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to start things off, ruairi and i got 'done', by what the lonely planet refer to as 'the hanoi-vientiane bus scam'. unfortunately we were not aware of this scam until half way through the journey, when i picked up the scary planet and started reading about 'the scam' and thought hmm, this sounds familiar... were in the god damn middle of it! basically, we paid $25 each, to have an airconditioned mini bus, for the 16 hr trip. when we asked what the cheaper version was, he said 'nooo', you dont want that, its only slightly cheaper and its a public bus that's filled with livestock. so.we got bundled onto a regular, ricketty, 'fresh' aired, 60 seater, 1940's, tin can, heap of s*** bus, only to find out that most of our fellow passengers paid $15, and that the journey was in actual fact a 22hr trip! it gets better, we werent allowed to put our bags underneath, they had to come on the bus with us, along with huge 'mystery' boxes at the end of the bus, and endless boxes of 'powdered milk' under every seat. they drivers and co dont speak english and they start yelling at us
to move down the back of the bus, even though the bus is like a quarter full(of humans anyway). we then proceed to stop off at pokey warungs, where the bus boys exchange wadfulls of cash for dodgy bags and boxes that get shoved onto the bus. our biggest 'pickup', was an exchange for about 60 odd boxes, that were now being placed 3 boxes high and 2 across down the aisle. we couldnt believe it! the boxes were level with our seats and we now had to completely double over just to get off the bus! they were like boxes of cement too and as ruairi said 'if this bus rolls, were all gonnas'. we continued making stops, pickin up more random goods, and filling the undercarriage with large heshen sacks. we arrived at the border crossing at 4am, and then had to wait until 7am for the gates to open. it was hell! it ended up being 23 hrs, and i didnt sleep a wink. ruairi slept like a baby the entire time, though im sure he must of had nightmares as i was burning greasie holes with my eyes into the back of his head!
vientiane
was uneventful so not much to report. we rode bikes along the mekong and around town, but all in all, a fairly crappy capital city. we visited their version of 'arc de triumph'; a victory arch built pre-war and never completed. that was pretty much it. we ate some 'mystery sausage' (sossaage) by the river, fed it to a dog ruairi called 'scraps', then hightailed it outta there the following morning to vang vieng.
vang vieng is a pretty cool little town. its largely popular for its adventurey sporty stuff like, trekking, kyakking, tubing bla bla. the town itself is likened to las vegas due to it being a misplaced cluster of bars and lights at the foot of a huge mountain range in the middle of nowhere. there's a very odd 'friends' tv show epedemic going on, whereby loads of bars play the damn show over and over and over and people just sit there labotomised staring at the tv all day.
we did a combo day of trekking and tubing. but mostly kyakking. it turned out that it was only me and ruairi with this specific tour and everyone else was in these big groups of
20 or more. i felt ridiculous. we had to kyak down the river pass loads of people who were tubing (you sit in a big rubber tube with a beer in your hand and float down the river), which was really embarressing and crap cause we were the geeky kyakkers when everyone else was partying. our man did let us stop at one of the many makeshift bars and swing joints to have a token beer and a swing into the river(which ruairi did-i didnt).
luang prubang is a very sleepy little town. when i say sleepy, i mean bloody boring. though we did end up spending 5 nights here because we fell into the 'do nothing, say nothing' way of life here. about half an hour out of town however, is the most amazing waterfalls i have ever seen, georgeous! clear blue swimming pools at the bottom of a 6 tiered fall. bloody beautiful. we ended up going 2 days in a row just to soak it up. the first day i slipped on my ass though and the second day i put all way weight on a handrail and snapped the thing in 2! ooops!
we
took a 2 day boat trip up the mekong and into the border village of thailand. now that was an experience! 2 9 hr days, sitting on the hard wood floor of a cargo boat, with fish, screaming kids and live iguanas being carried around upside down. not to mention constant breakdowns to ensure you dont make it to the border on time, so you have to stay at the boatdriver's-cousin's guesthouse that evening. i tell you what, i think i'v paid my pennance for that mercedes over the cambodian-vietnam border!
larry
cheers for all the comments on the last blog! really cool!
who is sarah paul? did i possibly work with you?...
mike-no probs on using the fishing boat photo and yes i took the pic (ruairi just isnt capable of such amazing shots...hehe). hes making me take all the photos from here on in, hence why there is no photos of me. my fav on this blog by far is the one i took of him on the falls! (oh, and the chicken).
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d and b
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entertaining
the way u put it is so funny