Bangkok to Laos... and back again

---

I would like to start with an apology - I wrote most of this blog on Christmas Eve, but due to an unfortunate turn of events I lost the memory stick that it was saved to somewhere in a river in Laos! I know that was a month ago, and we should have published it since then, but we wanted to catch up. Well we finally.... haven't still - but this includes returning to Bangkok now and we will try to get up to date very soon! Thanks for listening...

After our long bus trip we arrived just off Khao San Road. We looked at 3 hotels, chose an ok room with hot shower for 700 baht and went for some kebabs and mango shake. The road was buzzing with life and backpackers but apart from the stall and shop owners there were not many locals about.
We moved to a slightly cheaper hotel the next day, still near Khao San Road as it seemed like a fairly good base and somewhere where street food was plentiful and, especially just off the street, pretty damn good! We went to the Grand Palace and spent a good hour or two wandering round the mural that went all around Wat Phra Kaew and were amazed at how few people were about - everyone came in and went straight to the emerald Buddha, but these paintings were amazing and missed by most people. We did then go to see the Buddha, it was pretty elaborate and beautiful... but also very small and quite far away.
We then wandered around the Grand Palace for a while, saw the changing of the guard (that’s right, just one) and many guns before heading off, eating some more delicious street food along the way!
The next day we decided we weren’t yet wat-ted out so we headed to the river, jumped on a river ferry and headed to Wat Pho. This is where the biggest reclining Buddha in the world is and I have to give it to him, this Buddha is big. Not as big as Leshan, but much more golden and laying back-y. It was awesome to see, but afterwards we decided we needed revitalising, so off we went to have a famous Wat Pho massage - and it was pretty good!
We then returned to the river ferry, went to the last stop and caught the skytrain - although neither Ben or myself have ever been big on shopping I heard the malls here were pretty good, especially for the food courts and we were hungry. We stopped at Siam station and went straight into the Paragon centre (and I mean straight, the station actually exits into it!) we went downstairs and found ourselves in the most outstanding place we have seen on our trip. The Paragon food hall. Beats everything - so much so that we spent an initial 2 hours there, first buying a few kebabs and a couple of things and then we found the gourmet hall... which had many, many, many free samples! Needless to say we ate very well, and those who know my fondness of free or cheap things will know what a haven this place was!
We eventually dragged ourselves away (and it was a real effort) and explored the rest of the mall. I say explored I mean got lost in... and I say the rest of, probably closer to 5% of the place... it was huge! Became interested in several things on sale, but managed to restrain from buying anything apart from some art supplies for Ben.
So we woke the next day. After having to move to another guesthouse due to ours being fully booked we went to see a snake farm. It was pretty interesting but there were a couple of snakes who were not looking well looked after. The guy who worked there said these were half dead when they got them as locals would try to kill them... still doesn’t make sense why they would not try to make it better rather than leaving it. The rest of the snakes looked in pretty good condition though and the workers seemed to have a real passion for snakes so hopefully they are trying to help the less fortunate snakes...
After that we....er...returned to the Paragon Centre and accidently bought a laptop! Hooray! And spent some more time in the food court for good measure. Bangkok is fun.
We moved to a different hostel further north in Bangkok the next day, close to the Chatachuk weekend market... and the cheapest place we found with free wifi :D after spending Friday just uploading photos and loving our new laptop! The next two days we spent wandering around Chatuchuk market, which is huge! Bought some Christmas presents and sent them back to the good old UK and ate the best chicken of our whole trip in a small cafe packed with locals - only cost about £1.80 for two pretty big plates of chicken and a can of coke. Excellent.
We then jumped on a bus and headed north for a few hours to Pak Chong. With the help of a very friendly local girl who knew how to work the pay phones (I stupidly couldn’t figure it out!) we got a free ride to our guesthouse, 10km outside town, after getting some supplies at the 7/11 - which literally plague the streets in Thailand, they are more prevalent than stray dogs, but are slightly better for food.
We spent the next two days in and around Khao Yai National Park, which is nowhere near as popular as it should be, and we were very grateful for that! Had an amazing time seeing gibbons, macaques, water monitor lizards, hornbills, cicadas, masked palm civets, whip spider, frogs, millions of tadpoles, around 2 million bats emerging from a cave in one continuous stream, a truly awesome spectacle... oh and wild elephants! Everything was incredible but the elephants were by far the most amazing experience. They were literally metres away from us at times and came out from the forest next to us and walked across the road in front of us! At first there was just 8 of us in one swangthaw (pick-up truck with benches in the back), 8 people in another and 12 -14 elephants. After about 15 minutes a couple more pick tour groups came and parked in front of us, continually edging closer to the elephants. Our driver backed away quite a bit as he felt there were too many vehicles surrounding the animals and the other people who stayed, in his words, “want to be pancakes”. Soon after he said that one of the elephants did charge at the truck which had to move away quickly - but once it stopped it edged back again, again scaring the elephants and making a different one charge at them. Preferred our driver! After the elephants had moved off the road, most vehicles (a couple of cars had come along as well) left, so we went closer to them one final time before we headed off to leave them in peace. We were going to eat watermelon and watch the sunset.... but that was put on hold when we saw another 5 elephants at a salt lick! Out guide almost wet himself with excitement, proclaimed “this is elephant day” and jumped out the truck (after it stopped obviously!). The salt lick was further away so we could get out the truck safely and we all missed the sunset which happened somewhere behind us. The guide told us this was the best day for elephants in a very long time, and the last 3 days they hadn’t seen any at all! So we were pretty damn lucky!
After a couple of days which rate pretty high in the whole trip, we got a night train up to Nong Khai. There were no beds left so we went for the second class seats - less than £8 for a 7 hour journey we thought was pretty good. But didn’t turn out so great! The seats were ok for sitting but really not that good for sleeping and it was insanely loud in the carriage so very little sleep was had. And we arrived at Nong Khai at 5am, got a tuk tuk to a guesthouse we’d heard about but hadn’t booked and found out the reception was not open until 8am. So we sat outside in their garden overlooking the Mekong river and Laos and waited. 3 hours later and we asked about a room, they said they thought they should have one but we would have to wait until 11 - but we could have breakfast! So we ate and then waited some more. We eventually got a small bungalow for £6 a night and as soon as we got in we slept.
Neither of us felt that well in Nong Khai - both suffering with colds, so we did little except cycle to visit an amazing sculpture park with many Buddha and Hindu figures made from concrete, and the rest of the time we uploaded photos, read and slept a lot. Went out one night with a couple of guys, one who was cycling around South East Asia - had been for several months, Ben and I wished we could do something like that, but a half hour cycle along a pretty flat road to the sculpture park had tired me out, so maybe not yet...!
We crossed over into Laos - which is where we are now - easiest border crossing yet, only took a couple of hours guesthouse to guesthouse. Spent a few days in Vientiane, mainly queuing to get our Thai visas due to the rules changing and taking in easy as I was still not feeling great. Did have many good fruit shakes before making our way to Vang Vieng to spend Christmas.
After a strange Christmas morning with a couple of small presents (our main one being this notebook which we obviously hadn't waited until Christmas to open!), we borrowed a kayak from the eco-lodge where we were staying. You only had to pay for the cost of transporting it back to the lodge if you didn’t go with a guide. Being seasoned kayakers, we decided to go alone. It was old and orange and had a fish living in it...
The water was mostly shallow, but there were a number of rapids, the second of which we hit side-on, and we were then sat in two inches of water. No problem, we were wearing shorts and everything of value was in a waterproof roll top bag. So we aimed for a bank and tipped the water out.
The scenery was pretty impressive, particularly when we noticed a couple of water buffalo, their heads only just poking out of the water, a few yards from us. Completely alone on the river, the only people we saw were a couple of locals washing clothes and looking for shellfish.
A few minutes later we noticed that again the kayak needed tipping out again. And so we realised that its integrity had been compromised. As we sat on a gravel bank, watching water pour out from several holes in its base, a tour group of perhaps 10 kayakers complete with guide and life jackets glided by, their kayaks designed to sit on the water. As they cruised by they offered helpful comments such as “You’ve got a leak!”, and “why not tip the water out”. They didn’t know that Hannah’s short arms couldn’t put up with much more lifting.
It was actually pretty funny and because of it we got to see a huge bird of prey on one of our increasingly frequent stops. The holes in the kayak looked like they had been patched up numerous times- by melting the plastic. The rocky river bed undid each repair. And we began bailing out water with our water bottle and a discarded one we found along the way.
We passed by the numerous bars lining the river, totally ruining the serenity of the area, pumping out drum and base. Not appealing in the slightest. The tubing run started here too. And we passed through this section with Hannah in front, bailing out water yelling “paddle faster!”
Eventually we made it to town, where a hotel was being built, with something like a hundred builders sprawling like insects all over it. It was going up fast.
Pulled in alongside some other kayaks and phoned the lodge to let them know we’d arrived. Waited the allotted 20 minutes and an extra 40 and still the kayak hadn’t been picked up and the phone wasn’t being answered, so we headed into town.
Mainly bars with TVs, along streets being crisscrossed by wasted tourists, we found an internet cafe and called home. Then took a tuk tuk back.
So we left Vang Vieng and caught a bus back to Vientiane, where we rented a room once more at the ‘Saysouly’ hotel. After a good coffee, a fruit plate and a mango shake at our favourite spot we, I broke a glass and we took it easy. That night we returned to a French restaurant we had previously dined in and had a huge steak platter, with three sauces - this was really our Christmas dinner, as we had eaten very little on Christmas and the dinner had only been mediocre.
The next day we caught a sawngthaew to the friendship bridge with some twins from Switzerland. Skilfully we avoided paying any "exit fees" by just acting ignorant and stupid - came strangely naturally to us. Fought our way onto the bridge bus, then hopped on a minibus to the train station at Nong Khai.
The sleeper train to Bangkok was full of tourists and was quite an easy ride, where each person has their own curtain to make their little bed private from the rest of the 45 people in the carriage. Impossible to sleep though due to loud train noises from the corridor and a broken door by our heads. Arrived early and stayed at the Asha guesthouse. Spent 4 nights there, including New Years Eve.
New years in Bangkok was great and a little insane, spent it with a few thousand people in and outside a huge shopping complex, Centralworld. It was a great night, with music, dances and a huge fireworks display andus being in the minority, several Thai's got excited by seeing us and cheerfully shouted "Happy New Year". What was probably the most amazing thing about this many people on New Year's Eve in one place was that the whole night we saw maybe 3 drunk people - everyone else was literally just out for a good time! We somehow made our way through the crowd, having to jump over a wall to get out of the complex as there were just too many people to get through the one exit gate! It was quiite an odd feeling getting onto the skytrain, as we are used to using our feet to move forward - but here the mass of people was enough that lifting ourselves up a little we could practically glide forward due to the forward pressing pressure! After almost an hour of negotiating the crowds we made it onto the skytrain - helped by the fact we had bought tickets earlier in the day "just incase it's a bit busy tonight"! Anyone without a ticket were being sent away or forced to wait until the throng of people died down!
After a long sleep the next morning, we did a little more shopping in these malls which we probably would happily live in (if just for the massage chairs and food courts) before making our way to buy our tickets out of Bangkok for the next night. Of course leaving it as late as we had there were no sleeper berths for a good few nights - so another reclining seat for us!
I think it's safe to say Bangkok has been our favorite city - and leaving it the next day, knowing this time we would not be back in a week or so was pretty tough. We are mallrats.

---

Photos

Tadpoles
Thought I should include one picture - we have thousands...!