Crossing the road

We're in Hanoi.

We booked a taxi through a private airport company because apparently there's lots of scams at Hanoi airport. Our flight was 1 hr delayed from Vientiane- I won't miss Laos time. I hoped the driver was still going to be waiting there with his sign. He was there. No worries. His taxi was unmarked which I thought was unusual because their website makes them out to be a big airport taxi company.

The roads in Hanoi are crazy. There is constant honking from all the traffic, and there is HUNNERDS of motorbikes and scooters. Weaving in and out. He was driving on the wrong side of the road at one point! Just cruising towards oncoming traffic. $16, fixed.

Our hostel had free bicycle hire so we decided to try them out the next day. The first street we came to was a crossroad with just one way of solid traffic so we were like oh. There was motorbikes in the same position as us but they would just nip to the middle and then edge their way to the other side. We got off our bikes and decided to walk them across the zebra crossing. The traffic didn't stop at first so we just waited. Meanwhile motorbikes are still edging their way across the road so we're like oh no we're just going to have to go for it and right enough you just cross slowly and the bikes weave round you. The cars you have to wait for, obviously. Crossing the road on foot is much the same. Just walk slow and watch out for the cars; the bikes will work around you...

Traffic in all directions but it works.

THAILAND

Bangkok was just as busy but not as many bikes. There is a 2 minute countdown for the green man (if you can find one) but locals just walk out, stick up their hand to stop the traffic. I saw it work a few times. I didn't try it or see any tourists brave enough to imitate this procedure!

Stick with a local and use them as a shield,ie with them between you and the traffic. Or wait for the green man.

HONG KONG

Its fine here.

BEIJING

There's green men but that doesn't mean anything. Cars drive through red lights. We found the best way was just to RUN.

JAPAN

Zebra crossings are everywhere. Its great. As soon as you walk up to one all the traffic will stop. The first place I've been where pedestrians seem to rule the road if that makes sense?? We were here before Beijing and nearly got killed the first time we tried to cross the road in Beijing.

That's all for now. Safe.

Vang Vieng

The minibus journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng...

A tuk tuk turns up at our hostel and we're like ah bums, what have we paid for. Turns out it was just taking us to the bus station which was just full of minibuses getting ready to go to different places. The tuk tuk driver pointed us vaguely towards the Vang Vieng stand. I thank you. We get in the queue then 11 of us tumble into this minibus while 4 local guys try to fit all our backpacks into the boot. Eventually the people in the back row were fed up of getting their heads knocked about so they held the bags while the guys piled on the bags and sure enough the boot closed. Let's go!! Or not. We sit there for 20 minutes until eventually a woman opens the door and tells us that this bus doesn't leave til 2pm (its 10am) so we should move to the next one. Same same, no? No. So we all pile in the car and the bags get strapped up top. The driver jumps in, and then we're driving up and down MOUNTAINS for 7 hours.

The driver beeps his horn to warn oncoming traffic and then swings into a blind turn. The roads were windy so that's just how it works. Our driver was even overtaking lorries on these bends, it was crazy. The scenery was amazing though, and every now and then we would pass little roadside villages with their bamboo mountainside huts. There's lots of naked children playing around, and school kids, cows, chickens, dogs lying idly at the side of the road. Great. Our driver swerved them all without braking. The roads are bumpy too so don't party too hard the night before because you won't get any sleep. I tried, and it just caused my head to bash off the window... There was a row of Laotians in front of us and they managed to sleep no problem, no flopping heads, how?!?!

Anyways, after a few hours we stopped for a food break. Pete was convinced the woman who sold us our sandwich was the same woman from the bus station. I don't remember what either woman looked like but it wouldn't surprise me if they stopped at their pals roadside shop and ripped off the tourists together? We were charged double the guy in front because we asked for some Laughing Cow triangle cheese in our sandwich, c'mon!

The view during lunch...

We get into Vang Vieng at about 5pm. None of us knew where the bus station was in relation to the town so we had to pay 10,000 kip each (x8, the guy must have been laughing) to drive us 5 minutes down the road. Its only about 80p but the 0's make it feel like more, and yeah, just walk it... He dropped us at the hostels by the river but me and Pete chose to go the main road where it would be quieter because we wanted some rest before tubing the next day. We stayed at Nazim's Guesthouse, (next to one of the 2 ATM machines in town) 60, 000 kip for a double with a fan.

We dropped off our bags, relaxed for a bit then went out to find dinner. There's only about 3 main roads in this wee town and you find yourself picking a restaurant depending on how busy it is, and what's on the tele. The food is rubbish where ever you go. The restaurants all have the same layout- low tables and cushions so you can spend all day slouching, watching Friends or Family Guy. There won't be any restaurant reviews in this post but the pancakes from the street vendors are good!

Day 2, time for tubing. Yeahhh!

I was told not to take anything with me unless I wanted to lose it, even flip flops (slight exaggeration) but anyways we went out to buy some cheap ones which also doubled up as great wee paddles. We then had to go hire the tubes- it was 55,000 kip and a 60, 000 kip deposit which you get back as long as you return the tube by 6pm. They will also write your deposit number on your arm with a permanent marker. This can be likened to when a farmer brands their cows, or marks their sheep with red paint or something, you know the deal. Then they drive you up to the 'start' point of the river. Great. A man will appear out of the bushes offering you free Laos whiskey. Take a shot, and then walk across the bridge to the first bar. Dump your tube in the pile of other ones.

I can't describe how surreal an experience it is. Its just past noon, you're in beautiful Laos, next to a glistening river... and the music is pounding and everyone around you is drunk, already. Drinks are only served in buckets and there's free shots of whiskey waiting at every bar. Free. Help yourself. There's people swinging from rope swings like 3 storeys high. Its crazy. And then soon they will grab a rubber ring and float down to the next bar. Crazzyyyyy.

At the first bar we ended up playing beer pong with 2 guys who were doing promo for one of the bars, Gibson and Jasper (you couldn't make this shit up). They beat us by one cup but we were winning the whole time, hustlers. By the time we had finished most people had moved onto the next bar across the river. They had taken all the tubes with them though so we're like, now what? Gibson said no worries as long as you have been branded like a farm animal you'll get a tube so we waited for the next peeps to arrive at the bar then took their tubes and we were away... The waters cold, and the currents quite strong. At every bar there's a guy waiting with a plastic bottle attached to a rope which he'll throw out to pull you into the bar. Just hold on tight and soon you'll be at the next bar. Note- There's no graceful way of getting out of a tube. Drunk or not.

The second bar is the one with all the rambo head bands, permanent markers, stencils, spray paint and biggest rope swing in the world. I think within about 10 minutes of us getting there, Pete had a silver tie spray painted on his chest. Pete and I also plucked up the courage to do the rope swing (it doesn't take much). We went seperate so someone was keeping an eye on our money. I went up with one of the Irish guys we met, Gavin. Its SO high up. I got up there and he was like, 'on you go.' I was like, 'no no, you go first!' I've done this like tree times, you go, go on'. We ended up going together, I think he left just a little bit before me or his weight seemed to make things go faster. I didn't want to let go. He was like, 'after 3 we let go'. Ok, fuck, well there's no other way I'm going to get down. For some reason, I decided to flop into the water on the back of my leg. Just slap on down. I thought I had ripped it open. The current immediately pulls you so you have to start swimming straight away towards the bar. Ouch that's going to hurt in the morning.

There's only a wee stretch of bars and then you tube the rest of the way. We lost a lot of people either in front of us, or behind. Who knows. A lot of people just go to a few bars then catch a tuk tuk back to the town. We didn't get to do an extended amount of tubing because we had to jump out at one of the bars to rush back for our deposit....

Sooo. The next day we hired bikes and cycled out to the Blue Lagoon. The surroundings are beautiful. I took a waterproof camera so still waiting to see what the pictures turn out like. I met a group of 4 boys, probably no more than 4 years old and I asked them if it was okay to take a photo. Then one of them made like a writing motion on his hand. I was like, oh you want to write something. And then he looked in the basket at the front of my bike and pointed to my water bottle, I pointed back at his, and said, 'same same'. Pete was like, 'what are you doing?? He was looking through your stuff.' I only had water and a disposable camera so no biggie but on reflection- the little guy was asking for money! He was only like 4 years old. I just didn't expect it at all. I thought since they were little kids they wanted me to write my name or something haha. How naïve of me. I don't think I'd want to give kids that young money, and how much?

The Blue Lagoon is about 7km out of town and its beautiful, really relaxing. Get a map, and ignore all the signs on the way there claiming to be the Lagoon. The locals will charge you 10, 000 kip to cross the bridge once you get there but whatever. The water is cool and filled with fish, just what you need after a long cycle.

Went for a curry at Nazim's Indian Restaurant (not sure if it was affiliated with our guesthouse) that night. This food here wasn't great either. Within a few hours I was out of bed and being sick. Repeat ,all night. The next day I couldn't even keep water down so I was just in bed all day, DYING. Dehydrated, no energy because it left me the night before, legs I could barely move from the fall, arms sore from the swing. Deathbed.

Just do the tubing.

Slowboat to Luang Prabang

Laos was our next stop. To get there we would have to get a 2 day slow boat from the Thai border.

We booked through our hostel so everything was sorted. In the morning we were picked up by a mini bus and from there we set off on the 6 or so hr journey to Chiang Khong. I slept a bit but soon I realised that the Thai countryside, and the fields with the farmers was too beautiful to sleep through. There were traditional house on stilts, bamboo huts. It definitely felt like I was in a foreign country- I guess a strange thing to say considering I had been in Thailand for 10 or so days before then.

The hotel was ok. At check in they took our passports away to make our Laos visas. It was our first experience sleeping with a mosquito net. We took half a room each and sprayed every hole we could see in the floorboards, walls (it was a cabin room) so the mossies had no chance! Cabin rooms also meant outdoor showers. There was at least two mosquitos waiting in each shower cubicle so I passed.

At 8.30am the next day we were driven down to the river to get on a longboat across the river to collect our passports. I thought since we had handed them in the night before it would be quite an easy process... When we got there there was a hoard of about 80 people all trying to get to the front. Some people still had to hand in their passports to make the visas but there was only one window so we were all just waiting together. Word got round that the immigration officer just flashes the photo page of the passport up to the window and if that's you, you have to run up to get it before she puts it down and picks up another one. And yeh, this actually happened. Some guys at the front started calling out the names to speed up the process so that was good because me and Pete would have never been able to see over all the heads! Meanwhile another traveler had been given about 15 passports and was told to hand them back to the owners... It was crazy.

I thought I was never getting my passport back because there was so many people there. Eventually my name was called and I pushed my way to the front. It cost 35 USD (with a British passport). While I was waiting for the others to get theirs back, a local man came up to me and asked me what I sell? I was like, um no, nothing. He was like, I saw your passport, you sell things. What do you sell? (I put sales assistant as my occupation). I had no idea who this guy was and why he got to see my passport. On reflection, I should have checked his ID badge- I don't think any of us did but he soon had a group of us, all with the yellow badges which were given out at the hotel. He popped us in a truck and told the driver to take us to a restaurant next to the boats.

It was like 9.45am by now. We asked what time the boat was. He started to explain to us about Laos time- 'the boat will probably leave at 11am, maybe 11.30. Its supposed to leave at 9.30 but it never does. We're in Laos. Its called Laos time.'

The boat takes two days. On the first day it stops for the night in a small village called Pak Beng. He asked us if we had booked accommodation and if not we should book through him because it was going to be really busy. At our last hostel, the owner, Pong said we just turn up and pay about 150 baht. He was asking for 500. I didn't trust him. He then said that they only accept kip in Pak Beng because its just a little village. I luckily exchanged enough for a nights stay back at the hotel. One of the other travelers was like why didn't you tell us this before where there was an ATM, and bureau de change. He said, its ok, we can change for you- the minimum is 1000 baht. There was a group of like 12 of us and about a 3/4 just handed him money, and his wee pal went off to exchange it. Out of curiousity, I asked him how much he would exchange British sterling for and he said 6,000 kip. Last time I checked it was about 12,500 ! Hahah. Half the value. Expensive commission! He must have been laughing inside- he just got handed all this money and no one asked him for an exchange rate. People started getting their iPhones out and using their exchange apps. He had just made up the exchange rates. People were raging: 'Call your friend and tell her the actual rate!' so he called her- oh moneys already exchanged, sorry...

Hustler.

He then got everyone to give his pal our passports so she could go get the boat tickets. I'm not sure why he needed our passports because there was no reference to our passports, or names on our tickets. Hopefully no one had their identity copied or anything... It was a strange couple of hours.

We walked down to the already packed boat. People had been waiting on the boat since 9.30am so they weren't too pleased when we showed up and made them squash up. Buy a cushion. The seats are just wooden, wobbly benches. Really thin too. Not comfy at all. About 6hrs to Pak Beng. You'll occasionally see people waving a white tshirt to flag down the boat so it pulls over a few times on the way.

Pak Beng is just hotels and restaurants. We paid 400 baht for a twin room which is probably still too much but we just wanted a room after the boat. The bars will all offer free Laos whisky. Its pretty sick, but free.

Next day, we got down to the pier for 8.30 since we were told the boats leave at 9. Ours left at about 9.50 but it was much smaller than the day before, and it was one of the last ones to leave so I wonder where everyone went? From here it was another 7 or so hours to Luang Prabang. There is speed boats as well that only take 1 day but there is a lot of accidents on them. When you are on the slow boat you will see them whizzing past- some passengers wear motorbike helmets.

Get to Luang Prabang, find a hostel.

Lanna Muay Thai training camp

Ok, so we've been in Thailand for about ten days now. Hadn't even thought about trying Muay Thai kickboxing until one of the girls I met in the hostel (Freja) mentioned it. When I asked Pong, the hostel owner he said you can only do 1 week courses... NOOO. 1 week would be amazing but we don't have the time!

We looked online and found a school which looked really good, and it was close to the hostel too. The info was good, although the pictures looked a bit outdated so that made us question whether everything was up to date. We took down the number to call the next day. Its quite a famous school, with a good rep. Pong told us it gets a lot of press because one of their champs has now become a lady boy! There's even a movie about him apparently. With all his winnings he managed to save up for all the procedures. She must have quite broad shoulders... Anyways, the point is more that the school has produced a champion, so it must be a good training camp. I was excited!

I have done so little exercise (apart from hiking) since we left for our trip about a month and half ago; I like martial arts; and we were going to learn Muay Thai in Thailand! I couldn't wait!

We had to decide whether we wanted to join the morning session, 6.30- 9.30am, or the afternoon sesh. The website recommends a decent meals about 2 hrs before you train. We didn't really fancy waking up at 4am so we decided to just spent the day relaxing, 'conserving our energy'... In this time, I found a magazine to flick through which had a review of the boxing camp, and the guy wrote about a 8km run... as a warm up! I was like aah shit. Freja who had spent the day doing a cooking course, and eating was still up for joining us, and Laura (who had just ate 2 bananas the whole day) was coming too. We were going to be the foreigners who can't handle the heat and throw up with exhaustion.

So we walked to the school. All 4 of us, breaking a sweat just walking in the afternoon 30 odd degrees heat. We got there and as instructed on the phone I asked for Pom, who let us get away with skipping as a warm up. Phoooo. Still so sweaty though.

We then got our hands wrapped and shown the basics. For a right handed person you have to adopt the orthodox stance (left foot in front) which I'm not used to because of my Jeet Kune Do background. Jab, punch, hook, elbow, knee.

Then onto the bags. We would have to stop and do push ups every 20 minutes or so. This gets harder as you get more tired and its quite awkward with big gloves on. Ok so you're skipping, or shadow boxing, or doing bag work, or sit ups, and the big chiefs will call people up to the ring to do pad work.

After more push ups

I was gutted because everyone I went with had been up and I hadn't. Train near the ring area, and pretend you're not very good?? Anyways, I think Pom noticed I hadn't been up yet so she told one of the guys and soon it was my turn. A wee shame because by this time one of the helper guys had been feeding pads for 3 hrs and he just couldn't be bothered anymore. Now and again he would unconvincingly try and push me over or swipe my legs. But watch out because Freja's trainer swiped her straight off her feet!

There was some sort of structure to it but everyone just seemed to do their training then leave. There was no real cool down or anything. I would have loved to have attended for 5 days or so just to get into it, and get a real feel for it. Maybe next time.

1 session = 400 baht. Definitely do it!

Then take a rehydration drink, take a shower and go for a Thai massage.