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Published: November 12th 2008
The golden boy has arrived..
...another town antoher temple..Hello again,
After a little demand and more sarchasme really regarding my last e-mail (mostly the lenght of it) it is time for a new update from my good self..
I am sitting in front of a hotel, drinking a fresh mixed fruit juice and eating a fruit plate. Not because i have become a fruiterian, but because it is the only thing they serve and they have free wi-fi and free view of the magnificent sunset over the Mekong river just in front of me. I am currently in Vientiane, the capital of Laos which is the size of Oslo, meaning small, lovely and everything is in walking distance. If you have never heard of the town, dont worry neither had i till a couple of days ago, I only decided to come here when the train to Malaysia was full. I am usually quite good with planning before i go to a new place, but because i have been completely loved up with Gareth for the last 2/3 weeks, all that was out the window and I had a journey into the unknown - which in retrospect was a little bit silly.
It started with G
and me going to the trainstation in BKK to book my train, then it was full, so i remembered a French girl telling me about this place so i though id come here in stead and it turned out the train here was full as well..so we left the train station and i thought 'ill sort it out tomorrow', last thing i wanted to do on Gs last day was to run around to travel agents sorting my departure out.. So in the end i ended up on a bus station, with the BKK hotel manager who turned out to be a bit creepy, but at least he sorted out the bus ticket and off i was. Now, usually these bus rides are full of westerners so i thought id borrow someones guide book and find out a few details on the way. You know, just the little things like the currency, exchange rate, the name of a hotel or two... as you might have guessed i was the only westerner on the bus.. So after 9 hours of Thai video films and a very comfortable bus, not only was there only 24 seats so very wide and spacious... every
Finally the sea...
On the way to Ko Phi Phi...bliss !!! seat was a massage chair!!! I thought i had died and gone to bus heaven..but as it turned out, even on the highest setting all you got was a mild current at the bottom of the spine.. Nevermind, i slept like a baby until i was abruptly awoken at 0400 in the morning at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere - Nang Khai - the last thai town on the other side of the Mekong river. According to the bus people it was supposed to arrive at 0600 so either this was a speed crazy thai bus driver or a Nepalese on a working holiday.. anyway, so there i was in the pitch black on a bus station, with about 10 or 20 very sleepy thai, a couple of cockroaches (they make me feel at home now) and a thai bus ticket seller who was very interested in the Norwegian midnight sun. After about 1.5 hours of desperatly trying not to fall asleep i was on a tuk tuk on my way to Friendship bridge and the Thai departure office, then a bus over the Mekong river and the Laos immigration. Thankfully i could pay my entrance in
Bath cause i still had no idea what the currency was or how much it was worth.. and then it was on another tuk-tuk for the 30 min ride into Vientian, after a bit only i was left on the tuk tuk. The driver asked where i was going and i had of course no idea, but he dropped me off in the centre, which is a little strip infront of the river, with some hotels, laid back restaurants and a very happy atmosphere...So i walked into the first and best one got a room and promptly feel asleep... No cochroaches, no spiders, no money. But now i have half a million in my pocket, a very healthy stomache and stunning river views, so all good in the end - I find that is usually the way :-)
Thailand was as good as expected, I finnished of my kick boxing, my wrist took at least a week to recover and got on the night train down to Bangkok to meet Gareth. I arrived at 0900 in the morning and got to the beatiful hotel that we had booked on the net (planning is good!). Then started the 6 hour
wait for Gareth to arrive, but after 3 i could not do it anymore and set of for the airport where i was walking around like a giddy teenager and after a few more hours he walked through the arrival gate.. ahhhhh...i am getting a bit giddy just thinking about it... We spent a couple of nights in Bangkok, the first night we had a splendid evening on the hotel roof toop with some Aussies, Americans, Swedes and Dutchies, drinking Thai wiskey and coke out of a bucket, quite a few rounds of beer, fire works - the lot. Then Gareth found man heaven in Khong Thom - a market full of electrical gagdets, tools, weapons, DVDs, car stuff etc. at rock bottom prices... Yeay!! Actually it was quite interesting for me as well, not all the 3 days we spent there in the end...but what dont you do for love.. Then we went to Kho Phi Phi, again on a bus as the train was full, and they showed some quality films - Die hard 2 and some other rubbish. Kho Phi Phi town was good, but full of drunken yobs on tour, but one day we went deep
sea fishing and G caught a 15kg sail fish!!!! It was bloody huge!!!! Just before it bit the bait i had removed my white shorts and put them in the front of the boat ready to dive in, so naturally they got covered in fresh fish blood....mmmm...mostly on the bum... After the fishing went cliff jumping of an 8 meter high cliff and then as we got back to the beach, i managed to step on to a thick rope as i climbed down from the 'deck', my foot shot forward and hit the anchor...yup, another toe bites the dust!!! Oh the pain!!!!!!! But at least the pain took my thoughts away from my blood stained behind as I limped through the village on the way back to the hotel. The next day we went off to Koh Lanta - another island - where we spent two days driving around on a scooter. Thankfully G is motor cross man cause the road consisted very much of mud, rocks and very steep hills. At one point we ended up in a tree hut, with the Thai re-incarnation of Bob Marley playing some quality tunes on his guitar and enjoying some beers...
good times, good times!! And then there was the diving, I promised G a Padi course for his bday so we went back to Long beach on Phi Phi, a much more chilled place, were we finally got the elusive bungalow with sea view (if you stretched your head around the corner) and we booked the course. Now i have always been comfortable in water so i thought it would be a peace of cake.. Gareth, myself and Sean our instructor went of in a long tail boat to a small beach and got in the shallow water to do some breathing exercise, Gareth looked like he had done it a million times before (if i did not know he only has a shower i would have thought he had practiced in the bath tub before coming!), whilst i kept floating to the top feeling even more silly than usual. At one point i desperately wanted to get back in the boat. I was standing up with my veranda lip in full view and very much about to cry, but there was no chickening out so i got back in and Sean took us down to 10 metres after a
bit more of removing your goggles and silly things like that!! And what we found was truly amazing!! i never thought about it but it really is like flying.. its not only flat sea bed, but valleys and cliffs and mountain sides... and to top it all off, the colourful fishis and sharks (yes we did see a shark, G saw 4 cause he dived an extra day) it was truly amazing and after 3 days of bliss we were both the proud owners of Padi open water certificates!! And i was very very sea sick!!
Now Gareth is back in the UK and i am in Laos and i am a little bit sad and lonely, but there seem to be quite a few travellers around so tomorrow I shall make an effort to go out and make some new friends.. Until then please keep me updated on everything and pleeeease some gossip!!! Something must surely have happened that i dont know about!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PERNILLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INGRID - ENJOY INDIA!!
OK, lots of love from Laos and have a great weekend all!!!!! again sorry about the lenght..i never seem to be able to stop once i
I killed Nemo...
....dont tell your children.. get started...
Love from Kristin xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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