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our love affair with india has ended, and asia has begun.
a few days were spent in the megatropolis that is hong kong - interesting place, great sushi, great public transport, and lots and lots of lights.
then a few days in the north of vietnam before we decided to head west into Laos - 22hr bus journey ensued. although the journey was far from fun, we spent our 22hrs constructively making friends with our companions, this was beneficial to us for the festival that awaited us on our arrival.
what a beautiful and friendly place it is, and we visited at Laos new year, for added fun. these celebrations consist of 3 days of water fights. people on the streets throw buckets of water over each other, children ambush you on corners with water guns, and open backed trucks drive past with a tank of water on the back and people throwing it at passerbys.
naturally, our first priority was to get 'tooled up' and buy some guns, preferably bigger than anyone elses. after that, much beerlaos was drunk from a little cafe on the corner of the main street in vientien, which also provided us with the perfect spot
to catch passerbys.
the next day we travelled on a 'VIP' bus, without aircon in 40deg heat, to Vang Vien. the scenery is beautiful, forested hills topped with mists, and plentiful rivers. unfortunately there is a problem with slash and burn deforestation as many surrounding countries will pay high prices for the wood that comes from the forest. thankfully, there is still enough forest to go round.
the major attraction of vang vien is an extremely enjoyable activity called tubing. this consists of sitting on an inflated tractor inner tube and floating down the river. the savvy locals have further enhanced this experience by building little bamboo bars along the way, so they throw you a line and you dock at a bar of your choice to enjoy an ice cold beerlaos. extra additions to these bars are rope swings, zip lines and slides that throw you into the water from varying heights. we did a rope swing that started from about 50ft off the ground - i have never been so scared in all my life. felt great about it afterwards. i also went down a massive slide that kicked you up into the air at the end,
with a fall of about 25ft. on my second go, getting cocky, i got up a lot of speed, and consequently a lot of air, and as i was doing my trademark 'bomb' managed to land on my bare back - intense pain and red marks and bruises followed.
We also engaged in a delightful day of kayaking, although it wasn't exactly exciting, what with the river being at its lowest due to it being dry season our major fear was not rapids, but getting stuck on rocks and shallow bits - not very rock and roll.
From there we headed further north to Luang Prabang, a town of temples. I had a great massage here, and i gave blood. Laos still has major problems with unexploded ordinances left over from the Vietnam - American war. More bombs were dropped on Laos than in WW2 - a pretty sobering fact, so blood is in very high demand. And i got a free t-shirt, so it was a win win situation. From there we went further north in order to get some proper trekking in. The area around Luang Namtha is protected forest so there is some good trekking to be
done, there are even a few tigers left that have managed to escape the Chinese poachers...
We booked ourselves on a 3 day jungle trek, what followed was 3 days of the most intense sweating, in 30+deg heat, in a sweaty jungle. We encountered leeches, our guide suggested we do the first day in flip flops because we had to cross so many streams and it is easier to see and pull leeches off when they first attach themselves, rather than letting them get in your shoes. nice thought eh? I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with trekking in wet flipflops up and down hills? Lets just say it beat the trainers in the himalayas, it was hard work. fact. But it was a great experience, we slept in jungle camps, ate some very basic Lao food prepared by our guides, which was suprisingly tasty, encountered ticks (oh the joy) and, most importantly saw fresh tiger tracks, which was pretty exciting. No tigers though.
We finished the trek feeling like we'd had a great experience of rural Laos, and a portion of the money we paid goes to local villages which helps encourage them to protect the forest and
also have enough money to live. Because if there is one thing about Laos, it is poor. But there is a lot of pride and very few beggars which makes it an exciting, refreshing and welcoming place to visit. A five star recommendation.
The rest of Asia awaits.....
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Sacha
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Bruce Lee get-on
It doesn't just look like you met the fella - looks like you were about to pull your serious get-it-on move!!! Tell him to cut back on the face cream! xxx