Vientiane Life in Laos' capital Vientiane rolls along quietly at its own pace. When we arrived at 7 in the morning nothing was open and for the rest of our time there it really felt like the city really switched on. I had my first ever sauna and first ever massage while in Vientiane at one of the local Wats. I don't think I've ever heard my body crack so much. I'm sure that these things are meant to be a bit of a mix of pleasure and pain and while having it I definitely thought it erred towards the second [View Full Entry]

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4000 Islands One of the first thing I noticed about Laos is the pace of life and the people. The guys stamping the passports were chilling out wearing t-shirts and shorts (Actually one wasn't even bothering with the T-shirt thing). Once we got past the entry point everyone seemed to chilling out or playing Tackro (kinda like volley ball but without using your hands or arms, it should also be noted that this is the most energetic thing I saw in all of Laos). We jumped into our transort, a converted flat bed truck with a roof but open sides and [View Full Entry]

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Phnom Penh The trip across the border was pretty easy. Customs is not to much of an issue, as in they don't even bother to look at your bags and barely glance at your passport. It was all done on a very brief stop on the trip up the river on the slow boat. Upon disembarking the boat for the last time into Cambodia we were ushered into a bus and on our way to Phnom Pehn. The road was amazing! Described as a "free massage" by the local operator, road bumps on this road were not very useful as they [View Full Entry]

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Dalat After a long bus trip (as per usual) I arrived in the Dalat in the late afternoon and as soon as I had stepped into the hotel that I was going to stay at the heavens opened and we got a dose of real tropical down pours. As I was a bit late in getting going in the morning all the motorcycle drivers that I had been hoping to catch a lift with that day had already got their customers for the day so I decided to go and hire a bike and do my own tour. Now having studied [View Full Entry]

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Moving South OK so I'm statrting to get a little bit beind in this thing so I will aspire to be briefer. I decided to get the open bus ticket that goes from Hanoi to Ho Chi Min (Saigon). The buses here can travel at a max speed of 50km/hr (30km/hr through the towns. The longer journeys take up to 14 hours but luckily they're generally over night (not that you can sleep with the bus honking and jolting every 20 seconds) Hue Hue is the old capital of Vietnam. The morning I arrived I jumped on the back of a [View Full Entry]

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Sapa I arranged to get my visa for Cambodia and Laos while I was in Hanoi and this meant that I needed to fill a few more days in North Vietnam. The obvious choice was Sapa. Sapa is in the high country of North Vietnam, close to the border with China and the weather is a bit cooler thanks to the greater altitude. I arranged to go hiking for two days and stay in a local village at a home stay. The trip to Sapa was one of the more interesting (I'm not sure if anyone actually knew exactly who I [View Full Entry]

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Hanoi I arrived in Vietnam in time to catch the tail end of the most recent Typhoon! Basically a lot of rain, nothing too serious but enough to keep you off the streets. I went and found a hotel to hide in and luckily the rain was about to end. The traffic in Hanoi is about 99.9% motorbikes and their horn is the most commonly used form of defensive driving. Crossing the road is certainly the one of the first challenges that anyone new to vietnam experiences. Basically just start walking and the traffic moves around you (or at least that's [View Full Entry]

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Getting out - Cameron Islands After my one day of exploring KL I decided that I had probably had enough of the big smoke (literally) and on the adivice of fellow travellers, decided to head to the Cameron Highlands. The bus trip as long and a large proportion of it was travelling through the rainforest which covers something like 85% of Malaysia. It was good to see the level of development decreasing away from the city centres. A couple of thousand meters up the highlands offer a more temperate climate suitable for chilling out, for growing and for drinking tea. The [View Full Entry]

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Arrival + First Steps I arrived into Kuala Lumpur international airport at around 9.00pm on Sunday night to a balmy 27C. The airport is pretty flash and easy to navigate as almost all signs are in both English and Bahasa(local language most commonly spoken). The biggest shock was coming out of the airport to the 27C temperatures and what felt like near 100% humidity. The smog was also pretty bad at the time and you could really taste the pollution in the air. On my transfer to the hotel for the first nights accomodation I chatted with a really interesting guy [View Full Entry]

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