Sat 29th May - 7pm - Hanoi, Vietnam

Ok so where did we leave off last time - just about to get a mini bus to vang vieng! it seems like ages ago now!! The bus took around 7 hours through very high and windy roads through the mountains. LOTS of unscheduled stops at dirty roadside shops trying to make you buy something or pay to use the disgusting bathrooms although they dont even deserve that name!! the driver eats like a king and smokes like a chimney and there are obviously pre-set rules as to where he will bring tourists in return for his dinner. At one stop i did see the most beautiful monkey (think lion king) all chained up out the back of this house. it was such a beautiful creature and such a shame to see it looking so unhappy. it tried to communicate with us using amazing facial expressions and waving its arms around. i think he just wanted to be free. such a shame. would have been more humane if they had killed it and eaten it if they needed food, it was just cruel.

Arrived in vang vieng around 9pm and headed for a guesthouse. room was nice with a great view of the mountains but had many ant and other bug issues as most places seem to have!!! just crashed that night and went for a wander the next day - i was not too impressed with vang vieng town - it seems to be built just for people to be hungover in. no culture at all. just built for the tubing. we had some really average food and watched some friends (massive tvs up in the bars showing friends/family guy/simpsons 24/7!) Went for a long walk that night and to some bars, chatting to the people who ran them, who were all in their 20's and american/canadian or english. generally 'working' (getting drunk and playing loud music, serving the occaisional beer to someone else) its easy enough to get a work visa for laos apparently and people dont get paid but get free food and cheap accommodation so just do it for a year or so. but we met some great people who gave out a lot of free buckets so that was good! We then went to the one locally owned bar called JD's and played pool and chatted to the owner. they dont pay taxes over here but if the police show up and ask for money you just have to give it to them as its so corrupt. JD had a giant machette under the bar for protection. (sam had to a have a photo with it) Also loads of laos girls hang around and try and get the foreigners to chat them up and take them back to their hotel, but as sex is illegal in laos unless you are married the girl disappears as soon as she knows where their room is and the police turn up 5 mins later and fine them 500 USD. ouch.

went tubing the next day and oh what incredibly dangerous fun this is!!! you basically rent a giant rubber ring and get a tuk tuk to the starting point, but there are so many bars serving buckets of vodka red bull, whiskey etc and all the bars are in the first KM of the 3KM course. you float down the river and people pull you into their bar and you get out, dance, party and drink until you float 20 meters down to the next one! at each bar there are giant rope swings and slides that are so high and catapult you into the river. sam still has the bruises and i took a massive chunk out of my finger. we went out there at 2pm and came back at 6pm after only having down 1km. oh dear. next day was a total right off as we were both so hung over. but it was really fun at the time!!!

We left the next day for hanoi and for a very long journey. 4 hour bus south to vientienne, the Laos capital and we left at 10am. got dropped off at 2pm to a horrible, dingy expensive resturant and were ditched and told we would be picked up at 5pm to get to the bus station for our 7pm bus. so a not needed 5 hour pit stop already. sam and i refused to eat at the horrible place and managed to find the laos version of pizza hut and indulged in our first western food, air con and refillable drinks, so the wait wasn't too bad. Although when we arrived to catch our sleeper bus (we splashed out as the journey was so long) we were told they had overbooked the sleeper bus and there was no seats for us and nothing we could do as the next sleeper bus wasn't for 3 days. the guy tried fobbing us off and tried to give us a cheaper, upright, uncomfortable bus for the 14 hour overnight journey for the same price. errrm NO! you really have to fight your corner a lot over here or you get ripped off. whatever price you are offered for anything you normally pay less than half of it if you are willing to haggle long enough. we argued for and hour and half and he finally gave us half our money back and we still had to get the upright bus as we had no choice. but at least we didn't pay double what it was worth. the staff on the bus were so so so rude all the way. we left at 7ish and only drove 2 hours before we stopped for an hour for the drivers to have dinner. then we drove till 1am and parked outside a guesthouse where we were told we were not moving again till 6am and had to pay for a guesthouse or sleep on the bus. sooo not happy at this point. we refused to pay for the guesthouse so slept on the bus, luckily enough people stayed in the guesthouse that we could recline the seats a bit but it was pretty horrible and no bathroom. thank god for valium at this point!!! During the night there was the most almighty storm that kept me awake. it doesn't just rain here it just monsoons and it's so loud and the thunder was literally shaking the bus from side to side. thankfully we did leave dead on 6am and got the border about 9am. border crossing are just madness here. about 200 people fighting to get to 4 windows, (we had to pay 54 USD each in vang vieng for someone to do a visa run for us or we would have had to stay in vientienne for 2 nights to wait for it. sketchy handing your passport over but we met enough people who had done it to give it a shot and it was fine.)they snatch your passport and process it at the border and then it goes to another window where the teller doesn't speak and english and just flashes the picture page at you and u have to tell if its yours over 50 heads and if it is push to the front and give her some money or she wont give it back. wicked. it was not the best journey in the world but definitely an experience!

Arrived in hanoi about 9pm. got lucky with a nice hotel in the old quarter and went out for dinner with ben, miranda and a new couple from cardiff, matt and jo. we all ate a street cafe which i didnt think was that tasty, crispy noodles and beef. and there was so much rubbish in the streets and i saw many a roach so was happy to head back the hotel, no bedbugs -woohoo! and also the foot is better! and bites are down to around 5 at a time! all feels a bit better with the world. Spent the next day wandering round hanoi. went to the prison museum and saw all the cells the american pow's were kept in etc. was really interesting. also walked around the massive lake in the centre of the city and people watched. booked a 3 day/2 night boat trip to Halong bay and cat ba island leaving at 8am the next morning. we went to a water puppet show which told old vietnamese legends and tales through the medium of music and water puppetry. sounds weird. but was really entertaining for an hour!

The boat trip around halong bay was awesome! on the way the guide told us a lot about hanoi. population was below 2 million in 1991 and is now over 5 million! and there are 2.5 million scooters + cars in the city! the traffic is mental. not many crossings. you literally have to walk out and let the bikes swerve around you. definitely a knack to it and not for the faint hearted!! Took a cruise round halong bay which has over 2000 grass covered islands in it. visited a really amazing cave, went back to our boat, anchored in the bay and swam off the side of it, then had a banquet with the 12 other people on our ship. got chatting to everyone and met a nice couple in their 50's called shirley and laurie who are from auckland, they gave us their card and we are going to have dinner with them when we get there. also a really nice young couple called gavin and haley who are from sydney so hooking up with them too when we get there. did a little mini squid fishing off the side of the boat and went to bed. had a nice en suite room, but a roach here and there. they are everywhere and there are so many different types!!! even flying ones!!

The next day we headed to cat ba island (right out of the jurassic park movies!) traveled around, went to another amazing cave, had another banquet lunch and headed out to monkey beach where, ironically, we saw no monkeys. this was a really touristy beach for the locals and they really don't take care of their own beaches and places. rubbish everywhere., even our guide said the foreign tourist beaches were much nicer. was really disappointed as this was our first beach, but had a great night out with gav and haley. headed back the long journey to hanoi the next day.

had a chilled couple of days in hanoi, ate at some cool cafes, had a great chicken and vegetable curry tonight, literally amazing! sam visited the embalmed mausoleum of ho chi minh and the museum next to it! we also went to see iron man this afternoon and wandered around a crazy mall! hanoi's is a great city, we are sad to leave it but we leave tonight at 11pm. (hence lots of time to write this while waiting for our train.) 10 hours. oh joy. in the uncomfy seats as thats all they had left and sam and i arnt even sat together. the only bad bits about traveling are the long journeys and the bugs!!!


Siging off now!

phia and sam xxxxx

vang vieng - vientienne - 4 hours
vientienne - hanoi - 27 hours
hanoi-halong bay & cat ba island - 5 hours each way
hanoi - hue - 12 hours

Sent May 18th - Luang Prabang, Laos

So we had the two day boat trip along the mekong river which was AWESOME! the scenery is just incredible. massive picturesque mountains covered with forest on either side with clouds all floating in between them. loads of fisherman and tiny villages dotted around. often you would see 20 children all swimming in the river and waving at us. Herds and herds of water buffalo splashing about too. they are kind of like a cow crossed with a hippo. they do that really cute twitchy thing with their ears that hippos do -i love that! sam and i managed to get some comfy aeroplane style seats next to this american guy called Dave (26) and opposite two girls from leeds (verity and cara - 19) and Walter from Holland (19) We ended up chatting to them for the 7 hours down the river it took to get to Pakbeng (our stop for the night) played cards and drank lots of beer lao! We are actually still with all of them!

Very strange, they stop the boat a lot on the way down the river to let the locals on and off at remote villages and carry goods between. (even giant lizards!!!) At one village we stopped in about 20 kids aged around 10 got onto the boat with baskets of beer, cigarettes and food and were trying to sell it to you so there was lots of shouting and haggling going on! really exciting to watch but a shame these kids have to do this every day.

We got a nice room in pakbeng - went out for a great curry with everyone from the boat. it was so muggy that the weather broke that night and there was the most almighty storm at am, cutting off all power to the whole village! there was about 20 lightning flashes a minute and the loudest thunder i have ever heard! and our fan had stopped working so you kind of laid there listening to the storm and trying to sleep but sweating so much! thankfully that storm broke the weather slightly and the next morning was cooler.

Back on the boat again at 9am - 630pm - napped, played cards and read again with our new friends, also met a couple from New zealand called ben and miranda who joined us too. when we arrived in luang prabang we searched or a guesthouse for ages but eventually all of us filled a family owned guesthouse for 40,000 kip a night per room (3.50) it was only a fan but a really big ceiling one! sam and i have pretty much decided to downgrade to fan rooms to save money and treat air con as more of a treat now and again as its eating our budget and we were finding ourselves with not much money to do trips. After check in we all went for dinner and had a wander round the extensive night markets that seem to be in every town! and sell everything from t-shirts - lamps - jewellery to snake whiskey (yes there is an actual cobra in the bottle!!! - apparently the venom in the snake makes the whiskey so strong you hallucinate!)

Bite wise things are are a little better but not much - get around 5 new ones each day despite being covered in spray and reapplying 6 or 7 times a day!! but no bedbugs for the last 3 nights so have got some sleep which was good! only really bad thing is i have so many bites on one foot that its swollen to twice normal size!! the heat makes everyones feet swell but this is worse! my ankle is literally a golf ball!! its been really painful to walk so ill probably hit the doctors in vang vieng if it doesn't get better in a couple of days.

Yesterday we went up to the waterfalls which were just so beautiful and the main attraction in Luang pranbang. there was a bear sanctuary at the bottom which was nice as they have been rescued from poachers but the waterfalls are truly the best bit! massive blue pools of spring water that you can swim in and rope swings to jump off the rocks and in. loads of fish in them which nibble your feet if you stay still too long! Sam hiked all the way to the top! when i say hike i mean hike! he had to climb up and through the waterfall itself in flip flops! he went with dave whereas my foot was bad so i couldn't do it so i stayed at the bottom with walter and the girls and swam. the spring water really helped all my bites tho which was nice. until i bashed my foot on a rock while jumping in just before we left and bruised it all as well!!! typical!

We had an hour long massage yesterday at a spa here for 40,000 kip it was a thai-lao massage whatever that means but it seriously hurt! the whole process was really painful but you can feel the benefit after! i think ill go for an oil massage next time as thats the realxing one! We went out to a bar called hive last night which was really cool, owned by a french guy and a guy form manchester so the music was really good. but rules are so strict here that everything and i mean EVERYTHING completely shuts and boards up by 11:30pm! by then me,sam, dave and walter hadnt finished drinking so a tuk tuk diver convinced us he would take us to a club outside of town. it turned out to be a local gay club full of lao men on the pull who were very happy to see the boys i came with. ; ) they all got chatted up it was so funny, but all in good spirits and not dodgy at all. we danced for another couple of hours and were all in a big circle with the locals having dancing competitions. really good fun. woke up slightly hungover this morning and am off to get some food to take on the bus in a sec. we leave for vang vieng (7 hours away) at 1pm (12pm now) on a minibus with the others. not really looking forward to it as the ride is supposed to be really bumpy and in the mountains. hmmmm.

will sign off now!

for map followers.

chiang kong - pakbeng - 7 hours
pakbeng - luang prabang - 7 hours
next stop: luang prabang - vang vieng - 7 hours

Sent 11th May - Chiang Mai

First time we have got to internet in a while - have been in the tiny town of Lampang which was really cool - we were almost the only westerners there!! we are the 'Fe Rang' (tourists!) although after our ten hour train ride we arrived at our guesthouse at 5am. no one was up till 7am so we just had to sit and wait outside and despite soooo much bug spray i got 40 bites all over my legs (i counted) so they have been giving me some serious grief over the past few days. when its hot and i'm sweating they itch so bad but i got some hydrocortisone cream from the pharmacy which really helped so they are calming down a bit now.

went to the elephant sanctuary on sunday - it was a special place which looks after elephants who have been sick or abused. They all seemed so healthy and happy it was nice. they also did a show where they played thai nursery rhymes on xylophones. painted amazing artwork with their trunks - we really wanted to buy some but couldnt have carried it - and all curtseyed to you! we fed the babies bananas and corn and they were so friendly would give you sweaty trunk kisses on your face! we also had an elephant ride through the jungle and waded through lakes with them.



In Chang Mai at the moment in northern Thailand. its really cool! and we met some American girls on the bus here who we had drinks with last night and they are really fun to be around. they are sisters in the early 30's though. its weird you see some groups of 18 year olds but most people traveling are in their 30's,40's, 50's, 60's!!! So we haven't made too many friends yet but we are off the beaten track at the moment as most young people only head to southern Thailand to the islands.

We just had dinner from a street vendor - some of the best noodles EVER!! we had so much food, Thai chicken soup with coconut and lemongrass, chicken pad Thai, stir fried vegetables and rice and it came to 2.50 for both of us!! on the way home though 3 stray dogs ran at me and grabbed my trouser leg and started to drag me away, now i hate cruelty to animals but i was pretty glad when i saw sams foot come out of nowhere and give the dog a kick on the snout to let me go and we had to run awya from them!

We can only really eat at night as its too hot during the day - 40 degrees C - and its a muggy tropic heat so very very sweaty - definitely the hottest temps we have ever been in - and the locals are all saying its unusually hot for this time of year. there is lots of thunder and crazy lightning but no rain yet - you cant even eat ice lollies because they melt too fast! its 7pm and i'm still sweating so much - hahaha! and haven't got a tan (YET) because its just too hot to go out in the middle of the day!

no cockroaches yet which is wicked but lots of geckos - they are everywhere!! but they are so scared of us that u don't have to worry about them crawling on you or anything and they eat the bugs so that's good. stayed in some nice guesthouses (and some not so nice) the one we were in yesterday was so shabby so we moved this morning and found a spotlessly clean one with amazing artwork, a pool and roof terrace overlooking the mountains. and for the same price of a tenner a night (500 baht).

We love our guesthouse so much so we might stay another couple of days. debating whether or not to do a cycle tour or go to the tiger kingdom (you can feed one month old cubs!!!) but as we are in a city its pricey so we may just walk around a lot more!! like 50 quid for both of us to do a day trip which is a lot considering meals are 2.50 for both of us and accommodation is 10 pounds a night. we are doing really well at sticking to our budget of 25 a day for both of us though!! we have been taking out ten days of money at a time to reduce bank charges as they charge you 5 GBP a time.

For map readers:

Next stop in a few days in Chiang Khong either Thursday or Friday- where we will pick up our Laos visas and book our long boats down the Mekong. Our boat down the mekong leaves from Huay Xai and goes 6 hours down the river to Pakeng where we stop for a night and then back on the next day for another 6 hours before we reach Luang Prabang in Laos.

Sent 6th May - Bangkok

here now. its thursday - 538 pm. (8 hours ahead of you) and HOT. so so so so so hot!

got here all fine-no sound or sight of any trouble at all - its fine. our room is clean which is nice so its all good.

had a little walk round earlier this morning but it was so hot and muggy we had to come back to our air con room - just about to head out again now. massive thunderstorms last night.

everyone is nice here. locals can speak good english. everyones trying to scam you to sell you a tour or some horrible tat but its cool, we are well aware how to deal with that. 'Mai chai' = NO!! : )

You can buy everything on ko san road! a tailored cashmere suit? deep fried cockroaches? a picture of you with an iguana on your shoulder? hmmm no!

met some cool people so far - soo many tourists around, brits, americans, french, german, spanish - the lot.

leaving here sat morning to catch a 10 hour train to lampang. which will be cool. more rural and will get to see some scenery on the way. a city is a city at the end of the day. bangkok is dirty, smelly and full of stray animals and scammers! hmmmm. very excited for lampang, will be visiting the elephant sanctuary on sunday.