http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Jon_H/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Jon_H en-us Fri, 25 Dec 2009 08:00:26 +0000 Fri, 25 Dec 2009 08:00:26 +0000 Just a note to let you all know that since I have been back home I have added some photos onto all my blogs from the last 5 months so if any of you are interested or for those of you who find reading a bit too much of an effort you can go back through them and see what it was I was waffling on about. And if any of you are gluttons for punishment there are plenty more where they came from http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/West-Midlands/Birmingham/blog-85210.html The sleeper train to my final destination Bangkok was excellent and a far better way to travel than overnight buses. I checked into my usual guesthouse and walked around the streets of Banglamphu which I'm bizzarly familiar with considering that it is thousands of miles from home. I've been in and out of Bangkok so many times this trip that it feels extremely comfortable and worryingly n http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-84950.html Getting back into Chiang Mai felt like a breath of fresh air after the bad experience of Mae Hong Son and I immediately felt much happier.I spent a day doing some further wondering around the old part of the city and visiting a few more of Chiang Mai's impressive wats as well as indulging in the fantastic food available in the city. Along the way I bumped into a girl who I had met on the bus from http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Chiang-Mai/blog-84949.html Mae Hong Son was a mistake. It was the only place on the whole of my trip that I really just didn't take to.The arrival at the bus station and the subsequent walk through the town wasn't very inspiring but when I checked into a good cheap guesthouse next to a pleasant looking lake with a good view of Mae Hong Son's main wat things started looking up.Further exploration of the town revealed that http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Mae-Hong-Son/blog-84943.html After spending a day in Chiang Mai recovering from the exertions of the three day trek I headed 4 hours North West to Pai one of the coolest places I have visited. Pai is a tiny town surrounded by the obligatory picturesque mist covered mountains to which I have become somewhat used to. There is nothing much which is an obvious draw to the town however it has become a sort of hippytraveller h http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Pai/blog-84937.html Chiang Mai is the number one spot in Thailand and possible SE Asia for trekking into the mountains and so I joined the masses. Some of my intended group cancelled at the last minute so it ended up being just me and a group of 4 German girls who set out on the 3 day hike. We were supposed to be heading North of Chiang Mai but some heavy rain in the mountains has caused flooding and so the plan http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Chiang-Mai/blog-81474.html I bet you didn't expect this to be my next port of call because I certainly didn't. After setting off from Don Det at 8am I took a boat to the shore a local bus complete with live chickens and a bag of live frogs to Pakse and a VIP bus to Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand where I arrived around 17.30. I took advantage of being at the bus station to enquire about times and prices of buses to Chia http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Chiang-Mai/blog-80318.html Si Phan Don aka 4000 Islands is a beautiful part of the Mekong River where it spreads out to reveal numerous islands the actual number varies depending on the height of the water. Getting there was a bit of a pain as there are no direct buses from Champasak so I had to wait at the side of the road for over an hour before being able to hail down a bus going there from Pakse. It goes without say http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/South/Si-Phan-Don/blog-80316.html Champasak is only a 90 minute bus ride South of Pakse. However the journey was elongated by the driver insisting on waiting 3 hours until he deicided that the bus was full enough to warrant him removing himself from the nearby noodle stand.Champasak is a quiet and pretty one street town literally. That one street is actually more of a dirt track but it is bounded by the river on one side and http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/South/Champasak/blog-78949.html A surprisingly comfortable overight journey made bearable by copious snacking saw me arrive in Pakse the transport hub of the South. As you may well guess anywhere that is defined as a transport hub doesn't really have that much going for it and Pakse is no exception. It's a town with a strange deserted atmosphere. The roads are wide and in good condition but theres no traffic and the mar http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/South/Pakxe/blog-78947.html The return to Vientiane was a short one and a pretty sad one as that is where Monique and I went our seperate ways Monique to Bangkok before she flies home to Houston while I continue to Southern Laos.Sad though it was we still managed to enjoy our last day or so together. We ate good food by the river and visited Phat That Luang the beautiful Laos national monument which we inexplicably man http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vientiane/blog-78942.html The trip south back to lovely Luang Prabang was much shorter than the journey there but just as interesting. We took a local bus which consists of a couple of benches in the back of a truck which was initially not too crowded. However the driver proceeded to stop every few minutes to let more people on with whatever sacks bags or boxes of produce they were carrying. I think the highest coun http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-78939.html Nong Kiaw is only 3 hours North of Luang Prabang by road however we decided to take the advice of the everunreliable Lonely Planet and take the most scenic trip in the whole of Laos which takes 7 hours against the current and costs 4 times as much as the bus.I'm sure that the scenery would be very nice endless hills and mountains on either side and the occasional tiny village complete with exc http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Nong-Khiaw/blog-75356.html If I thought that the scenery in between Vientiane and Vang Vieng was impressive the views from the bus on the way to Luang Prabang were stunning. The bus made the achingly slow about 100km in 6 hours journey up the windy mountain roads and through the clouds past beautiful valleys with tiny wooden huts on the slopes which were at times well over 45 degrees. I have no idea how they farm on t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-75353.html The bus journey North to Vang Vieng was absolutely stunning and refreshingly short. It is a tiny town surrounded by huge limestone mountains and during our stay at least continually coverred by the mist from the top of those mountains. There is very little to do or see in the town itself and it seems to have been brought to life by the tourist industry as travellers stop for the fantastic scen http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-73353.html It goes without saying that the first port of call after checking into a guesthouse in Vientiane after nearly 22 excruciatingly painful hours on the road was to relax for a while and have a short nap. This was only interupted briefly by the need to eat before retiring to bed for a much needed proper sleep.After recovering from my zombielike state I managed to have a walk round and check out the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vientiane/blog-72749.html When I started writing this blog I never once expected that a single bus journey would be worthy of it's own post but I have been proven wrong.I wasn't greatly looking forward to the 22 hour bus journey to Laos as you might expect but I didn't expect it to be quite as horrendous as it was. To start we were picked up half an hour late by a taxi when we were expecting to get straight onto a bus. I http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vientiane/blog-71482.html After Halong Bay I returned to Hanoi for a couple of days in order to sort out visas and tickets for Laos. This could have been sorted out beforehand but I didn't want to move on before England's World Cup quarter final just in case it wasn't possible to watch it in Vientiane. In retrospect I may have been better off not watching it but I've done enough ranting about it already so I won't fill a http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/blog-71459.html The less said about the 14 hour bus journey to Hanoi the better all you need to know is that I got there. Needless to say that the majority of my first day in the capital was spent catching up on sleep. This was followed by trying to make sense of the ratrun of streets which make up the Old Quarter of the city and finding food.The city centre is pleasantly based around a big lake which gives it http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-69401.html After wading through a number of tour companies with an unbelievable range of prices for Halong Bay tours going upto over 200 I decided to reject the recommendations I had received for some expensive agencies and take a gamble on a 35 3day all inclusive trip to Halong Bay. The next few days that followed were some of the best of my trip thus far.After a cramped bus journey to the coast we bo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Halong-Bay/blog-70416.html