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Published: January 3rd 2008
Happy Belated Christmas and Happy almost on time New Year!
Yes we are still alive, and yes we are rubbish at remembering to blog; but when you have been up to all the amazing things we have been up to it is difficult to bring yourselves to sit still for hours inside and type.
However we have finally dragged our bums towards a computer, so prepare yourselves for quite an essay. Since we last wrote a full entry we have visited 3 countries, so make yourselves comfortable and get yourself a nice hot cup of English tea.
The last time we 'blogged' we said we were heading to NamNao national park in Thailand. After a long bus journey through some of the most incredible scenery and frankly quite scary mountain roads we were thrown out of the bus in the middle of nowhere and motioned towards a gate. After walking for what seemed like days and the light fading fast, a sweet Ozzie couple pulled up and gave us a lift to the National Park Entrance office. We had arrived in true Bear and Jem style without booking any kind of accommodation and the next bus out of
the park was the next afternoon, so we crossed our paws and smiled sweetly.
Luckily they still had tents for rent, so we had a place to lay our heads and somewhere to stash our ruck sacks from hell. We had some interesting grub and had an early night. The next morning in the light we finally realised just how amazing NamNao actually was, we opened the tent zip to find a rainforest and fresh air surrounding us. We set off on foot for a 5KM treck through the forest. NamNao is over 1000km sq so we could only see a very small amount and unfortuently for us 'walkers' alot of the really impressive sights were only accessable by car, however the sounds and the wildlife were amazing. We walked all day on and off with food breaks and didn't see another person; we did however see lots of tropical birds, lizards, bugs, water creatures and some very fresh wild elephant dung!
The sound of a rainforest at night really is indescribable and suprisingly loud; we laid awake watching the fireflies around our tent and just listening to all the activity. We camped for 2 nights at NamNao
just enjoying the countryside, wildlife and recharging our batteries.
Next destination on the route to Laos/Vietnam was Kong Khen, where we could aquire our visas for both countries. We stayed in a very basic guest house run by a nice English bloke and his Thai wife, they looked after us and made us feel safe, telling us where to go, and where to avoid on our travels.
After another long bus journey to KongKhen we decided we deserved a few beers, which turned into a few more and before we knew it we were the only westerners in a student bar dancing to Thai metal! The Thai people are so sweet and friendly and just want to 'cheers' you all night long. We stayed out till the wee hours, until we could head bang no more and...well the club closed basically so we had no choice.
The next day we headed to a sculpture park, and then made our way to the Embassies for visas, it was a day of slightly sore heads, "yes we are hungover, but please can we have a visa for your Country?" ;-)
We decided to bypass Laos and go back
at a later date, so booked a bus to take us over the Friendship bridge from Nong Cai (Thailand) to Laos and then from Laos directly to Hanoi in Vietnam. A bus journey of 24 hours, I think we might be a little bit mad!
After this bus journey, we have now decided to chose who we book our tickets with alot more carefully. We successfully travelled with one of the dodgiest companies around. They packed the bus as tightly as possible, then made us sit with our big old backpacks so they could store goods under the bus where luggage is usually kept. They used our bags to cover up there so called 'bags of rice' so that customs only saw a bus load of bemused sleepy Westerners as apposed to drugs or whatever it was they were being so shady about, I dont see why customs would be so angry about rice....
Anyway, this bus journey went from an estimated 24 hours to a 27 hour journey! We made some good friends on the bus though as there was a long time to chat with our fellow travellers.
We arrived at Hanoi in Vietnam quite
late, but found a reasonably cheap guest house quite quickly, then we headed out for a few beers to reward ourselves for surviving such a random and ridiculously long bus journey.
We awoke to a very grey sky on our first morning in Hanoi, but went for a wander around the town to see what Hanoi had to offer. Our stroll around town, turned into dodging motorbikes every other step, we have never seen such madness on the streets!
There are so many bikes, and pedestrian crossings don't exist, you literally have to step out onto the road and let the bikes swerve around you (this wasn't just us living on the edge, our Lonely Planet bible actually says to do this!as its the only way you'll ever get to cross the street.)
Hanoi is really busy, a very bustling place with street sellers, and ladies walking round carrying their goods to the markets. You could easily just spend a few days people watching from the street cafes, something we have become expert at on our travels so far.
Our second evening we headed to see a water puppet show, which is a traditional show which used to
be performed by farmers on their rice paddy fields. It's basically just a tourist attraction now, but pretty amazing to see. Its a standard theatre but it contains a big swimming pool with a back screen for all the pupeteers to hide behind, there was live music to go with the perfomance too, and the music was worth the entrance fee alone.
After a few days of people watching, motorbike dodging and market meandering we headed North of Hanoi to a place called Sapa, right on the border of China.
Sapa was an overnight 8 hour train ride from Hanoi, and we arrived pretty early to a fluster of taxi men trying to take us to the nearby mountains.
Generally people visit Sapa to go trekking around the mountains, its an absolutely stunning place, and by far one of the most beautiful places we have visited so far on the trip.
As its so far up North, its a bit chilly and we were actually really excited about beating the dust off of our jumpers from the depths of our backpacks, and finally getting the chance to put them on. It made us feel really Christmassy to walk around
with layers on!
We spent a day looking around the markets and being followed around the town by local hill tribe women who visit the town daily to sell their hand made clothes and follow tourists until they give in and buy a random keyring with bell things on.
We organised a trek for the following day and settled back in our hotel, which was set up high in the town, and gave us stunning views of the surrounding mountains when we woke up.
On the day of our trek, we woke early for breakfast and waited for our guide to turn up. Eventually, we started with a stroll through the town, and our guide pointed out different strange things for sale on the markets, and chatted to us about life in Sapa. We headed to a nearby local village, where all of the hill tribe families were carrying out their daily activities in brightly coloured traditional dress. Some villagers were killing a cow down by the stream to give to all the locals who were working on building a house, everybody in the village pitches in, and in return they get a good meal at the end of
the day. At this village we also spotted a dog who had been spray painted over his fur, the paint sectioned his body into different joints, then it suddenly dawned on us that he was that nights dinner! poor Fido.
We trekked through the village and up into the hills where the views were so amazing, people must have thought I was a Japanese tourist, I took so many pictures that day.
Sapa has a mist which hangs around low on the hills, and throughout the day it moves around giving you a different stunning view everytime you look up, so each time we turned a corner we had to take more pictures.
Our trek was 17km's up into the mountains, we didn't feel fully prepared, what with strap on sandals and multi coloured toe socks (this is what happens when you forget to pack for a slightly chillier climate), but we gave it a shot anyway, and had a great day of trekking.
Our trek didnt finish until early evening, and it would probably have been later had it not been for a group of local hill tribe ladies who helped us clamber down the rocks as it
started to get dark, and our muddy toe socks slipped in our sandals!
The local women were so incredibley strong, they have grown up on the hills so its no surprise really, but we were amazed at how agile they were, jumping about in their little jelly shoes, helping us up and down rocks. At one point I had a lady who was probably in her 70's holding my hand and helping me down so I didnt slip like the flat pavement walking Westerner I am.
When we finally reached the 17km mark, (did I mention we walked 17km's?!) we stopped for some drinks, and bought all the ladies some cans of fanta to drink with us whilst we waited for our mini bus to collect us and return us to town.
Of course at the end of it all we also ended up buying some of their goods, beautifully embroidered scarves and little nic-nacs, which may have been why they were so keen to help us down the rocks, but we had a really good day with them, and they were such nice women. They are so strong too, you wouldn't want to mess with one of them!
(another reason we felt slightly more inclined to buy something from them!)
The next day we crawled around town whincing at every steep slope we stepped on, as our poor legs were wondering why we would punish them with a 17km trek (yes 17km's!) after 3 months of travelling with very little physical exercsion. There are alot of steps in Sapa, which is really inconvenient when your legs dont like you anymore, and refuse to work.
After a few days in lovely Sapa, we headed back to the bustle of Hanoi ready to arrange our Christmas tour, which we had already decided would be around Halong Bay. We decided to keep ourselves busy at Crimbo, as we wanted to surround ourselves with other travellers and distract ourselves from any pangs of home sickness or lack of turkey.
Luckily everybody in Hanoi is trying to sell you a tour to Halong Bay as it is such a big tourist attraction, so it wasn't long before we had secured ourselves a three day tour, taking in Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island over Christmas eve, day, and boxing day.
We were collected from our hotel in Hanoi on Christmas
eve morning, and had a 4 hour drive to Halong City. As we arrived in Halong City we were directed to our home for the next day and a half, a massive Junk boat. We climbed aboard and enjoyed a seafood lunch as we set off around the bay.
After a few hours of enjoying the scenery we stopped off to visit some caves and then headed out to do some sea kayaking (which we are now huge fans of, Norfolk Broads here we come!)
Obviously our sporty physique's fooled our guide into thinking we were pro's at this kind of thing, as he gave us absolutely no instruction what so ever and set off in his little kayak, saying "follow me, quick before it gets too dark".
After a few bumps into rocks and close shaves with big boats, a nice sporty couple on our tour gave us a quick lesson, luckily one of them just happened to be a kayak instructor. So we set off around the bay, and passed by some floating villages as the sun set.
That evening, for Christmas Eve, the crew provided a party for us, which for some bizarre reason involved a
selection of chewy sweets, dry crackers and their local rice wine (smells like paint stripper). After a few bevvies, everyone on the boat was chatting and getting to know their fellow mates. At some point a karaoke was discovered which also came out, dominated by a slightly drunk Weasel and Bear plus some other random travellers.
After a few too many drinks and dry crackers we finally passed out in our little cabin and went to sleep quickly so that Santa could leave stockings at the bottom of our beds.
Turns out Santa doesn't visit Halong Bay :-( , but opening your bedroom door on Christmas Monring to the sight of Halong bay, more than made up for it, its such a stunning place.
We both donned our Christmas Santa hats, (which we refused to take off for most of the day), and went for a trek on Cat Ba Island National Park with the rest of our boat group. A 2 hour climb later gave us some stunning views of the Bay, and helped to speed up the hangover recovery.
Next we headed for some lunch and did some more kayaking around the bay, before heading to a
hotel for the night in Cat Ba Town.
Our hotel was really nice, and we enjoyed watching the Sound of Music in true Christmas tradition in our hotel room, as we made ourselves up for an evening meal and some drinks on the town with everyone else from the Group.
Yet again, somehow a karaoke machine appeared in a bar (there seem to be alot in Vietnam) and we felt it rude not to give a few renditions of Whams 'Last Christmas', and some 80's classics, occasionally throughout the night some other people got to sing too.
The next day we boarded back onto our boat and visited some nearby floating villages. Its really weird to see village life floating around in the sea, it was like a Venice, but with no land whatsoever, even the little local Primary School (built with money donated from the Brits, aren't we great) was floating away.
As you climb off the boat local women row up to you, and try to sell you fruit from their floating boat shops, its all quite surreal really, and amazing to see.
After a few more hours on the boat, we said goodbye to our new
boat tour traveller friends, so we could head back to Hanoi once again. Luckily we all got on really well on the tour, and have kept in touch with our adopted Christmas family, we're really glad we did the trip and its a Christmas we wont be forgetting in a rush.
After the tour we jumped straight on a bus and headed for Laos, where we are now. We've been here nearly a week, and enjoyed New Years Eve in a beautiful little town called Luang Prabang, its got a really nice laid back feel to it and we found it quite hard to leave and head for our next destination, Vang Vieng (where I am typing away).
Everybody seems to visit Vang Vieng to go tubing, where you literally just hire a rubber ring tube thingy, and sit on it floating down the river for the day, only stopping at the floating bars along the way.
We haven't done this yet, as we've only just arrived but Im sure we'll givce it a go at some point over the next few days.
Thats it for now, hope you've nejoyed this essay!
We will attempt to be
a bit quicker with the blogging, but no promises!
Hope everyone is doing well,
Lots of Love, The Animals x x x x x x x x x x
p.s - for those of you who wanted to know who writes our blog, basically I write it, whilst Jemma plays on facebook....but really, we both take it turns, and kind of dictate to each other, plus we have spent so much time together we are merging into one person so we're not sure half the time.
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Lisa Tweed
non-member comment
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year- we love your blogs, it all looks amazing! We're freezing over here today and it's supposed to snow later! Looking forward to your next installment - take care -luv The Tweedies xx