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Published: December 18th 2007
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Before and after!
We just got passport photos taken so we thought it was worth republishing this entry. The ones on the left were taken a week before we went away. Our time in Laos was very short, 5 days, so we had to move pretty quickly. It was nice and relaxing after Vietnam and the people seem much more friendly.
It took us abut 24 hours on the bus to get to Vientienne from Hanoi (we were told the bus would be leaving at 6, then that there would be a 10 minute wait, it eventually turned up 3 and a half hours later). But the journey wasn't too bad, the bus was fairly empty and there were other English travellers on it to talk to, and the bonus was that we only broke down once!
We spent 2 nights in Vientiane, and then got the bus to Vang Vieng, which was good fun and very relaxing. The main activity of choice for the backpacker here is tubing... you basically float down a river on a massive tyre innertube. There are various makeshift bars you can stop at on the way, most of which have massive ropeswings and zip lines into the river.
When we say makeshift, we really do mean a cool box on some bamboo slats, which are really precarious and move when you walk. Chris
managed to slip and move one of them so that the whole of his left leg went through a very small gap... luckily he was ok somehow, maybe Beer Lao has magical healing powers!
We decided on a flight to Bangkok as we couldn't handle another bus journey and this passed without incident, they even gave us all orchids, the national flower of Thailand, I think you'll all agree that it relly brings out the colour in Chris' eyes!
Back in Bangkok we have been getting some clothes made and frantically christmas shopping, both for ourselves, and others.
We also managed to randomly bump into some people we'd met earlier on in our trip. We all went to a Muay Thai (thai Boxing) evening together, and the locals thought that Chris was our pimp, which was quite entertaining for all involved, and luckily none of us were sold.
Other Bangkok activities have involved going on a river taxi to a place where fishing is banned and feeding the catfish bread, and we ticked another cultural box by going to see the reclining Buddha, which is absolutely huge, and has beautiful feet.
We're now a few
hours from going to the airport and are wondering how to fit all of our presents and new clothes into our backpacks. This is quite stressful for both of us, but it is the last time we have to pack, which makes me very happy!
Not sure if any of you are interested (considering our page with the most hits is the funny product names page - which you should check as we have some good new pics on there) , but we have a few facts about our trip....
In our 7 months and 3 days away, we have travelled around 40 thousand miles (roughly the circumference of planet earth), so on average we have travelled 187 miles a day! This is why life as a traveller can sometimes be exhausting.
Also, the only country we've visited without any red on it's flag is Argentina.
The two funniest things we've seen whilst away are...
1. An old Granny hitching up her skirt and squatting over a grate for a wee in the capital city of Bolivia at lunchtime
2. A thai lady unblocking a toilet full to the brim. The technique is
as follows, remove footwear, place foot in full of s**t toilet and wiggle until blockage has disappeared (sadly I didnt witness this one, but Chris wasn't sure weather to laugh or be sick when he saw it!).
We have had a few compulsory vaccinations (that were really expensive), yet have NEVER had to produce our certificates of these when entering or exiting a country (so Lonely Planet was definitely wrong when they say you cant travel through South America without a yellow fever certificate).
And, even though were coming home, we will still be taking our malaria tablets for another 3 and a half weeks, and even then have to be wary of symptoms for the next year.
Thank you all for reading our blogs (well at least opening the page) so far we've had 3186 hits in total, the most popular is as we said the funny product names page with 354 hits, showing the maturity of our audience, you should all feel proud of yourselves!
We're looking forward to getting home and catching up with everyone, see you all soon.
Cat and Chris
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mom
non-member comment
Be prepared its only 2 degrees here today!!