Hanwillson

I had another pretty long journey down to Koh Tao - 27 hours door to door from Siem Reap which involved a pretty scary share taxi journey from Siem Reap to the border - the whole way I was planning how I would get to a hospital in bangkok when we crashed and how i would contact home and the people i knew in the area who would be able to come and help me - but as it amzingly happenned i didnt need it and i got to the border safely, crossed and instantly saw how different thailand is from where i had been for the past 6 weeks - it seemed positively developed! Motorbike took me to the bus station and i got there with 5 minutes to spare so grabbed a bag ... read more

The weekend that I was arriving into Vietnam was Tet - the Vietnamese new year which was why the bus had been so busy. This meant that all the tailors were shutting down and nothing was operating as it should be - which was probably just as well because there were less places to go shopping! It was really nice to be able to be here then though because there was quite an excitable atmosphere and the people were all really busy getting the last minute preparations which seems to be these tiny orange trees, yellow blossom trees and lots of flowers to it is all very pretty - and generally multiples of these would be ferried around on their motorbikes. I arrived into Hoi An and I recognised the hotel that I had stayed at ... read more

The trip down to Vientiane was another saengthaw but we didn’t break the record for the number of people in it this time. Vientiane is a funny city - it is the capital but it didn’t seem at all together and there didn’t seem to be a particular centre, it was all broken pavements, open sewers and road works and there would be one bar on the road, another restaurant on the next street - no atmosphere I thought. I wasn’t there for long but did the Lonely Planet walking tour on the first day where I went to see the Laos version of the arc de triomphe (sp?) which had a very funny plaque describing itself as a monster! There are lots of temples and I also went to the morning market which was a ... read more

I was staying at the Viradesa GH in Luang Prabang in the only dorm in the city for $2 a night! However the room was a little like a dungeon though so when I arrived I headed straight out again to explore the town. It was evening so the night market was in full swing. All the items for sale are laid out down the road and they varied from t-shirts, to art work to light shades and really nice duvet sets - but I refrained from buying the duvet sets - they looked a little too heavy! The next day I set out to explore the sights of Luang Prabang, which started very nicely with a trip to the Joma Bakery and a chocolate croissant for breakfast. Luang Prabang is a really nice town and ... read more