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.

Ibusuki onsen

We decided to go on a wee road trip down to Ibusuki. It was only like an hours drive from Kagoshima. It was exciting. I'd never been buried in sand before. I don't have a picture from a holiday at the beach where its just my head poking out the sand. Just never really fancied it. I kinda knew Ibusuki would be different though.

Everyone gets given a yukata after paying the entrance fee. Go to changing rooms, get naked, and pop on your yukata. Look around you and see how the locals are folding theirs because one way is for funerals only so you don't want to make that mistake! I just checked- fold it left over right.

At the exit of the building there are special outdoor sandals for you to pop on, and make your way to the hatched roof area on the beach. There are people waiting with shovels and you pick your spot and they dig a a sand grave for you with a little headrest. You lie down and two of them bury you in. The sand is steaming from the heat. You look around and there's just heads, eyes closed, bliss.

After a few minutes, sweat coming out of all your pores phewww SO hot. The signage says max of 10 minutes. I was struggling after probs like 7 minutes. I waved my wee paw, and they dug me back out. It was like an underground sauna. Feels good. On our way back to the main building there was a girl lying at the side with lots of people around her, and juice boxes and ice packs. She must have fainted so just take it easy when you're buried and baking!!

There is also normal hot bath to soak in after you've cleaned up, and a sauna too. Definitely a relaxing day trip!

Volcano city!

Our hosts in Kyoto recommended Aso- san for a visit so we made the trip there after a day trip in Hiroshima. Aso is one of the largest calderas in the world. It`s like a wee town in a big basin surrounded by mountains and trees. We didn`t realise it was goin to take so long so we were goin up the mountains in the dark, the driver had to walk down the platform and change the direction he was driving twice in order to get up this mountain, and of course we couldn`t see what was goin on outside! It felt like we were goin back on ourselves but somehow when changing seats he must have changed the tracks too.

It was a torch job from the station but luckily the hostel wasn`t too far away. It felt like a cabin in the woods, probably the least Japanese of our accomodation so far. We still had to change into slippers though!

We didn`t realise til morning how great a location we were in. The bus up to the top of the mountain took 30 mins. Most people then opted for the cable car but we walked it and soon we were peering into the bubbling volcano crater. Each time there was a breeze we could smell the sulphur. Pretty horrible because I could taste it too, ummm.

Bubblin' crater of Mt. Nakadake

Our reading of the area didn`t really prepare us for the size of the place. It was huuuuge, and so many different terrains- orange rocks, ash soil, rocks, patches of grass. It was ace.

Volcano bomb...

We started scrambling up the hill. It was all rocks but there was arrows pointing us in the right direction. I felt pretty nervous actually, just because I`ve not really walked up near any volcanoes before!! Each time we turned round the view got better...

Even at this point it had been a tough climb, 1270m to go!

The view at the top was unreal. 360... smokin crater in one direction, mountains in the other, wee caldera town and then more rocks to climb. We reached the peak of Nakadake and we were unsure what to do because the descent was roped off. The tourist info said the path was closed because the cable cars had been abandoned; our hostel owner too said it was officially closed but that we could still walk it if we liked. We were wary, I didn't really want to double back on ourselves but being so close to a bubbling crater I was a bit on edge, and it did look like quite a long descent into unknown ground... humm... anyways we soaked up the view while debating what to do for a while then 5 Japanese guys came down from the highest peak, Taradake, and after exchanging some konnichiwa's they continued down the roped off hill. Should we just follow? Yeahh, let's go!

The otherside of the smoking crater!

The path was very crumbly, so we carefully stepped over the No Trespassing tape and started our descent. It was exciting and fun, and I figured if we were stopped by any officials the Japanese guys would be able to talk to them haha.

Top of the world!

Pete has been on field trips before albiet not right next to a bubbling volcano, but I dunno, this guy could explode any moment, I felt uneasy and walking down next to a rusty, abandoned cable car station it was eeerie for sure but exciting!! The path was fine, not sure why it was closed exactly. There was no cable cars hanging in the sky so there was no danger in that sense. One of the look out points did pretty much look into the crater so needless to say we didn't stay at that observation point for long. The Japanese guys did so we passed them at this point and continued down, I kept checking behind me because for some reason I felt safer knowing there was other hikers coming down this 'closed' path.

My legs hurt more coming down then they did going up!! I was at times holding on to Pete and going down walking backwards, as in heels first. I've not really used going down hill muscles for an extended period of time. This was like a 1.5hr descent. I don't even know what the muscles are called, but continuously having to catch yourself, ouch my wee legs.

We finally arrived at a car park which marked the end of the trek although the train station back to Aso was 2km from here. We bought some drinks and prepared ourselves for more down hill walking. The 5 guys had their own car otherwise I'm sure we would have asked to share a ride or a taxi with them. We were pretty gutted because there was no space for us in their car! We started walking with our thumb out.

I think only one van passed us, and he didn't stop!! We saw him snake his way all the way down the hill so he was going in that direction anyway. He was bowing as he drove past hehe so polite. I guess he was in a hurry or something. Anyways the 5 Japanese guys stopped for us! They pulled over and just laughed and then opened up the boot so we were getting ready to climb into the boot but he got two of his pals to sit back there so we could sit in the back seats. They spoke very little English but we managed to get some chat. They were firemen and paramedics so I guess helpful people :-) they dropped us right at our hostel, and then asked if they could take a photo with us. It was ace. I love Japan.

Hai, cheesu!

Public baths part 2.

Other spots in Japan.

Kinosaki- took us like half a day to get here but its an onsen town. If you stay at one of the hotels here you get a bathrobe, and wooden slippers so you can go from one onsen to another. It was okay. I thought it would be amazing since it was all this wee town had. I think we were a bit keen and had too many soaks. Save them for after a day's hike. Try the crab while you're in town too!

Osaka Spa World- This place had like 4 different floors, and themed baths. Male, and female were seperate as always and the themes get rotated each month. The pool on the top floor is mixed. Excellent way to spend an evening. You could easily spend hours here.

Ibusuki sand baths- a bit of a drive from Kagoshima. Worth the visit for sure. You get to the changing room, undress, and just wear the kimono which they give you. Then you head outside with the slippers provided, and head down to the beach, you will see a bunch of heads poking out of the sand. There's people waiting to do the same, and bury you in the sand. The sand is really hot so its like an underground sauna. Sweat out all the impurities! They recommend max time of 20 minutes, thats how hot it gets. I think a girl fainted while we were there, ice packs etc. So be careful!

There's also like private bath places for couples, and families.

There's public baths in most towns.