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Published: October 29th 2006
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AAARRRGGGHHH!
what a cute little fella. It's been a while since the last entry - Neil was supposed to write this one but it kept getting put off - so it's down to me to keep everyone informed of our Vietnamese adventures.
Our last few days in Luang Nam Tha (Northern Laos) were spent in a slight drunken/hung over haze. One particular night we found ourselves in a deserted night club listening to the very worst Lao pop music has to offer. Luckily(!!), there was a set of musical instruments set up on a stage and so a band was quickly formed (when drunk enough, most people decide that the world is lost without their contribution to music!). The keyboard player could knock out a confident 12 bar blues, which left everyone else to catch up. All highly amusing to me - designated photographer - and the one member of staff! Another night was spent accidentally gate crashing someone's wedding! It was very sad to say goodbye to James and Mok but our livers' were delighted!
After a day of kayaking, we traveled by minibus to a small town we were due to fly from. This journey had all the typical characteristics of all the
Even in the jungle....
a lady must look her best at all times. journeys undertaken in Laos. The vehicle itself was old and battered and no one would sit next to us! When men got on the bus they would just tell a woman to move to another, inferior, seat and no one complained or looked annoyed (except me!). When the bus was full they carried a huge engine on and parked it on the aisle then out came the kiddies plastic chairs and bags of rice. People were even piled on the roof!
I feel slightly embarrassed by what happened next as it goes completely against my organised facade! We checked our flight tickets and had a horrible moment as we realised that the flights had already left and we'd got the dates wrong! As a result we had to spend 2 days running around this dusty town trying to establish the time of the next flight and desperately looking for money as all banks were closed and Laos only has one cash machine in the country! We did manage to get a domestic flight with the infamous Laos Airlines and walked on to the plane with a mixture of relief and utter fear! The flight to Vietnam was full but
the woman insisted she would see what she could do when the pilot finished his lunch! Luckily there was a cancellation so we didn't have to sit on a plastic seat in the aisle, on a bag of rice or on the roof!
So, to Hanoi. Well our first impressions were of road chaos and that continued to be the theme of our trip! We were really excited about arriving in a big city and sampling all the different delights - basically we were obsessed with eating anything that didn't involve rice and trying to get hold of some cheese - but actually we found Hanoi a really difficult city. The crazy number of motorbikes on the road and pavement made leaving the hotel a mammoth mission, and there was no green man to help us across the road! After a few near misses we learnt that it was best to just walk out slowly into the traffic and let everything move around you! Motorbikes were the only way to get around - one particularly memorable journey involved me hanging on with no helmet and my huge rucksack on my back and careering through rush hour Hanoi. Neil then
The floating village in Halong Bay
This was the dog farm...I mean fish farm. had to do the same journey plus a guitar! They use bikes to transport everything - cages of dogs, small children in the basket, families of four and even a water buffalo (apparently)!
A definite highlight of Hanoi was the BiaHoi bars which sold beer for and unbelievable 6p! We met two friendly Vietnamese students there who spent everyday at university then sat at the bar every evening waiting for Westerners to practise English with! Another good evening was spent watching a water puppet show. Despite this, it was with some relief that we left this hectic city to go south to Ninh Binh.
We had a fantastic 4 days here. For the first two days we hired bikes and basically had a lot off fun getting lost! We then went trekking in to Cuc Phong National Park. The Vietnamese have obviously been slightly restrained in their use of firearms around the forests than the Laos people as there was a clear abundance of wild life! We saw cool stuff like snakes, lizards, flying squirrels, crazy bugs which approach with the sound of a light aircraft! Also BIG poisonous spiders. Luckily our guide looked like he could single
handedly wrestle a snake then whip up an antidote from plant juice!
Our next adventure was a taste of luxury at Halong Bay. More by luck than good judgment, we ended up on a beautiful big boat with 2 other really nice couples. This really made the trip fun and it was lovely to be with other people; drinking wine and sunbathing, whilst enjoying the most incredible scenery - huge rocks jutted out of the sea and we sailed through floating villages. These look lovely from the boat but on the second day we paddled round in a kayak and the dogs on these were absolutely ferocious! The sea kayaking was lovely though and I did slightly more paddling than usual which Neil appreciated. The food was amazing - fresh sea food everyday and I had my first taste of crab. On our last night we went out drinking with one of the couples and were tricked into drinking snake wine which was disgusting!
Our time in Vietnam was then over and we flew into Bangkok a week ago. We are now moved in and start work on Tuesday - very scary! Anyway, that's for next time...
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Annette
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Video clip
I had already sent you an email when I found the video clip. I've always been rather slow! Thought what's this and clicked - wow. Brilliant to see it but scary too - no lollipop ladies! Need more vid clips please - ace. Well done you. : ) : ) : ) Love Annette xx