Laos - Vang Vieng to Vientiane

After a couple of days in Luang Prabang we caught a minibus heading south to Vang Vieng. The journey took around 7 hours as we snaked our way through the mountains and jungles of northern Laos. There were several stops en route to take in the scenery, eat at the village market stalls, and also so that the driver could deliver vegetables to some of his friends.

Vang Vieng is a small town consisting of only a few streets beside the river. The main attraction here is to float down the river in the inner tube of a tyre. Sounds simple enough. However, there are around 10 "bars" on the way down the river, each one with different swings and jumps. The whole event is basically a pub crawl, the difference being you float from one bar to the next instead of walking. We run into the Canadians and the Dutch from

the slow boat and 9 of us sign up to go the next day. In the morning we take a tuk-tuk a few km's out of town to the start. There are aerial runways and swings and people launching themselves into the murky water at every

available opportunity. Lao kids wait along the banks of the river and hold out long bamboo poles, so that people can grab on and then they pull them to shore. The organisers request about 30 cents per jump, or it's free if you buy a beer Lao or whiskey shot. After the first few stops it was obvious that this was going to be messy, as there were around 200 people on the river. Alcohol, jumping and a fast flowing river...the safety issues were

evident. There was a great party about half way down, so we ended up staying there longer than expected. On the last jump of the day I slipped off awkwardly and flopped into the water, losing my wrist watch in the muddy river. Anyway, we lost track of time and this meant that we

actually ended up floating down the river in the dark. After some uncertainrty we clambered out before arriving in Vang Vieng and got a lift back in a tuk tuk. Needless to say it was an early night.

The next day was spent recovering and relaxing and organising our escape. The bus ride to our next stop, the capital Vientiane, was about 3 hours. Hovever we decided it would be more adventurous to kayak most of the way. There was a tour group going the following day, so we arranged to go with them. The tuk tuk delivered us and the kayaks to the Namlik river, the starting point. Our bags and the driver would meet us at the other end and leave us at the fountain in the centre of Vientiane. It was a strenuous trip, paddling downstream and hurtling through a few class 4 rapids. The stop for lunch was fantastic, with the local guids providing a full on barbecue on the banks of the river. Afterwards a few jumps itnto the river to cool off and it was time to paddle again. We arrived in Vientiane around 17h, completely exhausted and aching all over. It was worth it though and the day had been a real adventure.

Vientiane is slightly dull and for a capital city there is not much happening. After a day and a half looking around we decide to move on. Our next stop is Vietnam, so we arrange tickets to Da Nang on a local bus. There are no luxury busses for this journey, so it will be 24h the hard way. No false impressions about how this journey will be...

Thailand - Laos

We arranged to get picked up by minibus around lunchtime to leave Chiang Mai and travel 6 hours to the town of Chiang Khong on the Thai - Laos border. A pretty uneventful place, but we were stuck there for the night as we had to cross the river to the Laos side the following morning. On one side of the river the Thai authorities gave us our exit stamp. Then we clambered into a rickety old boat and crossed the river in about 5 minutes. There is no bridge, but if they get one it will make the crossing less interesting. Once at Huay Xoi on the Laos side of the river we go through the border formalities again and end up waiting around for a while. We have tickets for the slow boat to Luang Prabang in northern Laos, a two day boat journey along the scenic Mekong River. The transfer to the boat is interesting as they manage to pile about 9 of us with backpacks into the back of a pick up truck. The boat is supposed to leave at 11h and we are half an hour early. It is actually 12h by the time they eventually set sail, and everyone is sweltered in the heat. There are about 80 people on board with one toilet and a noisy engine. The boat meanders along the river at a very leisurely pace and the journey is uneventful. At aroud 18.30h we arrive at the village of Pak Beng, our resting place for the night which consists of guest houses and restaurants. We check into a clean hotel for about 2 Euros and head off for dinner with some of the people we met on the boat. The locals try to sell evryone opium and grass and are fairly annoying about it. They also tell us that it is another 9-10 hours to Luang Prabang. The tour company where we got the tickets told us 4 hours, so we are hoping for a good average of the two. We head out for dinner with some people from the boat. Without warning all the electricity goes off at 22h. We thought it was just temporary, but they actually shut down the generators at that time every night. The fan in the room obviously wouldn't work, so it was an uncomfortably hot night. For 2 Euros for a double room, it wasn't bad though.

The next morning they pack the boat with over 100 people. Just when you think it can't be possible to get more people on, they squeeze on an extra few. The boat leave around 10h and we again cruise gently down the Mekong. We arrive in Luang Prabang around 6.5 hours later, so everyone was happy. We check into a nice guest house and go out to the night market and then for dinner. The next day is spent wandering around the town to the Grand palace and various temples and Buddha statues. It's hotter than ever and the heat saps our energy very quickly, making for a lazy afternoon and evening.



There's not much happening here and the excursions are similar to Chiang Mai. We'll hang around for a few days and then travel down to Viang Vieng, the tubing hub of Laos.

Thailand - Chiang Mai

We arrived in Chiang Mai after a long and uncomfortable 12 hour bus journey. We checked into a cheap hotel near the city centre and checked out what we could do here. There were many options for tourists but we decided that it was time to learn something. We enroled on a Thai cookery course and a Thai massage course. In the afternoon we catch up on some well needed sleep and then make our way to the Night Bazaar. The night market is really interesting and huge. with people selling all sorts of stuff. However tempted we opt not buy anything, thinking on the weight of our bags and having to cart the items the whole way home overland... At least that theory works the first day...let's see if it lasts.

The cookery course starts early in the morning at a location just outside the city. During the day we cook 6 different dishes (soups, curries, spring rolls, salads, desserts). I also learnt to carve vegetables! When we are not cooking, we are stuffing our faces... The whole day is a real success and very enjoyable with the teachers and the other people in the course.

The next day was also an early start as we made our way to the Jera massage school. We had booked to do 2 different massage courses. Nuria took one to learn the art of Thai massage while I spent the day learning about reflexology and massaging feet. It was a long day and a lot to take in but well worth it. Apparently it just takes practice, so it looks like Nuria's feet will benefit for the restof the trip!

Chiang Mai is far from the hecticness of Bangkok and we are enjoying the more laid back attitude here. There are many tour operators offering jungle tours into the surrounding hills, so we opt to do a one day adventure. We leave the city around 8am and head 1.5h north where we reach an elephant camp. From there we climb on top of these huge elephants and ride 1 hour through the jungle. Progress was slow however, as these creatures eat almost constantly. I was sitting on the neck, so was constanlty being hit by the huge ears and it's trunk sprayed me with mud as it searched for the bananas we had. A fun ride though. After disembarking from the elephants, we hiked a short distance and then made a river crossing via a cage attached to an aerial runway. The van collected us on the other side and we were driven to the start of the short trek. We hiked for about 2hours through the dense jungle in extreme heat and humidity. I don't remember sweating that much in a long time. We stopped at a hut for a traditional dish of Pad Thai noodles and then plodded on. After walking through some difficult terrain over boulders and across streams we finally made it to a large waterfall and rock pool. Desperatly longing to cool off we all jumped in and splashed around. After thism refreshing break we heading back down the path we had come up. After 5 minutes it was tempting to just turn around and go back to the waterfall again. We then drove down to a white water rafting station and donned life vests and helmets and took a crash course on how to navigate a class 4 rapid. It was a rough ride down the river for about 1h, but exhilarating. After pulling in we exchanged the rubber dingys for the old style Thai bamboo rafts. We then continued the journey another 20 minutes downstream on these, almost ha;f submerged in the water. That night we returned to Chiang Mai utterly exhausted, but happy with our action packed day.

The following day is to be our last day in Chiang Mai, so we decide to take it easy and sort out a few things. Then we hire a moped and cruise the city for the remainder of the day. Of course we get lost but have a great time and see places we would otherwise have missed. That evening we make a final visit to the Night Markets and buy some stuff. Afterwards we meet up with a few German girls from the jungle tour, have a few beers and watch a live band in the Heaven Beach bar.

Thailand - Bangkok and the islands

I arrived in Bangkok in the afternoon (26th June) and made my way to the Khao San Road. This bustling street is the main traveller area in the city, full of hotels, bars, markets and hawkers. Not wanting to spend too much time in Bangkok I arrived with no real plan on what to do, but I had a week to do it before coming back to meet Nuria. After spending the day in the city checking out the options, I decided to venture south to the island of Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. The aim was to do some more diving and hit the full moon party on Koh Pangnan, an ajacent island. I signed up to stay at the Coral Grand Dive resort and to do 6 dives with them. From Bangkok I took an overnight bus for about 9 hours to Chumporn, and from there the high speed catamaran to make it to Koh Tao by 11am the next day. Too tired from the journey to dive that afternoon, I lazed by the pool and then on the beach.

The next day I awoke at 6am to check the eqiupment and go out on the dive boat. The first 2 dives were incredible with excellent visibility and numerous sharks. That proved to be the best diving over the next few days, as the visibility deteriorated with the weather. On the Friday night I met up with some of the other divers and we caught the catamaran over to Koh Pangnan for the full moon party. It was apparently the 20th anniversary and some 15,000 people were there. It was what it was...an all night rave on the beach with loads of wasted people. The next morning I returned to Koh Tao and recovered. On the Sunday I finished off the diving and relaxed. The next morning it was time to repeat the journey back to Bangkok, arriving around 9pm.

The following morning I awoke early and made my way to the airport after breakfast. Incredibly excited because I was going to meet Nuria and we hadn't seen each other since I started the trip. I must admit that I was positively nervous waiting in the arrivals hall. We meet and everything was fantastic again. That night we headed out to Patpong and celebrated my birthday in style ;) That Nuria came out to Thailand was the best birthday present I could have wished for...

The rest of the week was filled with sightseeing in Bangkok (mosty temples and the Grand Palace) and making our way around the city in Tuk-Tuk's (small 3 wheel vehicles). We also spent a lot of time shopping and barganing at the markets. The remainder of our time was spent at the massage parlour, relaxing by getting Thai and foot massages. I think that was the highlight of Nuria's time in Bangkok!

After waiting almost 4 days we collected our passports from the tourist agency. We had left them there to obtain the necessary visas for Laos, Vietnam and China. The journey can continue!!

We decided to leave the big smoke ASAP and get the overnight bus to Chiang Mai, a more cultural city in the hills of Northern Thailand.

Singapore

After Indonesia I flew back to Singapore for a few days to meet up with my Irish friends Rachel and John, who are ex-pats living and working there. From the airport I headed to their flat and spent a relaxing evening catching up. The next day we spent in the blistering sun watching the Guinness Asian Gaelic Games. Not the most touristic thing to do in Singapore, but a good way to spend the day... The games were a huge success and we had an enjoyable time there. Afterwards we went over to Santosa island for a beach party, complete with buffet and live music. The party went on until about 5am. The night time temperature was pretty much the same as during the day, so very hot and sweaty on the dancefloor (which was the beach).

The next day I went around the city for a while and took the dog for a walk. On Tuesday it was time to move on again. Next stop Thailand and Bangkok.

Indonesia - Bali and Lombok

After leaving Darwin I landed in Singapore about 4 hours later. Walking through the transit area I realised that this was my first time north of the equator in almost 5 months. I only spent a couple of hours there, waiting for the connecting flight to Denpasar which would take me south of the equator again. I arrived in Bali around midnight and was fairly exhausted. It hit me when I got into the arrivals hall that I was no longer in a western country. People harrassed the tourists to carry their bag to the exit only a few metres away, where they then demanded payment. I've seen this type of thing before, so I didn't allow anyone to touch my rucksack. When I exited the terminal of course I saw dismayed tourists arguing with these touts. I hadn't had to deal with this since south america and I was tired, so it was kind of annoying. I met an Aussie guy and a German guy at the taxi stand, so we shared a cab into Kuta. After about 10 minutes arguing with the cab driver over the price, because he wanted to charge per passenger. Josh (the German guy) and I searched for a hotel in the Poppies 1 area of town and found somewhere after being followed around by several people, trying to take us to hotels where they get commission.

The next day I spend walking around the town and the beach. People try to flog me all sorts of stuff on the way down the road. Not sure how many times I said no, but it felt like a thousand. This place was a tourist trap full of hawkers and touts, so I decided to go somewhere more peaceful. Josh and I got tickets to leave the next morning at 6am; destination Lombok and the Gili islands.

We get picked up at the hotel and drive about 1.5hrs to Padangbai. There we stop for the obligatory breakfast at the tour companies restaurant. We get hassled by hawkers the whole 400m walk to the ferry. Even on board they follow us up onto the deck and try to sell food and water. Now acclimatised to the way of things here, I switch off and ignore them. Shortly the ferry departs and we spend the next 5 hours lying in the sun and listening to music. Now slightly sunburnt we arrive in Lembar port on Lombok shortly after lunchtime and get on a minibus to continue the journey. The route takes us through Mataram and then the monkey forest to Pemenang. This is where we take the small boat out to Gili Trawangan, the last in the string of the 3 Gili islands. Pemenang is just a collection of a few houses and shops and hundreds of touts trying to rip off backpackers with various scams. This place was a true dump. After half an hour we finally left and arrived on the island 45 minutes later.

Upon disembarking at the beach we are met by a local who takes us to a small hotel he runs called Karisma, set back 100m from the beach. The village consists of one street with restaurants, bars and dive shops. There are also no police on this island, makingh it a hedonistic paradise. About 460 locals inhabit the island, with probably the same amount of tourists. There were the usual touts, but this time they were selling dope and magic mushrooms due to the non existent police presence. This practice would receive a very lengthy prison sentence on the mainland, but here it was accepted. There were definitely some crazy people hanging around there that had probably stayed too long...


After a few days relaxing on the beach and catching up on some sleep, I decided to start an advanced scuba diving course with Blue Marlin Dive. This would comprise of 5 dives over 3 days. 1 night dive, 1 deep dive to 30m, 1 underwater navigation dive, 1 underwater photography and a peak performance buoyancy dive. The course was fantastic and I passed it successfully. Unfortunately we didn't see any sharks this time, but there were loads of turtles and fish.




In the evenings I go up to the lookout on the hill and watch the sunset, a huge firey mass dropping into the ocean. I've seen a lot of sunrises and sunsets on this trip, but this one was the best by far. After a week on Gili Trawangan unfortunately I had to travel back to Kuta, another 12 hour journey. However I was thoroughly relaxed and had enjoyed my time there away from the hustle and bustle. I stay in Kuta for a few days more and then leave for Singapore on 23rd June.

Australia - Darwin and Kakadu

After the 4 hour flight from Perth up to Darwin, I was back into the tropical climate of the Northern Territory. The humidity was overpowering as I stepped out of the air conditioned terminal to board the bus into the city. I checked into Chilli's hostel on the main drag and went out for a drink with a few guys from the dorm. The nightlife in Darwin is good and there are a lot of backpackers. I head to bed relatively early though, tired from the travel.

The next morning was an early start as I got picked up at 6am to start a 3 day tour of Kakadu national park. The park spans a vast area about the size of Wales and we are going to cover 1400km on this trip. Apart from it's natural wilderness and beauty, Kakadu is famous for the outback film location of "Crocodile Dundee". We are a small group of 9 in the 4x4 jeep. Jamie is our tour guide, and there is Gabriele, Helen and Cathy all from Australia, Dan and myself from Ireland, Kees from Holland and Mike and Sue from England.

The first day we drive several hours to the park. The afternoon is spent hiking and swimming in billabongs (small freshwater lakes). There are freshwater and saltwater crocodiles in the park, but not normally in these billabongs. However, there are signs stating that swimming is at your own risk. We all jumped in anyway and the cold water was so refreshing as it was over 30 degrees. That evening we set up camp and cooked over the campfire. The sky was perfectly clear and the stars were incredible. We slept outside around the fire in our swags. It got fairly cold at night and the temperature dropped to about 6 degrees, so the thermals were on. I woke up around 6.30am when it got light. everything was covered in dew, so it was a chilly start getting out of the swag. After breakfast we headed off in the jeep again. The itinerary was fairly similar to the previous day with plenty of hiking and swimming. We also went to an Aboriginal area with old rock art, where we learnt about the history and symbolism. We also learned about bush food and some of the group even licked green ants, a source of vitamins for traditional Aboriginals. Later we collected firewood for the evening amid the acrid smoke of a controlled forest fire. Rangers do this to stop wildfires, but it was still quite worrying.

That evening we watched the sunset at yellow river which was stunning. Then we set up camp, had a barbeque and drank some of the now infamous goon. Again the sky was clear and we stayed outside in the swags. However the next morning I awoke with a slight cold due to the change in temperature. No worries though cause I was having a great time! The third and final day of the tour was spent at an Aboriginal cultural centre. This was a chance for us to learn about the Aboriginal way of life and how they survived out in the bush. It is incredible the uses they have for everything. What looks like a forest to us is an entire supermarket for them. We also got the chance to throw spears at targets and try a hand at weaving. After our cultural session we drove on for another few hours. We stopped by the river and went on a boat cruise to spot freshwater and saltwater crocodiles. As we went down the river we spotted about 10 crocs on the banks and watched as they moved swiftly into the water. Some of them were around 3m long. No one wanted to swim here ;) As the boat pulled up to the bank we were only a few metres away from these huge reptiles, which was quite scary. We were under strict instructions from the skipper to keep our limbs well inside the boat. This was a ruke that of course no one was going to dissobey.

It was my last full day in Australia and what a way to spend it. There was only one thing that was dissapointing...I had been in Australia for almost 8 weeks and had not even seen a kangaroo in the wild. As we drove back down the road at dusk, as if on cue, kangaroos jumped across the road. Perfect timing I thought. Then there were loads of them and we almost hit a few. Luckily Jamie's driving skills managed to avoid a collision. So now i could leave Australia happy. That evening we return to Darwin exhausted, but went out for a meal and a few drinks together.

The next morning I got up and packed my stuff to leave. Next stop Indonesia. However, I had to fly from Darwin to Singapore and then back to Bali Denpasar. This would take me around 7 hours for a journey of about 2, as I could not get a direct flight.