After flying (flashpacker style) from Vientiene in Laos of Hanoi in Vietnam I got to Hanoi backpacker's hostel and ran into opne of the Irish boys from the slow boat who said that the Irish lot were all upstairs, so I headed up and ran into not only them but Simon and Kirsty too, and they were all heading off to Halong the next day so I had to run downstairs and book on the 'party hard' tour of Halong Bay, so the couple of days of rest and taking it easy that I'd been hoping for were well out the window!
So, up at half 6 the next morning to get packed for a 3 day booze cruise, after a week long bender, and the remnants of a fever, I wasn't feeling too great.
But after we got on the boat, went kayaking to a beach and had a few beers it was quality! Halong Bay is a huge area of Limestone karst rising out of the water, so the tour was cool ...plus the food was amazing and the boat was sweet! Me and the Irish lads ended up with a couple of massive rooms on the top deck with our own balcony which hosted the gold ticket after-party, which again consisted of Bongo's, 'We all dream of a team of Gary Breens', Oasis, Boyzone, and one hearfelt rendition of the Welsh national anthem.
It was an eclectic mix.
Day two for me consisted of staring at the floor feeling ill with a killer headache after lots to drink and little sleep. When we got to 'Castaway Island' for our second night I hit the sack and woke up just in time for a nail-bitingly close game of volleyball (21-19) and the begining of more drinking games. We'd been playing 'ring of fire' the night before, and on the second night we played 'slaps,' a game me, Evan and Tory had brought with us from working in Bucket Bar, and Big-Titty-Cowgirl -the best game ever!
Day three and we got back onto the boat, had lunch and felt very sorry for ourselves for the rest of the day. Until the evening, when we all got drunk again. Hard life, all this 'culture'.
The next day I thought I needed to do something at leat a bit cultural and went sightseeing around Hanoi, which is a pretty cool city when you get used to all the noise and scooters everywhere. The traffic here is ridiculous. It's a case of 'if there's space, go'. Crossing the road is interesting, you pretty much have to walk really slowly and the traffic just moves around you!
The city has a massive lake with two islands with old buildings on them which was impressive, as was the Ho Chi Minh Complex to the west of the city, which included a massive mausoleum to hold his embalmed corpse for all the tourists to see!
The military is everywhere in Vietnam, definitely tell its communist from that if nothing else. On the way from the city to the Ho Chi Minh Complex I walked around the huge walled military area which is surrounded by soldiers holding AK47's who stare at you as if to say 'One false move and...', so it's not the frindliest place at times.
Also, scams are everywhere. Walking around Hanoi I was asked to leave my bag outside before going into a museum-fat chance, to donate to the red cross by a woman who jumed off the back of a scooter when she saw me and got hustled out of 100,000 (3 quid) by a scooter driver. Westerners here are just walking dollar signs which can get a bit annoying at times, but apparently they're friendlier in the south -plus, I suppose agent-orange did little to help foster good white-Vietnamese relations.
Anyway, I just to Hoi-An yeaterday with the Irish boys and a scottish lad so it should be good fun here, everyone else is getting in over the next two days.
x
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng
It's been a while since my last blog and for good reason! The last couple of weeks have been some of the messiest of the year!
I got the slow boat from the Thai Border to Luang Prabang, an old colonial town in the center of northern Laos. It was a quality trip, despite being pretty uncomfortable. The scenery on the way is amazing... but copious amounts of lager later we stopped looking. There ended up being a massive group of us at the back behind the engine room, and from somewhere we managed to get some bongo's and a harmonica on the go too, so we soon drowned the engine out with some quality renditions of 'We all dream of a team of Gary Breens' and 'Five German bombers' alongside your standard Wonderwall's and a touch of Boyzone and Five.
After having a fight with some soot we found on the bottom of a wok we got to the overnight stop, where a Laos bloke went a bit nuts at us thinking we were blacking ourselves up! We got to a hotel, dropped off our bags, wiped the soot off and headed to the bar and got progressively more steaming.
Day 2 was a lot more civilized, and we sat on the boat reading and playing chirades, I-spy, and the incredibly specific game- probably the best game for passing the time ever invented.
We got to Luang Prabang, and the high brow tone continued while we were there, as we read, watched films and did some sightseeing, only dinking on the second night, in a bar with a beach volleyball court!
The 6-hour journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was pretty stunning too as most of the roads in Laos are higher up in the hills and mountains, so for most of the journey youre lookign over vast expanses of land dotted by tiny villages with barely the most basic amenities -we were driving through villages where the communal hose/shower was outside so the people were showering by the road.
And then we arrived... tubing!
The messiest place I've ever been.
Vang Vieng was supposed to be a beautiful spot on Nam Song river... before a load of backpackers showed up and turned it into a hole where drink is cheap/free and you can rent out a tube to float down the river in during the day and get steaming before going out at night and getting even more steaming!
I did a day of this and started working for Bucket Bar with a couple of boys I met in PhiPhi -Chan and Dave. The deal was this: I get free food and free drink all day, in return I hand out free shots and get people playing drinking games... did I say job? Is that really the right word for it?
Anyway after a week of that I had managed to run myself down and get a fever that left me hugging my pillow in feotal position shivering even thoguh it was about 30 degrees, after a couple of days of that it was time to move on but I would be back in an instant. I met so many sound people in that place.
I'm sure I should have more to say about Vang Vieng but for some reason I can't remember too much of it.
I got the slow boat from the Thai Border to Luang Prabang, an old colonial town in the center of northern Laos. It was a quality trip, despite being pretty uncomfortable. The scenery on the way is amazing... but copious amounts of lager later we stopped looking. There ended up being a massive group of us at the back behind the engine room, and from somewhere we managed to get some bongo's and a harmonica on the go too, so we soon drowned the engine out with some quality renditions of 'We all dream of a team of Gary Breens' and 'Five German bombers' alongside your standard Wonderwall's and a touch of Boyzone and Five.
After having a fight with some soot we found on the bottom of a wok we got to the overnight stop, where a Laos bloke went a bit nuts at us thinking we were blacking ourselves up! We got to a hotel, dropped off our bags, wiped the soot off and headed to the bar and got progressively more steaming.
Day 2 was a lot more civilized, and we sat on the boat reading and playing chirades, I-spy, and the incredibly specific game- probably the best game for passing the time ever invented.
We got to Luang Prabang, and the high brow tone continued while we were there, as we read, watched films and did some sightseeing, only dinking on the second night, in a bar with a beach volleyball court!
The 6-hour journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was pretty stunning too as most of the roads in Laos are higher up in the hills and mountains, so for most of the journey youre lookign over vast expanses of land dotted by tiny villages with barely the most basic amenities -we were driving through villages where the communal hose/shower was outside so the people were showering by the road.
And then we arrived... tubing!
The messiest place I've ever been.
Vang Vieng was supposed to be a beautiful spot on Nam Song river... before a load of backpackers showed up and turned it into a hole where drink is cheap/free and you can rent out a tube to float down the river in during the day and get steaming before going out at night and getting even more steaming!
I did a day of this and started working for Bucket Bar with a couple of boys I met in PhiPhi -Chan and Dave. The deal was this: I get free food and free drink all day, in return I hand out free shots and get people playing drinking games... did I say job? Is that really the right word for it?
Anyway after a week of that I had managed to run myself down and get a fever that left me hugging my pillow in feotal position shivering even thoguh it was about 30 degrees, after a couple of days of that it was time to move on but I would be back in an instant. I met so many sound people in that place.
I'm sure I should have more to say about Vang Vieng but for some reason I can't remember too much of it.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Chiang Mai & Pai
After Bangkok I headed up to Chang Mai for a spot of trekking. The bus was 12 hours so had a Xanax and woke up in Chang Mai having had a wonderful nights sleep with everyone else looking shattered... good old liberal Thai pharmacies!
One of the boys I met at the last Full Moon recommended Julie's Guesthouse so stayed there for the first night but didn't book a trek with them because the sour Thai bloke running it wouldn't knock the price down at all and wanted you to book a trek with them in order to stay there! Headed up and down the street and eventually met the legend that is Ginny! After a half hour chat which involved her getting the family photos out AND knocking the price down by 300 baht we had a deal. I told a few others from the bus ride and we all booked with her. So Simon (UK), Danielle, Katy (Canada) and myself all headed off the next day.
There was a definite language barrier within the group and we all ended up in little cliques. There was us four, 3 germans and a swiss guy, and a French couple who barely spoke to eachother let alone the rest of us!
First stop was the elephant riding. If anyone can say they had fun while a 13 year old fucker (think Mao/Stalin in the younger days) with a metal hook smashes a chained up elephant (who doesnt want to do anything the boy says) on the head, they're sick! I can honestly say that I've tried it and it's not for me. It's a good job the elephant covered me in mud to disguise me crapping myself while it headed toward a twelve foot drop! I sat at the back for most of the time hoping for both our sakes that the animal would just do what the little fucker wanted it to, for both our sakes!
After the elephant riding we had lunch and headed up into the hills to stay at the tribe village. The walk was a killer, and the trainers Ginny gave me left some nasty blisters so I chucked them and wore flip flops for the rest of it which aren't the easiest things to hike in.
The village was kept seperate from where we all stayed which is probably for the best, but we didn;t get to talk to the villagers too much aside from the offering us massages... the scenery was amazing though.
The rest of the group other than us four were only on a 2day trek so they left early in the morning and we didn't see them again. We headed off to a few waterfalls for the day, and to kill the time whilst we walked through the Jungle me and Simon gave the girls a bit of stick for being Canadian...which they hated -especially the whole clubbing baby seals joke which followed on from their enjoyment of the elephant riding.
We had a swim in a couple of the waterfalls and then hiked to the 'jungle camp' - a hut by the river.
On the last day we headed off for white water rafting, which was pretty tame compared to New Zealand, but that was probably for the best considering the Thai guys safety talk consisted of 'I hope you can swin'.
The next day I headed off to Pai after a few people had said it was pretty cool. It's a bit too quiet for me though, I just want to get to Laos and go tubing now. Had a good few weeks off the pish and doing cultural things, seen enough temples now thanks, but its my last chance not to feel hungover so I rented a bike out and headed to waterfall. Big mistake! It turned out to be a lot further away than I thought, and completely up-hill. You could see the look on the Thai's faces as they turned around to watch me struggling up the hill, it said: 'what is that sweaty white boy doing?' Might get a scooter out this afternoon to kill the time before I get the bus to Huay Xai to catch the slow boat to LAOS!
Don't expect any updates any time soon ;-)
One of the boys I met at the last Full Moon recommended Julie's Guesthouse so stayed there for the first night but didn't book a trek with them because the sour Thai bloke running it wouldn't knock the price down at all and wanted you to book a trek with them in order to stay there! Headed up and down the street and eventually met the legend that is Ginny! After a half hour chat which involved her getting the family photos out AND knocking the price down by 300 baht we had a deal. I told a few others from the bus ride and we all booked with her. So Simon (UK), Danielle, Katy (Canada) and myself all headed off the next day.
There was a definite language barrier within the group and we all ended up in little cliques. There was us four, 3 germans and a swiss guy, and a French couple who barely spoke to eachother let alone the rest of us!
First stop was the elephant riding. If anyone can say they had fun while a 13 year old fucker (think Mao/Stalin in the younger days) with a metal hook smashes a chained up elephant (who doesnt want to do anything the boy says) on the head, they're sick! I can honestly say that I've tried it and it's not for me. It's a good job the elephant covered me in mud to disguise me crapping myself while it headed toward a twelve foot drop! I sat at the back for most of the time hoping for both our sakes that the animal would just do what the little fucker wanted it to, for both our sakes!
After the elephant riding we had lunch and headed up into the hills to stay at the tribe village. The walk was a killer, and the trainers Ginny gave me left some nasty blisters so I chucked them and wore flip flops for the rest of it which aren't the easiest things to hike in.
The village was kept seperate from where we all stayed which is probably for the best, but we didn;t get to talk to the villagers too much aside from the offering us massages... the scenery was amazing though.
The rest of the group other than us four were only on a 2day trek so they left early in the morning and we didn't see them again. We headed off to a few waterfalls for the day, and to kill the time whilst we walked through the Jungle me and Simon gave the girls a bit of stick for being Canadian...which they hated -especially the whole clubbing baby seals joke which followed on from their enjoyment of the elephant riding.
We had a swim in a couple of the waterfalls and then hiked to the 'jungle camp' - a hut by the river.
On the last day we headed off for white water rafting, which was pretty tame compared to New Zealand, but that was probably for the best considering the Thai guys safety talk consisted of 'I hope you can swin'.
The next day I headed off to Pai after a few people had said it was pretty cool. It's a bit too quiet for me though, I just want to get to Laos and go tubing now. Had a good few weeks off the pish and doing cultural things, seen enough temples now thanks, but its my last chance not to feel hungover so I rented a bike out and headed to waterfall. Big mistake! It turned out to be a lot further away than I thought, and completely up-hill. You could see the look on the Thai's faces as they turned around to watch me struggling up the hill, it said: 'what is that sweaty white boy doing?' Might get a scooter out this afternoon to kill the time before I get the bus to Huay Xai to catch the slow boat to LAOS!
Don't expect any updates any time soon ;-)
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