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Hi Everybody,
Sorry we have been a bit slack - finding decent internet places to upload pics has been a bit of a challenge!!!
So since our last update we have zoomed through Laos and got to Cambodia to meet up with Dave and Komi. Our time in Laos wasn't as long as we had hoped but we had a really great time. When we left Pai it turned out that there were 3 other Kiwis heading to Laos on the same van as us. We got chatting and ended up spending quite a lot of time with them. The van ride we met them on was a bit of a mission. We left at 8pm and got to the border town at 4 am where we got 3 hours sleep before being woken up to cross the border. The actual border crossing was very easy, got an exit stamp from Thailand, hopped on a boat across the Mekong to Laos, got a visa and viola! Job done.
We then decided we would get a 2 day slow boat down the Mekong with Haley, Shani and Glen, the Kiwis we had met. The trip was ok, saw some
pretty amazing scenery but since the boat was so slow there was no airflow and it was super hot. Oh well pretty cool experience. At the end of the 2 days the boat dropped us at Luang Prabang, a really pretty and chilled town.
That night Geena and I went for some dinner before hooking up with the Kiwis again for some beers where we met some other travelers Seb and David who both traveled through much of Laos with us. Luang Prabang is full of Wats (Temples) and has quite a large population of Buddhist monks. Because of this all the bars close at 11pm as they don't want rowdy westerners keeping the monks awake when they have to get up so early. Luckily when the bars close there are heaps of tuk tuks outside to take you to the outskirts of town to the only club they have. So 15 of us climbed into and onto the tuk tuk and carried on to party. It was basically a warehouse crammed with young locals and a few westeners. Had a great night.
The next day we got a ride to some waterfalls about an hour out of
60 westerners all in boat...
...and this was only half full apparantly!town. Easily the most beautiful falls I have ever seen. We spent about 3 hours there swimming, jumping off the falls and playing on the rope swing. That night we all grabbed some dinner together before Adrian (another traveller we met) and I spent an hour playing football in the police station carpark with a load of local kids. Had a lot of fun with that even though my team lost!!!
The next day Geena and I got a bus to Vang Vieng. Probably the scariest ride we have had yet! High, windy, narrow roads. Geena loved it!! Unfortunately by the time we got there Geena was feeling very ill and she came down with a bout of food poisoning again. So the next day I met up with the Kiwis, Seb and David who had all made there way there as well. We got scooters and went off adventuring. We ended up finding some pretty amazing caves. The coolest one had a rock pool about 50 meters inside it. Pretty tough to get to though. It was so narrow at places I almost couldn't fit. Well worth the effort though.
The following day Geena was feeling better
so we all went off TUBING!! For those of you who don't know Tubing involves hiring an inflated inner tube from a tractor and floating down a river in the countryside, stopping at bars that have been built on the riverbank and drinking loads while swinging off 10 meter high rope swings!!! Probably one of the best days we have had on our trip.
We then spent another couple of days recovering before heading off to Vientiane with Haley, Shani and Seb. We hired bikes and rode around checking out the sites which consisted of a Arc de Triomphe replica and not much else! Haley and Shani left after a day and Geena and I the following one as there was nothing to do there!! So we hopped on a plane and headed to Siem Reap, Cambodia to meet up with Dave and Komi and explore the temples of Angkor (update coming soon)
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