Blogs from Bokèo Nature Reserve, West, Laos, Asia - page 2

The bloody staff cancelled our bloody booking! We said we'd be in the office 'first thing'. Dom went there at 7.30 and they were closed, so went back at 8.10 and was apparently 10 minutes late and the bookings had been given to other people! What the hell? So anyway we had to wait till the next day, which wasn't so bad. Hoi Xiay, the town on the Thai border spelt differently on every signpost, doesn't really have much going for it apart from a few nice restaurants and the opportunity for resting from a bus journey that was supposed to be 12 hours and turned out to be 16. It was a bad bus, but after Myanmar it was no problem! Dom got to finish his Japanese MP3 course on the way, which he was ... read more

Kikirikanje se je zacelo ze ob 4h zjutraj (Christian: "I think we should have eaten more chicks for dinner ..."), ampak bolj kot to je bil problem MRAZ. KDo bi si mislil, da je "zima" v Aziji dejansko zima??? Tako da me je kar malo zeblo ponoci, kljub svoji spalki ... Zajtrk: noodle soup (Sicer iz vrecke, jebiga, tudi LAos je ze moderniziran ocitno), fried egg, deep fried banana (je razlika med friend in deep fried, my friends) in zeleni caj in Nescafee 3 v 1, ki mu tu pravijo, ne vem zakaj, Vietnam coffee. Ampak nek jim to bude cestitka. Na pot smo se podali malo pred deveto, meglic ni bilo tako kot v dolini, in spet sli gor, gor, gor. Vcasih, a redko, tudi malo dol. Pot nas je vodila mimo pozganih in uporabljanih ... read more

Wow, what an amazing experience that was! The name 'gibbon experience' may be a bit misleading though......our guide hadn't seen one for 10 months.......perhaps they should call it the 'zipwiring experience' instead. It was fab though..... despite the lack of monkeys.... and I'd definitely recommend it, but book ahead because there's rarely a space last minute. I wasn't exactly sure what I'd signed up to as things weren't too clear when I called. The website had said there were two different experiences....classic and waterfall, the latter having more walking involved. Turned out it was the waterfall I was down for. There were 8 of us in the group. Two groups of 8 set off every other day. It's a 2 day, 3 night thing, so you spend one night in one treehouse and then on the ... read more

Sorry it took so long to get this entry up. I left you guys in the north of thailand. From there I took a bus ride to the border of thailand and laos, jumped on a boat, crossed the Mekong and arrived in Laos. I spent 3 days in the jungle trekking and living in tree-houses accessed via zip-line. It seemed like every childs dream...minus the leetches, spiders, mosquitos and french canadian couple I was paired with. From there I took a 2 day slowboat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. This was a beautiful way to travel, albeit long. As it got dark I felt like I was in Full Metal Jacket...mountains on both sides with little villages, fog covered the water in the distance, I was just waiting for Charlie to pop out. Note: ... read more

Laos and The Gibbon Experience (Huay Xai) Heading north from Chiang Mai, I made my way to the Thai/Laos border. Once I left the Thai town of Chang Khom, I entered Laos at Huay Xai. The Mekong river creates a natural border between Thailand and Laos, so basically all you need to do to cross is obtain your exit stamp in Thailand, hire a boat to take you across and obtain your entry stamp at the pier in Laos. Huay Xai is pretty much what you would expect from a border town- not impressive at all. Very small, not a lot around. Apparently the bank and its ATM machine had been installed the day before I arrived. So, I was basically walking around with nothing to do when I came upon the location for the infamous ... read more