"BeeerLaooo"?

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Hey guys,

Firstly, sorry it's taken so long! The ten days we spent in Laos are a bit of a drunken blur of which we will now try and relay! We left you in the glorious Pai and post blog we were about to embark on the worse journey known to man! We traveled from Pai to the border of Thailand, Chiang Khong, it was a 6 hour trip (nothing compared to the 24 hour one we have just endured from Laos to Vietnam!) but the road cut right through the mountains and our driver certainly had no comprehension of a speed limit! We have never hit mountainous bends, or any bends for that matter, at such a speed. Within twenty minutes one girl had been sick into a bag and we had to pull over for the rest of us to gather ourselves. Worst. Journey. Ever! However, we met another three couples on the bus and they were to become our traveling buddies throughout Laos.

The following day we were ferried across to Laos which took all of 10 minutes and once all the bureaucratic border crossing had been completed we were hoarded onto a boat like cattle. There were in excess of seventy people on the boat (which was pretty crammed) but we were just grateful that high season hadn't kicked in yet because it has been known for them to squeeze over one hundred people on! We decided against sitting on the wooden benches provided and instead set up camp on the floor. From here on in more and more people were recruited into our drinking circle and it turned into a bit of a party boat. Lots of alcohol (by lots I mean the boys were consuming on average two bottles of Sangsom EACH plus copious amounts of BeerLao), lots of fooling around and lots of debauchery. The second day on the river was just as drunken but after a combined sixteen hours sat on a wooden floor we were very ready for our destination, Luang Prabang. And it was totally worth the wait!

Luang Prabang is an ex French colony and it was easily the most beautiful place we've visited yet. The morning times were the best; sitting in the little patisseries eating fresh croissants whilst lost in our Stieg Larsson novels. Note to all: If you haven't read 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' do so with immediate effect. We are pleased to announce that it is the first book Mat has read front to back! At times we felt like we could be walking along a side road in La Paris, but the towering palm trees reminded us that we somewhere a little more exotic. We spent three days here discovering the numerous temples, exploring the night market, watching the sunset from Pousi Hill (you can imagine the amount of jokes that the lads made about the name) and sampling the nightlife. There are some absolutely stunning bars in Luang Prabang but there was a curfew which meant that everything closed at half eleven, except the local nightclubs which were surprisingly good! Visiting Luang Prabang first gives you a bit of a false impression of what Laos is actually like, in our opinion, which is a bit of a shame. On our journey down to Vang Vieng we realised how impoverished the country really is.

Now, Vang Vieng. Over to Mat...

Nar then! Admittedly, isn't the most attractive of places, but simply, this is the place where everyone comes to do 'Tubing'. Tubing is essentially floating down a river lined with bars in a rubber tube. Each bar had a rope swing in to the water, most had water slides and some had zip lines. It was mental. We were pretty surprised at the statistic that only one person a year dies here - The river was shallow in some places and relatively deep in others. This meant that if you came off one of the zip lines at the wrong moment, it could be fatal. We watched one girl grab on the zip line, lose her grip and fall into the water face first. Needless to say that she came up to the surface with a mouth full of blood. However... Although we're a little bruised in places, no long lasting damage was endured by us, largely due to the fact that i'm VERY scared of heights and the most risky thing I did was jump off a pier that was around 4 metres high. Wimp. Amber took one for the team and was the first person on the river to hit the rope swing. It's really hard to put into words how mental this actually was - But try and picture 'Mud Bar'. A bar, with a pit of mud, where very drunk people try and play volleyball. NOBODY leaves there untouched. I witnessed one Irish bloke shuffling his drunken self towards the mud pit, and literally falling face first in to the ground. He stayed there for about 15 minutes. We learnt that successful tubers leave the river without Pink Eye. Essentially, you catch Pink Eye by rubbing shit in your eyes. No shit. So it's pretty embarrassing to catch, although it's pretty much the norm. We were some of the lucky ones!

Whilst on the river, we somehow managed to bag ourselves a job at the main bar in town which consisted of promoting and bar work. It meant that the next 3 days were extremely strenuous - We spent all day on the river promoting and all evening in the bar making sure people were intoxicated. It's a hard life. I worked behind the bar twice, and in all honesty I absolutely bloody loved it. We met some quality people and had loads of fun. After 4 days on the river, we had indulged in all our bodies could take, so we headed for the capital, Vientiane.

Perhaps it was the fact that we hadn't slept properly for 4 days and were a bit groggy, or perhaps it was the fact that we've spent time in India - But Vientiane was literally nothing to write home about. It was dirty, crowded, noisy... Luang Prabang was absolute paradise in comparison. We've pretty much learnt that if we don't like a place then we aren't obliged to stay there, so within 3 hours we were on our way to Vietnayyyymmm! This actually worked perfectly for us because we were so nackered from Vientiane that we slept through our 24 hour bus journey. We toyed with the idea of flying, but Amber's budgeted that we can have perhaps 2 extra flights, and these will hopefully be saved for our little added extras, Bali and Fiji. The bus trip was cramped, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the horror stories we'd heard. A few of the guys that we met at tubing were on our bus, and we've been chilling with them since we arrived in Hanoi. We were a bit anxious before we came to Vietnam, we were aware that Typhoon Megi was veering towards Vietnam, and that there had already been some serious flooding here - Which was evident on the bus ride in to Hanoi. We witnessed some quite severe flooding, it was heart wrenching to see rooftops poking out of the many flooded plains. Luckily, Hanoi has been nothing less than 30 degrees plus so far!

Hanoi, in our opinion, is easily the best capital city we've been to. This city has some sort of heart beat that you can't quite work out, but once you spend a little time here, you can't help but love the place. Vietnam is a very proud country, with such a rich history, it's very humbling to be around their welcoming people. We've visited every historical/war museum in the city, and they simply took our breaths away. We both were pretty emotional after we'd visited Hao Lo Prison, you couldn't make it up - Unbelievable. This is where the French imprisoned the Vietnamese political fighters, and later where the Vietnamese imprisoned the American soldiers who were shot down from their Fighter Jets. Today, we went to see where Ho Chi Minh, the national hero, is embalmed. Unfortunately, he's away on leave to Russia for his regular re-embalment, but we got to walk around the grounds where he used to live and also checked out the museum dedicated to the man himself. In the centre of the city lies the Hoan Kiem Lake, which is simply stunning and it's quite eccentrically lit in the evenings.

Tomorrow, we are heading to the East Coast of Halong Bay, to sample a few of the three thousand islands. As we said, it's a hard life.

Unfortunately, our camera was stolen in Laos, but we've invested in a new superior model - So you'll have to use your imagination with Laos, but we'll add some of the Vietnam pictures so far.

Love to all,

We won't leave it so long next time - Promise!

xxxx

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Comments

[Bevchenko]

Maty, Let me know if you can see ANY Arsenal branding in Vietnam, I want to see if our kid actually does any work for them ;-)