Vang Vieng, Laos minus the tubing pictures!

Terry conquered the mountain!


Hi All....so here are about 3 blog entries as we left you with none for the past few weeks...lots of piccies and a story at the bottom!! Hope you enjoy them....


One of the caves Terry explored
Our new friend Jimbo....dont go through there dude!!

Our cool bikes....check us out!!

The gorgeous blue lagoon, we spent so many days chilling out here!

Hammocks on the river.....Janie and I spent a whole day reading books in these...soo relaxing

The explorers!!!

Chilled Laos, Luang Prubang and the slow boat along the Mekong River

So sorry you have been blogless for a couple of weeks...Laos works alittle different to the other asian countries we have visited and is certainly not as blog friendly, no internet on every corner nor is there anyway near as much noise pollution. Its beautiful here very, very relaxing.

We spent 2 days travelling to the country from Chang Mai, Thailand on a Slow Boat along the Mekong River. It took 6 hours on a long boat with only hard seats to a town on the edge of the river named Pak Beng. This was out first experience of Laos...Muddy, Hot and no pressure.

Now what i mean by no pressure is that we didnt get a thousand tuk tuk drivers and guesthouse owners in our faces which we are now accostumed too. We paid for a room (very expensive for Laos 400 Baht (6 pound) whereas others were paying 50 Baht a night) and learnt that they only have electricity from 5pm to 10pm everynight and everyone goes to bed at 10pm!! Very strange, especially for the meat eaters (how do they refridgerate the meat during the hot days...very glad we are veggies!)




The next day was spent again on the boat, absolutely stunning scenery, very mountainous and green. There were many children fishing and people waving. Amongst these people was our first sighting of an AK47 gun! People seem to have these like mobile phones in England, they are scarily everywhere!

After a day of floating we arrived at Laung Prabang, we booked into a 6 dollar a night guesthouse with shared bathroom...first and only time we will do this as its not nice having a shower after someone else has been in there! Never again! We took a day trip out to this incredible turquoise waterfall. We swam in it and it was just like paradise. We ate that night from a street seller for 25p all you can eat!

We decided to leave Laung Prabang as there was not that much else to see and travelled by bus to Vang Vieng. The bus journey was the worst ever as it was constantly twisting and turning so was glad to get off in the town. We met this lovely Canadian couple, Jim and Janie and ended up spending 9 days in this town with them. We couldnt leave!






















We went Tubing which consists of 3 things; 1) Mekong River 2) A big rubber ring 3) Alcohol, it was so much fun. You would drift along the river and then get pulled into the bars by rope and then just dance the day away. We ended up doing this twice! The first time everyone got so drunk that they refused to pay 10,000 Kip (1 dollar) each for the tuk tuk and we all ended up walking throughout the Laos jungle with no idea where we were!! Our evenings were spent in a bar named Sakura where you could watch movies on their projector screen, all the new ones. We hired Peds too and went to the local caves, (which terry thought were incredible, i stayed behind scared of getting stuck!) and went to the famous Blue Lagoon. We could have spent a life time here exploring but then came the food poisioning! Our first experience of it so far...we had done soo well...3 months without it and then it hit like a giant sand storm. We were sick all of one night and the next day decided to upgrade our room to a room with a balcony, Sky TV and a bath, it was luxury and only 5 pound a night!

Then it was time to leave and now we are in the capital, Vientiane. It took us all night to find accomodation as all the guesthouses were full or overcharging. Today we are just chilling out on the net and are going to get massages this afternoon. We are thinking about heading down to Indonesia for a few weeks until our Vietnam visa starts. Love you all!

For the love of marmite......we found Chang Mai....

Chang Mai calling…we made it, after visiting the home of Terry’s Grandad whilst a prisoner of war to the Japanese, River Kwai, we visited some elephants but didn’t have the heart to ride them due to their horrendous holes in their fore heads from mean men using ice picks to get there way so we travelled up to the home of the Karen Hill Tribe. Many travellers describe this place as their favourite of all travels, its chilled here, relaxing and so much to explore.

We left the hectic Koh San road (where ladyboys a plenty and the smell is enough to make you heave) and headed for our 'VIP' bus for our Northbound travel. We spend some time in the internet café catching up with emails and having a coffee, when Terry looked at me, white as a ghost and screaming, the one word that you enever want to ehar, the item that gives you the freedom to move from country to country, the little burgundy book, our passports! He had hidden them under the bed in our 300 Baht a night, wooden walled hostel and forgot to pick them up as he left. Terry dropped everything and ran for the hostel. I panicked thinking of all that wwe would need to do if they had been taken. Ten minutes of fast heart beating and he was back, red faced, with a smile and our passports on him. We got on our ‘VIP’ bus , that was not VIP and smelt like a large toilet with chewing gum all over the seats and started our 10 hour journey to the North. We finally arrived at our destination at 6am, tired and weary and not excited for the hostel search. We spent 2 hours walking around the town, with our Lonely Planet as our guide and found a little gem of a hostel where we spent the whole day in bed…


A new day arrived and we were both refreshed and ready for some more exploring. A typical travelling haunt is to the local Karen Hill Tribe, a village of people who lived very high in the Thai hills and lived on the land.Six of us in total headed out early and began our ‘2 hour’ trek through the jungle to the village we were staying that night. The trek turned into a very hot, humid, hilly 5 hour trek and Terry ended up dragging me up the steep inclines.

We arrived at our village camp, and set up our beds, well…blankets on a wooden floor with a small mosquito net for cover, not exactly what we know a bed as but all the same a different and exciting experience. There were cracks in the floor and you could peek down when lying there at the chickens and dogs below. We chilled out to the sounds of the jungle, chickens and children playing and watch the sun go down from our wooden hut. The jungle was very full, green and lush and the sunset was a great reward for all of the hard work. After a few hours, we were treated to an amazing green thai curry with rice and a few local drinking games, that resulted in charcoal all over my face and a sore stomach.

After waking up at 5am to the alarm clock of the cockerel, we trekked further through the jungle to a group of local people and their elephants. This time, I actually rode an elephant, they were much better looked after and so I really wanted just to feel what it was like to walk with one. Terry stayed behind and fed the baby ones some bananas.

The afternoon was spent on what we thought was a relaxing bamboo rafting, however it was anything but relaxing and we ended up on at least class 1 rapids, Terry fell off and lost his flip flops and we all got soaked. Great fun though and we enjoyed being in the jungle.
Chang Mai has been a great experience, a lovely jungle town with a brilliant bazaar market. We also found our friend, Marmite here, it’s the Australian one though so Terry was really disappointed, but right now it’s a total present from heaven to put on our plain toast!

We are off to Laos today, I cannot wait, the freedom of travelling from country to country is unexplainable unless you’ve done it yourself. Its incredible. We have a 2 day slow boat booked to get there though so could be a while…

Bangkok and the River Kwai

Bangkok temples

They are soo extremely beautiful

We thought this was a great picture!! Hehe

Sightseers!!

The bridge over the river kwai war museum..terry's grandad helped build this..he was a prisoner of war

The river Kwai

The bridge

A japanese train used on the bridge

You could go elephant riding...when we got there i nearly cried..elephants are now my favourite animals and should not be treated like this...they use ice picks as whips and hit them on the head..they all have scars..and chains...so sad we wanted to free them all. we didnt ride them just fed them up with bananas..so beautiful

Look how sad he looks

On the river Kwai..on a bamboo raft..was a little scary at first as the water was everywhere and it didnt look very float!

Check out the red hair!!

Dinner....getting good with the chopsticks now!

Very didgy bridge....it had planks missing.....and no more than 2 people per trip accross!!

Terry in the waterfall!!  A buddhist monk....???