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Published: July 28th 2009
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Hello every one hope your all well back home? we have had a stroke of luck and found a hotel with free internet!!!! so I can take my time, and have a proper chin wag with you all, perhaps even have a cuppa tea just like we were having a gos in sunny England! so let me tell you what happened in laos.
First stop in Loas was a little island called Dondet, to get there, yep my favourite one of those rickerty little wooden boats! In true Helen style got off the boat and fell up the bank a usual, at least this time missed the water! Got a great place to stay, a cheap little wooden hut on the Mekong river owned by a little old lady with a huge personality known as mama, who frequently greeted me and Laura by hit our arms and ruffing us up!! Dondet was probably the most relaxing place on earth, we spent most of our days there chilling in hammocks and watching the sunset over the river with a few to many beer Laos with our mates kev from Liverpool, Katy from Wolverhampton, Gerald and Francesca from Ausria and Neils from
Amstadam. One night after a few to many drinks at kevs hut, me and Laura spent ages creeping round all the huts on the island which were all completly identical, trying to decide where we lived! It was like we were a pair of bugalars!
We did manage a couple of constructive days on Dondet, we went and explored the island on foot and also rented some push bikes and went on a bike ride to a waterfall, well half a bike ride! There were a few technical hitches as always! Lauras bike had no brakes so her bike was a death trap especially when your trying to dodge unpredictable water buffallow that take up the whole path and Katies bike was finished before we had begun! The chain came off every few yards and even when we attempted to oil it with insect replant, and attach it to mine with a piece of wood, non of our intellectual ideas suprisingly seemed to work so we ended up pushing the bikes! Ok im telling fibs again, we met two little local 7 year old lads who took a liking to the knacked old bikes and to our happiness were
desprete to play on them, half riding half pushing they had great fun doing the hard work for us, we were slightly conserned when as lauras bike went flying into the distance with the 7 year old so was her passport that she had forgott was in the bike basket! but all was fine and the little boy was far more interested in shooting his slingshot than Lauras passport.
After Dondet we were making our way to Vientiene the capital city but to break up the journey stopped off at a place called Pakse. There was nothing to do there and as our bus to Vangvien wasnt untill the evening and we had to check out of our hotel at 9am, we payed a tuk tuk to take us to Pakse's poshest hotel where we blagged our way in, god only knows how!! and used there beautiful swimming pool for the entire day! We are very well practiced hotel crashers nowadays!
The next journey on the sleeping bus to Vientiene was hell! we got our bus and at first it felt like we had hit jackpot! After being told "Aghh you two, to big, to big" what the
Don Det
Kev and Laura swinging! driver ment was in laymans terms he thought we were both too fat to share a bunk so he orderd us to the back of the bus. Yep it was rude, but when we saw the spacious beds at the back we were prepared to let it go, and felt very happy at the rewards of being a fatty. However it was all too good to be true half an hour into the journey the aircon broke, the bus was a sauna. Every one got off, while a few of the male passengeers tinkered with some wires , non of them really had a clue what to do and so for the next 11 hours, sleeping at the back on the engine we well and truely cooked on a bus with no windows, fanning ourselves with ripped cardboard. When we finally arrived at Vietiene I had never felt so over joyed to get off a bus!
We Didnt stay long in Vientiene there wasnt a lot to do but we did meet Gerald and Francesica our mates from Dondet which was cool and hooked up with them again when we got to Vang Vieng. Once again after another doggy
bus where I had to sit on a plastic garden chair in the bus asle for the duration of the trip we got to Vang Vieng for some 'Tubing'. Let us explain the art of tubing....you basically go on a bar crawl but instead of walking to the next bar you ride an inflatable tube to it on the river!!! sounds all quite nice and delightful but it is absolutely carnage!!!
We had the best time tubing, nailing buckets, dancing and swimming in mud at the 'mud bar' we wanted Hannah Watford with us and making friends with complete strangers, two of which were Amy and Mr Yang. Me laura, mr Yang and Amy sharing 2 tubes between us drunk out our heads called it a night and plunged into the fast flowing current on our tubes in the pitch black of night. Amy hopped off and i cant remember much but then the three of us picked up 2 more lonely drunkards floating on the river an israeli and a spanish guy. The current was so strong we all held onto each other tubes as Mr yang the pro tuber knew the way to the last bar before the
Don Det
Kids we met on our walk river ran its course to who knows where! I remember floating for an hour looking up at the stars and I think i nodded off because i no longer had hold of the israelis foot! Next thing i remember was walking over a bridge with Mr Yang, Laura later told me she was shouting me with no avail as she floated away down the river with the israeli and the spanish guy. When i got onto the bank i realised no Laura and shouted her name across the river loads of voices replied but none Laura only Laos. Eventually Laura managed to scramble up the bank and not drift into Vietnam and we were reunited later on at the bar, no harm done.
After nursing our hangover the next day we went to Luang Prabang where we went for a bike ride, visited a temple, got soaked at the waterfall, ate a veggie buffett and bumped into 2 girls we went to uni with, weird!! We bidded farewell to the Austrians we had travelled with and got a bus to Phosavan to see the 'Plain of Jars' Laos equivelent of stone henge but not as good. Here we rented
our first motorbike with gears, we practiced up and down the road bunnyhopping with the locals pointing and laughing at us and after this quick crash course off we went. I was really excited about seeing the jars dispite Laura not being as keen. I thought it was beautiful and Laura liked the landscape. How jars can bring so much happines!!!!!! On the way back it was my turn to drive, we were crusing happily when a nervous looking calf was in the middle of the road not knowing where to turn!! There was no horn on the bike so I resorted to shouting at the poor thing then at the very last possible minute it darted away leaving Laura in hysterics and me a bit shaken at the thought i nearly ran down a calf!
That was the end of our Laos experience!!!
Next blog will be Vietnam.....
Miss you all see you soon
Helen and Laura x x x x
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liz
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nutters!