The flight from canada to bangkok was for a change hassle free! no visa issues, no colombian interrogations, flights were on time, good sleep, good food..buenos!!!
You'd struggle to find a bigger contrast between Vancouver in the winter and Bangkok in the summer! One cold, clean and pristine..the other hot sweaty and dirty..but the vibrancy of Bangkok is immediately evident and extremely infections and it felt good to be on the road again..
I met tommy and tony and a couple of their English mates at a stereotypical Bangkok hotel (hot and seedy and right in the middle of down town) and it was really good to catch up with the lads..
We spent the afternoon out on a river boat drinking beers and smoking thai cigarettes whilst watching the sunset which was by our definition achieving something cultural..it was however a little somber as there had recently been mass flooding in Bangkok and there were subsequently alot of flooded homes and dead dogs etc floating around in the water..we saw some giant man eating cat fish and some river lizards which was quite interesting..
that night we partied in true Bangkok style..its refreshing not to be paying $6 a beer and i feel the excitement may have been a little too much!! We frequented several seedy night spots and made a few erroneous decions but all in all came through unscathed for my first night in Asia..
The next day i flipped a coin and therefore committed to going to laos with the boys for a week instead of going to cambodia for 2 weeks..tony became my new life coach for 7 days as a result! we spent the day checking out the markets, getting massages (no happy endings!) and chilling out on the rooftop of a hotel with a couple of danish girls..thah night w got the overnight train from bkk to the boarder which was surprisingly comfortable..crossing the border was relatively stress free and we arrived in vientian that afternoon..we watched the sunset over the river and relaxed..an early night was well received by all!
The next day we met up with some more english lads and needless to say when a large group of lads get together its always difficult to get an early night.. We got amidst the local scene and all in all it was a good night, ripping around town on mopeds at 4am, tommy falling through a glass table etc etc
after spending another day in vientien (not too much to do there) we made our way to the infamous vang viang, home of river tubing..we have been here 5 days now and its been incredible..the place is literally too much fun!to describe each day would be tiresome..basically we just tubed down the river, got drunk,lapped up the sun, swung off tree swings,jumped out of trees, met a future danish wife, swam under water falls and through caves and generally had an incredible time..one last crack at tubing tomorrow then a 30 hour bus ride to siem reap in cambodia...
All in all a cracking and totally unexpected first week..definitely excited for the boys to get here from aus..its going to be ridiculous and there are still so many amazing things to do and see!!
Le veedo es bueno!
