (thanks frenchies), and in a refreshing change from the tourist junk that fills shops and stalls anywhere a backpacker might go in Thailand the whole town has a kind of boutiquey feel with classy little resturants and road stalls selling actually really nice jewellery and handcrafts. I mainly followed Sonya around while she took about 30 billion photos and one night we had an extremely bizarre night out at the local bowling alley where the locals gave us plenty of tips.

Right now we're in Phonsavan in the northeast - one of the areas most heavily hit in the CIA bombings of the 60s (Obviously they left Luang Prabang alone - the US-loyal King lived there). The legacy of that campaign is unbelievable - the massive amount of unexploded cluster bombs still leaves whole farming regions unusable (or more realistically extremely dangerous to work) and everyone we've met here has a brother or a cousin or a friend who has died accidently or lost a limb or two. It's quite stunning what a huge part of people's everyday lives it still is - bomb shells are used everywhere as house foundations, fireplaces and fenceposts, the market is full of tools made from melted down bombs and the hills are pock-marked with enourmous craters. We did a tour today of the Plain of Jars - hills covered in giant iron-age stone pots of unknown origin - which was incredible - but I think I was more blown away by all the remnants of that war everywhere, and our guide was more than happy to tell us all about it.

Crystal healing- 250 B

Wow. We found the epicentre of the enlightened hippy, dreads are cool, thai pants and leather moccasins, silver beads in the hair fashion capital of Thailand.
It's called Pai.
Pai is a tiny little town by a river about 3 stomach churning hours NW of Chiang Mai. It's primarily an artistic getaway for both Thai and Farang muscians and artists. However it's become a bit of a mecca for the 'alternative' traveller.

It's something that Toby and I find pretty funny- when some of the westerners completely adopt the full-on, all-out, no holds barred Thai Backpacker Fashion. I mean, it's obvious you're going to end up buying local clothes and be influenced by the culture- but there's a particular 'look' that certainly isn't Thai, it's a weird bastardised western hippy version of an 'aware' backpacker. Most of them seem so far up their own arses, they'd never see the humour in it.

We did met some nice people though! There's a cool nightlife- some great little bars. We spent a few evenings set up with Changs and Thai whiskey on foldout beds by a campfire at our local bar the Buffalo Exchange. Groovy old Thai rockers serenaded us with lots of classics- Dylan, the Stones, Clapton.

We also took a cooking class and learned how to make a mean Thai green curry and a few other favourites. It was really fun- except that I kinda lost my appetite as I had just started a course of anti-malaria tablets and felt a bit queasy.

Spent a lot of time at our guesthouse by the river, relaxing in hammocks, reading on our balcony, swimming at the hot springs, riding the motorbike around town and being lazy. The saying in Pai is "Do Nothing in Pai". So we did.

Actually, the anti-malarials have kinda kicked the ground out from underneath me, and it's taken a few days (and some anti-nausea tablets) to get settled. Seems ok now though..def don't want malaria, so will persist... left Pai this morning, in Chiang Rai tonight and we head to Laos tomorrow.

Oh (Chiang) Mai Goodness

We hit Chiang Mai with high hopes. Everything we'd heard and read about the place seemed right up our alley - lots of culture, good food, easy to get around and a relaxed pace - and a few minor hiccups aside we had an awesome three days. I was a little sick but we hired a motorbike and I braved the crazy city traffic techniques (red = go, orange = go, green = go fast) and managed to see a whole lot of sights in and around the city while Sonya bought up half the silver jewellery in the province.

We did markets and bazaars and temples and bridges and even the rambling, shambolic Chiang Mai zoo (great to see Pandas but the rest of the place was pretty run down) and enjoyed the colourful and friendly characters we met. Chiang Mai is touristy but in a much more relaxed, less in your face than Bangkok , and with the bike it wasn't hard to get off the tourist track and see more of the real city, like the amazing Wororot day market. The people were wonderfully friendly and a common recurring conversation was whether we'd been to Bangkok and whether we liked Chiang Mai more ("Yes, yes, of course"). I couldn't help but make the comparison with the way Wellingtonians feel about Auckland, and the exact same things Melburnians say about Sydney. Maybe Sonya and I are culturally hardwired to love the second biggest city in any country. What's the second biggest city in Holland?

Like I said, I was a bit sick but it was a perfect place to relax and refresh - its a cheap place in indulge yourself and we could easily afford a nice place with a pool. While I recharged by the pool Sonya got a nice haircut to match all her new silver and last night we even splashed out for a relaxing massage. Luxury.

Um Phang

We'd been told about this spot by an English couple we'd met in Malaysia. It's a pretty remote area and they did warn us about the journey there- however we were unprepared for a 6 hour bumpy ride in the back of a songtaew (ute with metal cage welded to the back) in freezing wind and rain over a mountain with 19 people and a motorbike on board.

We set out the next day for a three day trek - on the first day we rafted down a river with thick jungle and waterfalls coming off limestone cliffs for about 5 hours, then tramped up over a hill through bamboo forest for the afternoon This was pretty hot work, luckily it then rained which carried off and on into the night
.
On the second day we had a short walk in the morning to the Thee Lor Su waterfall which is the main attraction of the area - it's the biggest waterfall in Thailand and really stunning - 200/300 metres high - multi-tiered kinda thing with thick jungle all around. Each tier has a big pool that are the most awesome swimming holes, so we stopped and had a good swim and explore. Toby jumped off one awesome waterfall part into the pool below while I looked on nervously!

Then later that day we had a much cruisier walk along the river to a Karen village where the guide knew a family who take in his tourists for a night. That was fun too - little bit weird as you feel like a bit of a voyeur. Our guide Om Pai was very cool though. We had a good couple of conversations with him and unlike some of the over-the-top Thai hospitality we've experienced, I felt that he was a really genuine guy. I didn't feel like he was putting on some show for us. He certainly complained a lot! He'd only ever taken one kiwi couple before who had later sent him a scenic NZ calender as a present, then he had never had kiwis since, and on the first night he asked us, quite seriously, why we would come to Thailand when NZ is much more beautiful. We had to explain it doesn't ALL look quite like the calender, and that we'd like to see different kinds of beautiful places too. Our house were we stayed was definitely the coolest- it had a TV! So we spent most of the night chilling with the kids watching mad Thai soap dramas and guessing what was going on.

On the third day an elephant arrived at the house. After feeding it some toast, we set off on a three hour trek back over the hill we walked in over, pretty tough on the bum but awesome fun too. The elephants were amazing and our elephant 'driver' was hilarious! Sharing some watermelon with the elephant at the end of the trek was really fun too.

Then we had to get back on that bloody songtaew for 4 hours this time- it was sunny and faster! Actually so fast- I've been on less hair-raising roller-coasters!

One last day in Mae Sot- then to Chiang Mai- hot water and swimming pools. Bring it on!

Wat?

Photos from the Old City of Sukothai

More bang for your buck

Shopping in Bangkok!
This time we hit Bangkok at 7am after the 12 hour night bus and thought we'd stay in another part of town. We headed for Siam Square- bring on the mega malls!
But first we set straight out to Chatchuchak Market- a behemoth of markets. Huge is just the beginning. Wandering through the stalls we moved between Thai antiques, tacky tourist trash, second hand amercian clothes- levis, converse etc, and then we hit the livestock area.
Whoa- that was definitely our favourite- despite totally getting lost and entering some weird section where there was a dwarf watching some mad cock fighting. Buckets of mice, tanks of snakes and spiders, big cages of puppies and kittens (which looked like they were totally suffering in the heat), 100's of birds and lots of squirrels on red leashes.

After a break we hit HBK centre- a 7 storey mall. That was pretty crazy- mega bootleg everything- I saw some new 'iPods'- which were definitely a stretch of the imagination. The next day we roamed around Siam Square- and got hustled by some ladies who assured us that there wsa no accomodation in Northern Thailand at all and that we must come with them to their friend's place to sort us out. We assured them we were fine- eventually just realising that if we pretended we didn't speak English either it was easier! Von ja ist Deutschland, wo wir sind.

Bangkok this time around was a lot more fun and we were a lot more savvy about what was going on. I enjoyed it heaps and am already planning return shopping trips!