Right here goes, this is going to take ages!
Last time i updated this i was in Nha Trang, soooooo much has happened since then so this will probably be a long read for anyone that actually reads this!
I was awoken at 8am in Nha Trang by our lovely hostel recpetionist Thom, 'Mr Nick Mr Nick your bus here!' Clearly Dj'ing the night before got out of hand and i hadn't set an alarm. After 5 mins throwing things into my bag i stumbled onto the bus that was clearly pretty annoyed at me for holding them up. Anyway at least i slept pretty much all the 12 hour trip to Saigon to meet Mother. She'd booked a 5* hotel for the night which i was seriously looking forward to. I got a few funny looks as i walked into the lobby, probably because i was cooler than any of the folk in there or maybe beacause they had designer luggage and i rocked up with my back pack? Mother arrived about half an hour after me, to a tearful reunion...sure. The hotel was amazing, i ate steak, i drunk beer on the rooftop bar, i stole all the soap from the room, i slept in a bed with 2 pillows! Cheers Lisa, needed that!
Next day we went for a bit of a walk round Saigon but had also booked a bus back up to Mui Ne that afternoon. We didn't really see anything that exciting but it was at least useful to give Mother a crash course in crossing Vietnamese roads. We arrived at Mui Ne that evening.
Mui Ne is ok, i'd say. Very quiet when we were there, not a great deal going on at night. LOADS of Russians. LOADS of kite surfing, which is hard and expensive. It was perfect for what we wanted which was a few days on a pretty nice beach or by a pool. Mother got rid of her jet lag and slept a lot, i continued working on my tan and ploughing through my book whilst picking up a bit of Russian on the way. We stayed here for 4 nights, then headed back to Saigon, again!
We were staying in the backpacker area of Saigon but in a pretty nice hotel, which was super-duper cheap with well friendly staff which i would recommend to anyone (Duoc Voang). We found some street drinking bars again, similar to Hanoi, plastic stools/ tables and V cheap beer! I met up with the group i'd been travelling down Vietnam with and we had few pretty mental nights out. On the tourist front we went to the indoor market which i thought was pretty cool, Mother was scared there would be snakes at every turn, there wasn't. The war museum was well worth a visit, parts of it were pretty horrific but the whole story was told really well. Finally the Cu Chi Tunnels were also an eye-opener, there's a few you can get in, i struggled in most of them and i'm small. I also fired an M-60 here which was sooooo cool, so loud and powerful got a massive rush from it. A word of advice to you all, don't ever ask a Vietnamese tour guide that likes opera and doesn't like football, if he likes football. I made that very mistake, the result being a full length opera rendition of Celine Dion's, my heart will go on, none of the bus knew where to look, did not see that one coming.
Next we were off to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Due to Mother suddenly developing an aversion to the bus, we flew, i wasn't complaining. She also developed a need for luxury, so we stayed in a seriously baller hotel here. Food was awesome and i even had a glass of Red which had been a long time coming. Tried to go out for a Guiness on Paddy's day but somehow managed to stumble into what looked like an Irish bar but turned out to be what i'm pretty sure was a make shift brothel, needless to say we got out of there quick.
As a treat to Mum on Mother's day i decided to take her to shoot some guns, then to the Killing Fields, then to S-21 prison. I'm nice like that. In all seriousness it was a good, if not slightly haunting day. The killing fields are basically as they sound. A field where people were murdered while Pol Pot's, Khmer Rouge movement were in charge. It basically invloves a walking tour with a headset, there's loads of mass graves and stories behind them.You can still see bones fragments coming out of the ground along with the odd tooth, pretty gruesome but a 'must do' i would say. I'm glad i went and fired an AK-47 before going here as i don't think i'd have fancied playing with guns after i'd seen this. By the time i'd got to S-21 i think i'd seen enough, it was equally as gruesome as the killing fields, but again, think it's important we went.
On the move again, the next day to Sihanoukville for some more pool and beach time. We checked into one of my choices of hotel which had a pretty nice pool and spent the next day chilling here. The night before i met up with pretty much everyone i'd met since i had been away from about 3 different groups. For one reason or another we'd all ended up in the same place at the same time which was cool! I re-united with my divorced Vang Vieng wife Tayla and we decided we should go to Bamboo island in the next couple of days. Mother wasn't feeling too good around this time and decided it was time for more luxury so she checked into another 5* on another beach which i went to see her at, it was pretty special, and cheap for what it was i'm told! She was happy to go on her own as she wasn't too up for staying on an island in a hut with no toilet and no electricity for most of the day, so me and Tayls went together to Bamboo.
Bamboo island is beautiful! There's only one place to stay on the island which has a about 20 huts down an amazing beach, with turquoise water. The huts are basic to say the least and only have electricity between 18:00 - midnight, literally a bed with a mosquito net. You don't care though. There's a big common area where you can get food/ drink with loads of comfy cushions where everyone hangs around. It didn't get too rowdy but i was definitely NOT sober either night i was here. Skinny dipping happened in a big way here as there's glowing plankton at night which is soooooo cool to see, didn't want to get out of the water because i was totally mesmerised by it. The days were filled with exploring the island and playing shuttlecock with Jakey, Mac & Scott. Me and Jake brought it home for the English. Beatiful couple of nights here, loved it!
Next, i had to go and meet Mother in Siem Reap where she'd flown to the previous day due to her new found fear of buses. To be fair i can see where it may have come from, my trip from Sianoukville to Siem Reap wasn't ideal by any means. Won't go into it but it took about 5 hours longer than it said it would due to numerous stop offs to pick up all sorts of different things, then a cheeky 3 hour wait for a transfer to another bus in Phnom Penh. This seems to be the Cambodian way on the bus front.
Siem Reap was all about the temples of Angkor Wat. We were here 2 days and Mother had been there a day before so had sussed out a bit of a route. Whilst i would love to say it was one of the best experiences of my life, i'm afraid i can't, it wasn't. The temples themselves are amazing and i can't believe that they managed to make them. BUT, there was just too many people there to fully enjoy it. You're constantly dodging peoples photos and tripping over people. I'm glad i've seen it but my advice to anyone going would be to go as early as possible to miss the crowds! Oh and get a tuk-tuk to take you around.
By now it was time for Mother to return to the Motherland. I really enjoyed my 2 weeks with her and am glad that she got to see some stuff that i'm pretty sure she wouldn't have done otherwise. Hoping she enjoyed it too! Bye Lisa!
I had one more night of luxury in the 5* hotel then it was time to start the over complicated but cheaper trip to the Thai islands which started with a flight to Kuala Lumpur to stay for one night. KL was a massive shock, it was the most modern/ developed place i'd been to in a while, riding their version of the underground was wierd, but at the same time quite nice to have some sort of organised transport system, as well as proper roads. Didn't really do too much my one night here as had to be up the next day for a flight back to Thailand, Koh Samui.
My plan was to get the boat straight off Koh Samui to Koh Tao to meet up with Tayla and Ali, however when i arrived, i found out the last boat had gone 10 mins before i arrived so i had a bit of an unexpected night there. It turned out alright, i met a group of friendly Germans from the bungalows i stayed at and ended up going out with them, still managed to get up for the ferry to Koh Tao at 8 the next morning.
I immediately bumped into Ali and Tayla when i arrived in Koh Tao, which was pretty lucky. Managed to find a cheap room as well. The island itself is pretty tiny but seems to have the right mix of being pretty chilled and you can go out if you want. The snorkelling is amazing and it has some beautiful beaches. We had a quad bike for most of our time there which was loads of fun as well, a lot of the roads there are proper bumpy dirt tracks which i wouldn't fancy on a moped, plus they were usually up or down steep hills, heaps of fun though on a quad bike. I loved Koh Tao, it was one of my faves, but by i think it was 2nd April, we left to get to Koh Phangnan for full moon!
We hadn't booked anything in advance and kept on getting told we needed to. Liam had sent me some pretty detailed instructions on how to find a cheap bungalow when you get there, so we gambled and it paid off! We ended up in perfectly ok bunbglaow for 4 quid a night, nothing fancy, but clean enough and close enough to all the action. Everyone else was paying like 15 quid for a dorm so we were pretty happy with that. Not a lot happened apart from partying in Koh Phangan, which i sort of regret as the rest of the isalnd is supposed to be beautiful but we did no exploring! We were there 4 nights before full moon and each night gets busier and busier in the build up, i remember we went to a pool party, a waterfall party and a jungle party in the build up. All of which means not much activity in the day apart from laying on the beach. I managed to meet up with Phillips and Hairy, two old friends from school. Was wicked to see them, we had a right laugh catching up and playing many many games of Mexicano! Full Moon itself was awesome! Everoyne wears fluorescent clothes, me being me decided not to and just let Tayla do a massive full moon graffiti piece on my back which looked SIIIIIIIIICK! I then did a makeshift David Bowie lightening bolt on my face. I drunk a fair few buckets, fell through a stage, danced a lot and ended getting in at about 9am the next morning. Saw the beautiful sunrise with a few people i'd been travelling with for a while which was a nice way to end. Koh Phangan nearly tipped me over the edge, similar to Vang Vieng, i was ready to leave here. Was good while it lasted though!
Next stop was Krabi town, we were only supposed to stay one night but Tayla had to do a Visa run to Malaysia the next day. We didn't figure this out till late the night before she had to go so i had to make a quick decision on how to keep myself entertained the next day. I went on 'The James Bond Tour' which involved visiting the island where they filmed 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. I was really looking forward to this, me being a HUUUUUGE James Bond geek. Unfortunately it didn't really live up to expectations, the island was overun with sooooo many tourists, too many to even take decent photos. It ruined it a bit for me. The floating village we visited was cool, then we went to some naff temple and waterfall, we spent most of the time on the boat or bus but i guess it kept me busy for the day.
Next day we went to Railey bay, which is on the mainland but you can only get to it by boat. We didn't have anywhere to stay but managed to find a really cool, cheap bungalow resort up in the hills in the middle of the jungle which turned out to be a godsend the next day as we had a Tsunami warning! I had gone to get drinks down the beach, when i got back i noticed a lot of people running away from me to get inland. Now i had been lying in the sun all day but i definitely didn't smell that bad. Then i saw Tayla waving at me telling me to hurry up. Why i didn't think something was up at this point i don't know, i continued casually stroll along the beach. When i finally got to Tayla she'd packed all my stuff up into to my bag and told me that there was a Tsunami coming. I still didn't seem too worried and kept saying it'd be fine. As we were walking off the beach it finally hit home when what i can only imagine what an air raid siren sounds like went off. This shit me up a bit and i knew it was for real now. We were told to get to highy ground, luckily we were right next to one of the climbs to a viewpoint really high up, so we headed up there. We spent the next 6 hours there, there was a huge storm, the sea had gone right out, it looked like the world was going to end and we had the perfect view. Thankfully it never came, but it was a nervous few hours. After dark we lit a fire and waited until we were told it was safe to come down. The next challenge was getting down in the dark, when i say dark i mean pitch black down a 400 odd metre climb. Luckily there were a few guides from the island there who had torches and i had my iPod, still pretty tough going though, took about an hour to get down. We asked at the bottom where we should go if there's another warning only to be told that where we were staying was the safest place on the island and that's where everyone would be heading if anything hit! HA sometimes going cheap pays off, we slept well that night.
The next day we decided to climb back up what we had come down the previous night, then down to a lagoon inside the mountain. I'm not sure how we managed to get down in one piece the night before! The climb the other side was challenging to say the least, it was actually a climb with ropes and all, not scramble, pretty dangerous. I'm not sure how they're allowed to let people down there, sure they get plenty of injuries, good fun though, even managed it in bare feet because we're hard!
The rest of the day was spent exploring the last few beaches on the island and then watching the sunset with a few beers/ cocktails. That's the beauty of this place, you can walk everywhere and there's more than enough to keep you occupied for a few days. Railey is cool!
Reluctantly, we left the next morning to go to Phi Phi, which i was really looking forward to especially as we were arriving on the first day of Songkram (3 days of celebrations for Thai new year). The first day is a giant water fight, which we arrived right in the middle of. We were soaked from head to toe with all our bags by the time we got to a hostel, it was quite a long walk though so being soaked with cold water every now and then was actually quite nice! We headed out straight away to get some revenge on people, armed to the teeth with the best super soaker 200bht could buy we water fought the rest of the day and went partying on the beach at night. Thai new year rocks! However i'm pretty sure it was the cause of a giant abscess on my back, what was a spot that got squeezed by Tayla turned into about a 4 inch wide volcano on my back. It was MINGING! In the end i had to get some antibiotics as it was pretty painful, squeezing it was pretty gruesome and left me with a huge hole in my back, Iodine must've taken a fair bit more money this week as i used loads! Only now has it just about healed.
Phi Phi was far more party orientated than i had expected, so we went out quite a lot to the many many beach parties, there was a really cool place called Reggae bar, don't let the name fool you. It basically has a full size Muay Thai ring in the middle and anyone can challenge anyone to a fight, they provide you with the full gear and a ref and you get a free bucket. I would've loved to get up there and show off my impressive skills, but as you all know i have a precious face, so had to stay out, lucky for everyone that wanted to fight me i would've totally battered all of them, obviously. Tayla on the other hand fancied a go at some butch girl that looked to be trained in martial arts, she gave a good pre-fight show waving to the crowd and bowing down in the corner, mimicking a prayer just like a pro. Then the bell went and something changed, we found out that Tayla can not fight but is quite good at running round a ring away from punches, apart from a couple to the nose which swelled up the next day, good effort though Tayls!
Obviously we did a boat tour of the surrounding islands and went to see 'the beach' which was absolutely beautiful, but again a place with too many people! We managed to survive another near death experience on the trip back, the boat broke down and was drifting pretty quickly towards some rocks. Luckily we got picked up by a bigger one just before we hit and a storm was in full swing. Oh, and another Tsunami warning, but we were pro's at these by now.
We decided that next up we'd go to Koh Lipe. I fancied crossing the border to Malysia by boat, Koh Lipe seemed to be the only place you could do this from, plus i'd been told it was beautiful. I wasn't wrong! We arrived towards the end of the season but the weather was pretty good the whole time we were there bar a couple of short sharp storms. Similar to Railey, this is a tiny place and you can walk the whole island in a few hours. There's 3 main beaches, all of which beautiful in their own way. We spent most of our 4 days here on the beach topping up tans and watching sunsets, we finally got an amazing one on our last night, fully red! We managed to find a really cool bar on the beach called Mia Luna, which was decked out like some kind of Voodoo camp with black lights and freaky skulls, cool though. We went there a couple of nights, it wasn't that busy but still heaps of fun. No Tsunami's here, i loved Koh Lipe, sad to leave.
Our next adventure was a speedboat to Langkawi, which is in Malaysia. Easily the coolest/ easiest border crossing ever! It takes about an hour, all you have to do is give someone your passport before you get on, they go off get it stamped for you. Then you do the same at the other end, ace!
Langkawi is a world away from any of the Thai islands in terms of how developed it is, not nearly as beautiful though. We had some more beach time here, found a pretty cool bar called Babylon to spend the nights and our hostel was like cat village, we adopted one and named her Milky, she would pretty much either live in our room or wait on our doorstep till we got back. We had a day out riding the island on mopeds which was cool apart from losing a couple of hours to a tropical storm. Saw an amazing waterfall and visited a deserted beach, the sun was POWERFUL here though so we had to be pretty careful how long we stayed out.
After 3 days in Langkawi it was time to get back to the big bad city. Our taxi left at 06:30am we managed to put our phones on silent so didn't hear alarms! For some reason i woke up at 06:25 and luckily looked at my watch, cue 5 mins mad dash to get ready. Luckily we made our ferry and got to KL early that evening.
KL was cool, beer was expensive. We shopped a lot, walked a lot and saw a few sites. Time seemed to go pretty fast here and before we knew it, it was time for Tayla to go home! Sad times. I left the same evening as her on the night bus to Singapore.
What a great place to finish off my time in SE Asia! I love it here. It's clean, modern, vibrant, the people are friendly, the food is amazing, everything just works! I've spent the last 3 days just wandering around and taking it all in. I've walked everywhere bar a few underground trips and feel like i've properly fallen in love with the place. Could definitely see myself back here. Only problem is, the beer is mega expensive, but the place almost makes up for that.
It's now just a few hours before my flight to Aus, which i'm really looking forward now. Sure it's going to be totally different and a hell of a lot more expensive but it's definitely time for somewhere new! I've met loads of cool people, seen some crazy things, been to loads of beautiful and not so beautiful places, SE Asia has been a mad three and half months that i will never forget!
Bye for now! Nicholas X
Thursday 3 May 2012
Friday 9 March 2012
Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang (again) Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang
I left you last time in Vang Vieng. To be honest i'm suprised i even managed to write any form of update there. I really struggle to remember much and i'm afraid most of the things i can recall have to stay in Vang Vieng, group pact. What i can tell you is that we had a really good group of about 15 people at it's highest. We got drunk A LOT. We watched friends A LOT. We went to the tubing river A LOT. We didn't do much else A LOT. I think in total we were there around 7 days and in the end i was quite glad to get out, my body definitely thanked me and i manged to lose my camera, which was annoying, what a week though well done to everyone involved, you know who you are.
To get out of VV i went back to Luang Prabang with Liam and Clare for one night only, they wanted to see the waterfalls before we headed off to Hanoi. What i failed to remember was the minging bus ride i would have to enjure to get there. It's only 8 hours but the roads are soooooooo bad and on a bus you're just constantly bumping about and seeing the drops over the side don't make you feel any better about the roads you're driving on. However, we made it there and managed to eventually find a hostel after a couple of hours wandering around town. To tired to do anything that night, so went to Lao Lao, had a bit of food/ medicine and went to bed.
We were pretty busy the next day, i got up and sorted the bus to Hanoi which left at 18:30 that night, so we had to be quick getting to the waterfalls and back. The bus itself was one of the worst experiences since i've been away. It was sold as a 24 hour journey on a 'VIP' bus with a toilet, whilst it was a sleeper a bus, it certainly was not VIP and there was no toilet. I had a 'bed' That was about 5ft long so sleep did not happen that night on the 'sleeper' bus, especially when a large Amercian woman decides it's acceptable to have a wee in a plastic bag in the aisle of the bus, scarred for life. We arrived at the Vietnamese border at about 4 in the morning to find out that the crossing wasn't actually open till 8 so we had to try and sleep again. The border crossing itslef took about 3 hours and was long and annoying, but i guess the only way to get through it is to do as your told and be patient which i have found i'm becoming very good at! The rest of the day is a complete blur of drifting in and out of consciousness through lack of sleep and some strong tablets! We were supposed to arrive in Hanoi around 6, we ended up there around 10. I was properly de-hydrated, reason being, you never know when they're going to stop so the last thing you want to do is end up needing to go to the toliet on a bus with no toilet. Difficult balancing act that i'm clearly not very good at! But, we made it and i'm still alive to tell the tale, but i would not fancy doing that journey again in a hurry.
Hanoi turned out to be pretty cool, can't say i was looking forward to being back in a big city, but it proved me wrong. We'd booked a decent hostel and bumped back into Dan, we reluctantly let him re-join our group to bring the numbers up to 4. The hostel served free beer between 7-8 which we happily took advantage of. The 1st couple of days here we wandered the streets, managed to find a little make shift bar on the corner of some crossroads, where they served 20p beer, not really sure what the beer was but who cares, it was 20p. We spent a good afternoon there, just people watching and seeing what the strangest thing we could see on the back of a moped was. Winner at the moment is a whole cow. I'm hoping to top this. We'd been recommended to do a tour round Halong Bay from one of the other hostels that was a bit more expensive than the others but was worth it. It was billed as the booze cruise, my of my how were we not ready for this. It cost 160$, this included 3 days and 2 nights of various activities and excursions, all our meals and transport, only thing not included, alcohol. Or sleep. Day one we got to the harbour, which took around 4 hours by bus. We were greeted with a wall of thick fog. Apparently it was going to clear and we would get out to the bay eventually. A few hours passed and we still hadn't gone anywhere, lots of beer had already been drunk and we were then told the Vietnamese boat police would not let anyone move anywhere because the fog was so bad, apparently this was the 1st time this had happened in 5 years. The outcome was we'd have to stay the night on the boat and start the tour again the next day. So basically we got a free night on the boat. The rest of the night involved lots of drinking games and nakedness. I think we finished up around 4, maybe.
Next morning we got a nice 7am wake up call, the Vietnamese boat crew did not like you sleeping in or missing breakfast, so we were literally pulled out of bed. We then started our cruise into the bay, the weather had cleared really well and we had beautiful sunshine. It's a pretty breathtaking place, i swear it's never ending and the scenery is beautiful. We anchored up around 14:00 and were then allowed to jump in to the sea, which was cold but it woke you up with the jump from the top of the boat being about 15ft and the shock of the water temp when you get in, still, got to be done! We then went kayaking around the bay to see some caves and the floating village where they filmed Top Gear apparently, i'm not sure it was the actual one but whatever, it looked pretty similar. It was then back to the boat for another night of fun and games, this is the night Dan Vieng was created. Basically he got drunk a bottle Vodka, decided he wasn't drunk enough and that it was watered down. To fix this he decided he needed 6 Tequila shots in row, it worked, massively. He got carried to bed and his final words were: 'I'm Dan Vieng, you don't even know'.
Another 7am wake up call the next day, can you see a theme occurring here? We switched boats to the ferry to get to castaway island. Today was action day. Beach Volleyball, Frisby, Climbing and Wakeboarding. I was fucking ace at wakeboarding which is strange as i have no strengh in my arms or legs. The night was slightly tamer than the boat nights but only just. Needless to say by the end of the trip i was pretty tired, from no sleep and lots of booze. However, upon my return to the hostel i found out it was spurs arsenal which i obviously had to watch, i don't want to talk about that though.
We spent a couple more nights in Hanoi, recovering/ drinking. Then moved onto Hue. Not much to say about that place it was pretty boring and the weather was rubbish and by now i was craving sun so we stayed one night and moved onto Hoi An. The weather wasn't looking any better until we went through this massive tunnel, got to the other side and suddenly it was beautiful sunshine. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.
We stayed in Hoi An 2 nights, it was a strange old place, hard to describe, but good fun. We did a lot of Vodka drinking on the rooftop terrace, me and Dan Vieng started the trent of a robe party, it got a bit silly. We rented bikes out one day and drove the 50km ride out to My Son. Basically some ruins in a park, not that impressive, i enjoyed the bike ride more, i say enjoyed, i was knackered after it. The Vietnamese traffic laws are pretty loose to say the least, by loose i mean there are none, so you had to concentrate pretty hard. Other than that we finally got to a beach and had a couple of really nice meals. Most people got something made as it's supposed to be the cheapest and best place in Vietnam. I did not, but i'm sure everyone elses will look lovely!
We then got a relatively easy 11 hour night bus to Nha Trang. Me and Dan sounded like we got lucky compared to the others in our group, drunk Vietnamese men throwing up on people and things like that. Oh well.
Nha Trang has been loads of fun so far. It's ridiculously hot so my tan is coming on nicely. There's a beautiful beach about 5 minutes walk from the hostel. Had the best day ever at the Vinpearl waterpark, there was some ceeeeerazy slides and some not so ceeeeerazy rides, but the whole day was so much fun. Not done great deal more than that, still seem to be drinking quite a lot though. We took on the Vietnamese at football and won 13-8 obviously, i scored 4 goals obviosuly. Tonight, about 8 of us have managed to organise a night at Red Apple club and we're getting free food, free beer and free accomodation for the night all i have to do is DJ some indie dancefloor classics for a few hours which will be a god send, i'm seriously craving some decent music. Should be a lovely warm up for the 8am bus tomorrow morning.
Hopefully 2 weeks with Mother will be a much needed detox, however she does like her Gin, so maybe i'll just be drinking more expensively. Plan is to head to Saigon, meet up, then head back up north to Mui Ne for some more beach time. Then probs back to Saigon and through Cambodia. I fly out of Cambodia on the 28th March to Kuala Lumpar for one night, then to Koh Samui for about a month in the Thai islands. Bit of a long way round to get there, but i have to fly into Thailand to get my 30 day visa and it's cheaper take 2 flights to KL then Ko Samui than it is to take a flight to Bangkok then a train down to the islands. Wierd.
That's it for now, that was a long one. Reckon my next one will be when i get to the islands. I know for a fact that there's huges spelling and grammar errors in this, for those that know me, you will know how much this annoys me but i'm not really bov'ed anymore.
Peace and Love to all. X
To get out of VV i went back to Luang Prabang with Liam and Clare for one night only, they wanted to see the waterfalls before we headed off to Hanoi. What i failed to remember was the minging bus ride i would have to enjure to get there. It's only 8 hours but the roads are soooooooo bad and on a bus you're just constantly bumping about and seeing the drops over the side don't make you feel any better about the roads you're driving on. However, we made it there and managed to eventually find a hostel after a couple of hours wandering around town. To tired to do anything that night, so went to Lao Lao, had a bit of food/ medicine and went to bed.
We were pretty busy the next day, i got up and sorted the bus to Hanoi which left at 18:30 that night, so we had to be quick getting to the waterfalls and back. The bus itself was one of the worst experiences since i've been away. It was sold as a 24 hour journey on a 'VIP' bus with a toilet, whilst it was a sleeper a bus, it certainly was not VIP and there was no toilet. I had a 'bed' That was about 5ft long so sleep did not happen that night on the 'sleeper' bus, especially when a large Amercian woman decides it's acceptable to have a wee in a plastic bag in the aisle of the bus, scarred for life. We arrived at the Vietnamese border at about 4 in the morning to find out that the crossing wasn't actually open till 8 so we had to try and sleep again. The border crossing itslef took about 3 hours and was long and annoying, but i guess the only way to get through it is to do as your told and be patient which i have found i'm becoming very good at! The rest of the day is a complete blur of drifting in and out of consciousness through lack of sleep and some strong tablets! We were supposed to arrive in Hanoi around 6, we ended up there around 10. I was properly de-hydrated, reason being, you never know when they're going to stop so the last thing you want to do is end up needing to go to the toliet on a bus with no toilet. Difficult balancing act that i'm clearly not very good at! But, we made it and i'm still alive to tell the tale, but i would not fancy doing that journey again in a hurry.
Hanoi turned out to be pretty cool, can't say i was looking forward to being back in a big city, but it proved me wrong. We'd booked a decent hostel and bumped back into Dan, we reluctantly let him re-join our group to bring the numbers up to 4. The hostel served free beer between 7-8 which we happily took advantage of. The 1st couple of days here we wandered the streets, managed to find a little make shift bar on the corner of some crossroads, where they served 20p beer, not really sure what the beer was but who cares, it was 20p. We spent a good afternoon there, just people watching and seeing what the strangest thing we could see on the back of a moped was. Winner at the moment is a whole cow. I'm hoping to top this. We'd been recommended to do a tour round Halong Bay from one of the other hostels that was a bit more expensive than the others but was worth it. It was billed as the booze cruise, my of my how were we not ready for this. It cost 160$, this included 3 days and 2 nights of various activities and excursions, all our meals and transport, only thing not included, alcohol. Or sleep. Day one we got to the harbour, which took around 4 hours by bus. We were greeted with a wall of thick fog. Apparently it was going to clear and we would get out to the bay eventually. A few hours passed and we still hadn't gone anywhere, lots of beer had already been drunk and we were then told the Vietnamese boat police would not let anyone move anywhere because the fog was so bad, apparently this was the 1st time this had happened in 5 years. The outcome was we'd have to stay the night on the boat and start the tour again the next day. So basically we got a free night on the boat. The rest of the night involved lots of drinking games and nakedness. I think we finished up around 4, maybe.
Next morning we got a nice 7am wake up call, the Vietnamese boat crew did not like you sleeping in or missing breakfast, so we were literally pulled out of bed. We then started our cruise into the bay, the weather had cleared really well and we had beautiful sunshine. It's a pretty breathtaking place, i swear it's never ending and the scenery is beautiful. We anchored up around 14:00 and were then allowed to jump in to the sea, which was cold but it woke you up with the jump from the top of the boat being about 15ft and the shock of the water temp when you get in, still, got to be done! We then went kayaking around the bay to see some caves and the floating village where they filmed Top Gear apparently, i'm not sure it was the actual one but whatever, it looked pretty similar. It was then back to the boat for another night of fun and games, this is the night Dan Vieng was created. Basically he got drunk a bottle Vodka, decided he wasn't drunk enough and that it was watered down. To fix this he decided he needed 6 Tequila shots in row, it worked, massively. He got carried to bed and his final words were: 'I'm Dan Vieng, you don't even know'.
Another 7am wake up call the next day, can you see a theme occurring here? We switched boats to the ferry to get to castaway island. Today was action day. Beach Volleyball, Frisby, Climbing and Wakeboarding. I was fucking ace at wakeboarding which is strange as i have no strengh in my arms or legs. The night was slightly tamer than the boat nights but only just. Needless to say by the end of the trip i was pretty tired, from no sleep and lots of booze. However, upon my return to the hostel i found out it was spurs arsenal which i obviously had to watch, i don't want to talk about that though.
We spent a couple more nights in Hanoi, recovering/ drinking. Then moved onto Hue. Not much to say about that place it was pretty boring and the weather was rubbish and by now i was craving sun so we stayed one night and moved onto Hoi An. The weather wasn't looking any better until we went through this massive tunnel, got to the other side and suddenly it was beautiful sunshine. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.
We stayed in Hoi An 2 nights, it was a strange old place, hard to describe, but good fun. We did a lot of Vodka drinking on the rooftop terrace, me and Dan Vieng started the trent of a robe party, it got a bit silly. We rented bikes out one day and drove the 50km ride out to My Son. Basically some ruins in a park, not that impressive, i enjoyed the bike ride more, i say enjoyed, i was knackered after it. The Vietnamese traffic laws are pretty loose to say the least, by loose i mean there are none, so you had to concentrate pretty hard. Other than that we finally got to a beach and had a couple of really nice meals. Most people got something made as it's supposed to be the cheapest and best place in Vietnam. I did not, but i'm sure everyone elses will look lovely!
We then got a relatively easy 11 hour night bus to Nha Trang. Me and Dan sounded like we got lucky compared to the others in our group, drunk Vietnamese men throwing up on people and things like that. Oh well.
Nha Trang has been loads of fun so far. It's ridiculously hot so my tan is coming on nicely. There's a beautiful beach about 5 minutes walk from the hostel. Had the best day ever at the Vinpearl waterpark, there was some ceeeeerazy slides and some not so ceeeeerazy rides, but the whole day was so much fun. Not done great deal more than that, still seem to be drinking quite a lot though. We took on the Vietnamese at football and won 13-8 obviously, i scored 4 goals obviosuly. Tonight, about 8 of us have managed to organise a night at Red Apple club and we're getting free food, free beer and free accomodation for the night all i have to do is DJ some indie dancefloor classics for a few hours which will be a god send, i'm seriously craving some decent music. Should be a lovely warm up for the 8am bus tomorrow morning.
Hopefully 2 weeks with Mother will be a much needed detox, however she does like her Gin, so maybe i'll just be drinking more expensively. Plan is to head to Saigon, meet up, then head back up north to Mui Ne for some more beach time. Then probs back to Saigon and through Cambodia. I fly out of Cambodia on the 28th March to Kuala Lumpar for one night, then to Koh Samui for about a month in the Thai islands. Bit of a long way round to get there, but i have to fly into Thailand to get my 30 day visa and it's cheaper take 2 flights to KL then Ko Samui than it is to take a flight to Bangkok then a train down to the islands. Wierd.
That's it for now, that was a long one. Reckon my next one will be when i get to the islands. I know for a fact that there's huges spelling and grammar errors in this, for those that know me, you will know how much this annoys me but i'm not really bov'ed anymore.
Peace and Love to all. X
Monday 13 February 2012
Pai, Slowboat, Luang Prabang & Vang Vieng
So, last update i was about to leave Chiang Mai, which was great fun and met some really cool people there. I then moved onto Pai. I'd only heard good things about this place so was looking forward to getting there. The 3 hour minivan, was interesting. The guy was driving like an absolute nutter, with a full bus of people. Tyres screeching, the lot. It was a beautiful ride up there though. Twisty roads through the mountains with amazing scenery. We thankfully all arrived in one piece and I headed for my hostel called SpicyPai. It was basically a few bamboo huts in the the middle of a few rice fields. There was a common area in the middle with some hammocks and cushions. Very chilled, very cool. I loved it., even if it was a bit cold at night in my treehouse style bed! Felt like a lost boy in the film Hook sleeping there.
First night there was a charity reggae gig on so we all piled down there, the band played The Specials, so i was happy. Pai itself is a small little town and it is so chilled out! They fucking love Reggae there as well, maybe to the point i was getting a bit sick of it by the end. I was only planning on staying for 2 days but ended up there for 4 as i loved it so much. I hired a moped for the duration of the stay. Those who know me well enough will know what i mean when i say i made sure i took it easy! All was fine, literally like riding a bike!I One day we went on a little loop of the town on the bikes, fed some Elephants and went to a beautiful canyon for sunset. Also spent a day swimming at some waterfalls and by a pool just chilling out really. Met some really cool people here and was sad to leave. But after 4 days me Ali, Suzie and Tayla started the 3 day, 2 night trip to Luang Prabang.
The journey started with a 9 hour minivan to Chang Kong, which is right on the border with Laos. We got there around midnight and were all knackered, we had to be up at 7 the next morning so it was straight to bed, we were randomly in the next room to Dan, who was the 1st person i met in Pai, so he joined the group which was a cool! My morning started interestingly. Woke up at about 6 for a drink of water. Next thing i knew i was throwing it up everywhere. No water for me then that morning. I felt like absolute bollocks and i'd say the Thailand to Laos border crossing is pretty horrific at the best of times. It invloved getting stamped out of Thailand, a boat acros to Laos, then about 3 more q's for visas and visa fees and then finally getting stamped in the country. Jokes. Needless to say by the time that was all over all i wanted to do was get on the boat so i could lie down and sleep! Luckily we got on the boat last and managed to sit up the front with some locals which meant i could lie down and didn't have to cram in at the back with 'the masses'! By now i managed to keep some water down so started to feel better throughout the day and take in some of the beautiful scenery, it was truly stunning! We got to our overnight stop off at around 6 and managed to find our hostel. Again we had to be up early the next morning, so it was a relatively quiet one that night, and with me feeling like i did earlier in the day i laid off it for a night! I think the place was called Pabang, but it was literally in the middle of nowhere. Had a really good nights sleep and felt so much better the next day. Again by getting on the boat last we somehow managed to bag the best seats on a quieter boat, result! The day started off pretty quietly and then we got a bit tipsy throughout the day. We met a few people on the boat. Nathan and Jack, both from England and then two Swedish guys, Simon & Ulf (I fucking love that name!). It was a good day!
We got to Luang Prabang around 5 and headed to SpicyLoas. Not to be linked with SpicyPai in anyway, nowhere near as good! But alright, we managed to get ourselves our own little sectioned off room of 3 which was cool. 1st night we didn't really get up to that much it was my b'day the next day so we went to some place called Utopia for food which was a really cool little hidden Gem. Then headed to Lao Lao, again really cool little place, We discovered that they gave away free shots everytime you asked for them of this stuff called Lao Lao, made from rice, Red in colour and totally leathal! It became known as our 'medicine' and the waiter was the doctor! Nice work Jack, funny shit.
The next day was my birthday! Started of bright and early, went and got food and then headed out the Kuang Si waterfall. It was totally breathtaking. A series of turquoise pools where you can swim and jump in from rope swings or off the top of the waterfall, i got sung happy birthday at the top on my own by the gang, nice touch. Perfect way to spend the day. We got back, washed up and headed out for some festivities. Went and had an amazing Steak at Utopia, then headed for some medicine at Lao Lao. Got a couple of little presents and a card , then it's a bit hazy. The weird thing about Luang Prabang is everything shuts down at 11:30 and the only place open that serves alcohol late is a bowling alley about 10 mins out of town by tuk tuk. So basically everyone piles down there bang on 11:30 to go bowling till the early hours. So weird. But obviously we obliged and proceeded to drink some Lion King whiskey and bowl, badly. It was a top birthday and i can't thank Dan, Ali, Suzie, Tayla, Jack & Nathan for helping me celebrate.
The only other thing of any significance i did in LP was to get up at 5:30am to go and give the monks some sweets. It was pretty boring, i was wish i'd stayed in bed. Oh yeah we also played football with some kids on a beach by the river. They were cool, much better thank English kids. The main thing i'll take away is Lao Lao, Where are all the monks going? Who's touching the monks!?
I'm now in Vang Vieng which i'll leave till next time as i've not been here long. It's pretty mental though i can assure you of that!
Till next time! X
P.s. I still haven't seen a drop of rain since i've been here! Bye! x
First night there was a charity reggae gig on so we all piled down there, the band played The Specials, so i was happy. Pai itself is a small little town and it is so chilled out! They fucking love Reggae there as well, maybe to the point i was getting a bit sick of it by the end. I was only planning on staying for 2 days but ended up there for 4 as i loved it so much. I hired a moped for the duration of the stay. Those who know me well enough will know what i mean when i say i made sure i took it easy! All was fine, literally like riding a bike!I One day we went on a little loop of the town on the bikes, fed some Elephants and went to a beautiful canyon for sunset. Also spent a day swimming at some waterfalls and by a pool just chilling out really. Met some really cool people here and was sad to leave. But after 4 days me Ali, Suzie and Tayla started the 3 day, 2 night trip to Luang Prabang.
The journey started with a 9 hour minivan to Chang Kong, which is right on the border with Laos. We got there around midnight and were all knackered, we had to be up at 7 the next morning so it was straight to bed, we were randomly in the next room to Dan, who was the 1st person i met in Pai, so he joined the group which was a cool! My morning started interestingly. Woke up at about 6 for a drink of water. Next thing i knew i was throwing it up everywhere. No water for me then that morning. I felt like absolute bollocks and i'd say the Thailand to Laos border crossing is pretty horrific at the best of times. It invloved getting stamped out of Thailand, a boat acros to Laos, then about 3 more q's for visas and visa fees and then finally getting stamped in the country. Jokes. Needless to say by the time that was all over all i wanted to do was get on the boat so i could lie down and sleep! Luckily we got on the boat last and managed to sit up the front with some locals which meant i could lie down and didn't have to cram in at the back with 'the masses'! By now i managed to keep some water down so started to feel better throughout the day and take in some of the beautiful scenery, it was truly stunning! We got to our overnight stop off at around 6 and managed to find our hostel. Again we had to be up early the next morning, so it was a relatively quiet one that night, and with me feeling like i did earlier in the day i laid off it for a night! I think the place was called Pabang, but it was literally in the middle of nowhere. Had a really good nights sleep and felt so much better the next day. Again by getting on the boat last we somehow managed to bag the best seats on a quieter boat, result! The day started off pretty quietly and then we got a bit tipsy throughout the day. We met a few people on the boat. Nathan and Jack, both from England and then two Swedish guys, Simon & Ulf (I fucking love that name!). It was a good day!
We got to Luang Prabang around 5 and headed to SpicyLoas. Not to be linked with SpicyPai in anyway, nowhere near as good! But alright, we managed to get ourselves our own little sectioned off room of 3 which was cool. 1st night we didn't really get up to that much it was my b'day the next day so we went to some place called Utopia for food which was a really cool little hidden Gem. Then headed to Lao Lao, again really cool little place, We discovered that they gave away free shots everytime you asked for them of this stuff called Lao Lao, made from rice, Red in colour and totally leathal! It became known as our 'medicine' and the waiter was the doctor! Nice work Jack, funny shit.
The next day was my birthday! Started of bright and early, went and got food and then headed out the Kuang Si waterfall. It was totally breathtaking. A series of turquoise pools where you can swim and jump in from rope swings or off the top of the waterfall, i got sung happy birthday at the top on my own by the gang, nice touch. Perfect way to spend the day. We got back, washed up and headed out for some festivities. Went and had an amazing Steak at Utopia, then headed for some medicine at Lao Lao. Got a couple of little presents and a card , then it's a bit hazy. The weird thing about Luang Prabang is everything shuts down at 11:30 and the only place open that serves alcohol late is a bowling alley about 10 mins out of town by tuk tuk. So basically everyone piles down there bang on 11:30 to go bowling till the early hours. So weird. But obviously we obliged and proceeded to drink some Lion King whiskey and bowl, badly. It was a top birthday and i can't thank Dan, Ali, Suzie, Tayla, Jack & Nathan for helping me celebrate.
The only other thing of any significance i did in LP was to get up at 5:30am to go and give the monks some sweets. It was pretty boring, i was wish i'd stayed in bed. Oh yeah we also played football with some kids on a beach by the river. They were cool, much better thank English kids. The main thing i'll take away is Lao Lao, Where are all the monks going? Who's touching the monks!?
I'm now in Vang Vieng which i'll leave till next time as i've not been here long. It's pretty mental though i can assure you of that!
Till next time! X
P.s. I still haven't seen a drop of rain since i've been here! Bye! x
Monday 30 January 2012
Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Sukothai, Chiang Mai
So, i'm just over a week in. Seems like i've done a fair bit and I definitely want to keep this up to date so think I need to get started.
I left England on Friday 20th Jan in the evening and it was cold, wet, rainy & windy! Can't say I was sad to see the back of that sort of shit. The trip started with some good luck, they'd over booked our flight so at first I was offered 300 euros to go on anther flight an hour later, obviously I said yes! Basically I went away for a couple of hours and had to go back to the desk for 10 mins before check-in closed and they told me they could get me on my flight, but i'd have to go 1st class. SHIT! Got whisked straight to the gate and pretty much straight on the plane.
'Champagne sir? Errrrrr, it makes me go red but i'll have a gin and tonic, certainly sir i'll bring it to your seat' by seat she means, near enough bed! Honestly it was amazing, whole new world! Needless to say, I got suitbaly oiled on the plane and didn't really sleep that much as i was too busy taking advantage of the free stuff.
I got to Bangkok around 16:00 feeling pretty ropey and probably still a bit drunk. Managed to get through immigration and navigate my way to the hostel. I got dropped off on the Koa San Road, which was a bit of a shock to the system to be fair, it's MENTAL! Luckily my hostel wasn't on that street, it was about a 5 mins from there but I had to do the walk down it and by the end, I'd defo been offered about 6 suits, a ping pong show and a frog show!? WTF? Funnily enough after a long, boozy flight with minimal sleep and still carrying all my bags I wasn't really up for much of that.
After a couple of hours sleep I ventured out with a few people from the hostel and managed to not return till 6 the next morning, it was a pretty heavy night. The next day I woke up, got some food and then went back to bed for 16 hours! Think I needed that.
Monday, I went round a few temples and managed to stumble upon chinese new year in Chinatown on the way back which was amazing! Got loads of free food and had a few beers, but had to get to bed at a decent hour for the bus to Ayuttaya next morning.
Travelled about 1 1/2 hours to Ayutthaya and went between a few temples which were pretty cool, got told off for lying in front a giant Buddha, which i'll post a photo of. I now know the ettiquette and how to behave, reckon I looked like a massive idiot abroad though! Once again I managed to find the Chinese NY celebrations that night and had some amazing food, might have been dog!?
Sukothai was the next day, was there for 2 nights. Got a 6 hour bus up there and went to the historical park which invloved riding about on a bike for the day which killed my arse! The temples were worth it though. My hostel was in the middle of a really narrow street, tried to venture out in the evening and got chased by a pack of crazy, barking, snarling, dripping at the mouth dogs. I had to take refuge on a wall till they got bored, then went back to the hostel and get someone from there to give me a lift in on the scooter. First near death experience. Being pretty cautious around dogs now!
Now i've moved onto Chiang Mai, in a dorm with 5 really cool people and we've been out a couple of nights. There's a cocktail tuk tuk which turns up directly opposite the hostel at about 8 every night, not convienient at all! Yesterday we went zip lining and abseiling throught the jungle, was so much fun, again will put some pics up of that. Going to get a massage and see some Thai boxing tonight, then heading to Pai tomorrow for a couple of days, which is supposed to be well chilled out, so looking forward to not doing much! Will be sad to say goodbye to Jenni, Amy, Mark, Chrtistin & Dennis though!
Plan is to, head to Laos on Saturday to get to Vang Vieng to do some tubing on my birthday. Don't forget to send presents, yeah!? Reckon my next update will be just after that.
Hope all is well with everyne at home and you're not too cold.
Love, Nikolass X
PS Will try and put photos on facebook, reckon it'll take too long if i try and include them in this.
I left England on Friday 20th Jan in the evening and it was cold, wet, rainy & windy! Can't say I was sad to see the back of that sort of shit. The trip started with some good luck, they'd over booked our flight so at first I was offered 300 euros to go on anther flight an hour later, obviously I said yes! Basically I went away for a couple of hours and had to go back to the desk for 10 mins before check-in closed and they told me they could get me on my flight, but i'd have to go 1st class. SHIT! Got whisked straight to the gate and pretty much straight on the plane.
'Champagne sir? Errrrrr, it makes me go red but i'll have a gin and tonic, certainly sir i'll bring it to your seat' by seat she means, near enough bed! Honestly it was amazing, whole new world! Needless to say, I got suitbaly oiled on the plane and didn't really sleep that much as i was too busy taking advantage of the free stuff.
I got to Bangkok around 16:00 feeling pretty ropey and probably still a bit drunk. Managed to get through immigration and navigate my way to the hostel. I got dropped off on the Koa San Road, which was a bit of a shock to the system to be fair, it's MENTAL! Luckily my hostel wasn't on that street, it was about a 5 mins from there but I had to do the walk down it and by the end, I'd defo been offered about 6 suits, a ping pong show and a frog show!? WTF? Funnily enough after a long, boozy flight with minimal sleep and still carrying all my bags I wasn't really up for much of that.
After a couple of hours sleep I ventured out with a few people from the hostel and managed to not return till 6 the next morning, it was a pretty heavy night. The next day I woke up, got some food and then went back to bed for 16 hours! Think I needed that.
Monday, I went round a few temples and managed to stumble upon chinese new year in Chinatown on the way back which was amazing! Got loads of free food and had a few beers, but had to get to bed at a decent hour for the bus to Ayuttaya next morning.
Travelled about 1 1/2 hours to Ayutthaya and went between a few temples which were pretty cool, got told off for lying in front a giant Buddha, which i'll post a photo of. I now know the ettiquette and how to behave, reckon I looked like a massive idiot abroad though! Once again I managed to find the Chinese NY celebrations that night and had some amazing food, might have been dog!?
Sukothai was the next day, was there for 2 nights. Got a 6 hour bus up there and went to the historical park which invloved riding about on a bike for the day which killed my arse! The temples were worth it though. My hostel was in the middle of a really narrow street, tried to venture out in the evening and got chased by a pack of crazy, barking, snarling, dripping at the mouth dogs. I had to take refuge on a wall till they got bored, then went back to the hostel and get someone from there to give me a lift in on the scooter. First near death experience. Being pretty cautious around dogs now!
Now i've moved onto Chiang Mai, in a dorm with 5 really cool people and we've been out a couple of nights. There's a cocktail tuk tuk which turns up directly opposite the hostel at about 8 every night, not convienient at all! Yesterday we went zip lining and abseiling throught the jungle, was so much fun, again will put some pics up of that. Going to get a massage and see some Thai boxing tonight, then heading to Pai tomorrow for a couple of days, which is supposed to be well chilled out, so looking forward to not doing much! Will be sad to say goodbye to Jenni, Amy, Mark, Chrtistin & Dennis though!
Plan is to, head to Laos on Saturday to get to Vang Vieng to do some tubing on my birthday. Don't forget to send presents, yeah!? Reckon my next update will be just after that.
Hope all is well with everyne at home and you're not too cold.
Love, Nikolass X
PS Will try and put photos on facebook, reckon it'll take too long if i try and include them in this.
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