Dazed and confused in Laos

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So Nha Trang got us down a bit after a while as we were there a total of ten days in the end! We went to the beach every morning (often with hangovers…) followed by the gym, then soup/snails for lunch, and afternoon siesta followed by a dinner of oysters and alcohol! We did see a weird parade through the town featuring a snake, three monkeys, and a bear.... real animal cruelty but we did take photos like tourists should...

Valentine’s Evening we went out and had our separate meals and proceeded to get very drunk… we met a couple from Bath in the “why not?” bar and finished off a couple of TVR jugs. At 11pm they hand out coupons to everyone with a number and everyone has to find the other person with that number… Pilch decided to grab some more coupons from a table of people who had just left and then see how many free beers we could gather! We stumbled from the pub with about 10 full bottles on the table…. Can’t remember much else!

We patiently waited for our passports to come back - asking every day at reception. When we were told they were definitely coming back on Friday we booked our night bus and got all excited…. But then the bus was full and we had to stay another day! We cheered ourselves up with the thought of more beach, more gym and more oysters - Pilch even ended up have frog curry as his last meal (although one of the legs made it into Tanya’s pork curry somehow!)…

The night bus was quite swishy compared to many we have seen and experienced - everyone had separate compartments and it was all very cozy … apart from us who managed to end up in the back where they put five of you all together in a cozy bed for the night. On one end was a crazy Dutch woman who wanted to speak Dutch to us all night and grunt in Tanya’s ear and on the other the loudest snoring American man ever!

We arrived in Hoi An about 6am and wondered the streets looking for a hotel… after a bit we decided to jump a taxi who tried to charge us $4 for a 2second journey - “same same” he kept saying when we were pointing to the meter - when we got out we refused to give him more than a dollar and walked off - we are learning!

As we wondered the old town of Hoi An at 6am our eyes goggled at the shops (already open despite the time and no hotels/restaurants being open!)... we found a hotel but had to wait until 10am for the room, so we went for brekkie, then wondered around the streets - Tanya saw some shoes she’s been after the entire journey but they didn’t fit.. “oh we can make them for you”!! Soon we had four pairs of shoes ordered up to our size - Pilch two pairs of purple shoes and Tanya some sandals and boots… $100 before 9am!! It’s a record!! So we waited until our rooms were ready with a pint of beer that cost about 12p each!!

So next day we spent the day on the nearby beach and then booked ourselves a tour for the next day… we collected our shoes that evening and were so happy with them that we decided to head out on a tour of the tailors (you would not believe how many there are of them!) - first Pilch ordered some black flares, then some purple ones with a spiral on the back pocket, Tanya ordered 3 pairs of trousers too and we waited patiently to pick them up the next day (both more excited by that than going to the My Son tour). On our way back from a meal and drinks that night we ended up in yet another tailors this time getting measured for two new jackets - remembering how cold you all must be and how prepared we need to be for our return! 

So next morning was early to rise and off to My Son (pronounced Me Sun - meaning beautiful mountain) about an hour away. This was our first proper experience of being in a tour group with a guide but it turned out ok and Dung was a friendly happy guy (kinda like a Bruce Lee of tour guides!). We spent about 2 hours at the temple site which was beautiful - most of the actual temple are in pretty bad state due to bombing in the war but the surrounding can’t be beaten.

Next we were taken to a boat where we had lunch and taken down the river to Cam Nam Island where wood carvings are made - its basically a little village of industry, fixing boats, making furniture etc and I think we were taken there mainly to buy stuff (the tour was so cheap). We will never look at mother of pearl decoration on furniture in the same light again - it is such a detailed process and takes amazing skill and patience to produce.

On the way back to Hoi An we saw an 75year old couple fishing - it was quite amazing to watch the strength and skill they had in doing it and then they pulled up to the boat asking for money!! Can’t blame them really when you see the amount of fish they actually caught!

Once back to Hoi An old town we had our clothes to pick up which we (again) we were well happy with all our clothes… they are now all in the post (sorry Nan and Grandad Smith to fill up your house but there are another two on the way!!)… we were very sad to see them go and hope to see them again soon!!

So it was another early rise the morning and on to Danang as we wanted to check out China Beach… no one got off at this stop at the bus station apart from us and it soon became apparent why. There’s not that much there and people aren’t that used to tourists so it did make a nice change. We headed for the beach which was entirely empty - it has lots of plans for development and you can already see it beginning to happen which will be a shame. We headed down the beach for lunch - first we tried Phuoc My (pronounced correctly it is fairly amusing) where we were turned away - not sure why but security just said “no” and nothing else! Then we ended up in this place where there was no price on anything on the menu and everything was sold by the Kg… you should have seen Tanya’s egg fried rice turn up!!

So we spent the afternoon in the hotel swimming pool and took the bus on to Hue. We decided in Danang over dinner to move on from Vietnam after Hue as this was the easiest border crossing for visas into Laos - we also realize we are running out of time (2months left) and it was time to move onto another country!

We went to the beach in Hue (Thuan An beach) on day one … another deserted beach which we enjoyed for a good few hours as it cost us $10 to get to!! Note: Lonely Planet lyes to you…. We went to Hue believing many things were nearby to visit but it turns out they were all nearer to Danang! Slightly irritating and diaappointing!

We booked our ticket to Vientiane for 1st March and had a day to kill so we bought a bottle of rum and spent day two with a hangover (do seem to remember getting a cyclo home from the restaurant and Pilch being allowed to drive Tanya down the road - slightly scaring!!)…. We managed to find KFC though and embarrassing sat with some other westerners gorging on the naughty chicken!!  They do however serve your drinks in a glass and you get real KFC plates!!

We had a panic mid hangover that we needed dollar for the border crossing and all the banks were closed - so we headed to the local market as our only option to exchange some Vietnamese Dong for Dollar -many tried ripping us off but we managed to get $80 in the end! Phew!

So 6am next morning we were picked up by a bus to head for Laos… however the minibus drove us to a restaurant and dropped most of its passengers in for brekkie - we were with a tour group and had to wait for them to finish before going on to Dong Ha for our next bus…. Once on this we realized everyone else was headed for Savvanakhet (another part of Laos) and that we would be put onto another bus for Vientiane. At the border crossing the $30 visa fee (told to us by Lonely Planet) became $40 leaving us with a total of roughly $3 in Laos kip…!! We brought one plate of rice between us at our lunch time stop!

Then at 4pm we were put on another bus, which stopped 2 hours later somewhere unknown and with our last bit of money managed to negotiate a baguette and half a pack of cheese (nice dinner)!! After waiting for this bus to move on for about an hour we were put on another one, which was full to brimming with people sleeping on the floor!! Luckly we had seats! We arrived in Vientiane at 2am this morning (20hours on a bus!), driven to an ATM and managed to get a room for the night…. Very tired today!

So here we are in Vientiane staying in the Riverside Hotel next to the Mekong River. We plan to go visit the Buddha Park tomorrow and use a gym nearby and then head to Vang Vieng for some outdoor adventuring…

xx

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Comments

[Alex]

loving the pearl necklace dog! xx