Hello everyone,
Time just flies by and it seems it's been nearly a month since I last wrote! When I last left you I was awaiting a 24 - 30 hr. bus from Hanoi, Vietnam to Vientiane, Laos (It's pronounced Lao by the way - the "s" is silent). We'd heard horror stories such as drivers demanding more money or kicking you off and people sitting in plastic seats in the aisle for the duration of the ride. So we were expecting it to be bad. On arrival at the bus station we were horrified (though prepared) to see our bus - a local bus with metal seats and less than an inch of padding. So we all (about 15 of us) got on the bus and settled in for the long ride. Just one minute into the ride a Vietnamese guy comes around asking for money for the bus. We all showed him our tickets and chaos and confusion ensued. With the language barrier, we weren't sure if the guy was trying to scam us or trying to tell us we were on the wrong bus. Eventually, someone asked the driver. Apparently, all 15 of us had gotten onto the wrong bus! We were on a local Hanoi bus, so we all had to get off with all our bags and cross the street to catch another local bus back to the station. The problem was none of us knew where we needed to be dropped off cause a van had taken us to the station the first time. Eventually we got it sorted out and caught a bus back. When we arrived, our real bus was awaiting us - a (relatively) comfortable bus with reclining seats and under-bus storage for luggage. The seat next to mine didn't recline so no one sat there and I got two seats to myself. Phew! It turned out to be a fairly comfortable and uneventful ride. It took us 20 1/2 hours to get to Vientiane. No one ever admitted to be the first to get on the local bus in Hanoi.
Anyway Vientiane is nice with lovely sunsets on the Mekong, but the sex industry is startlingly flourishing here. "Ladyboys" and prostitutes run amuk with Western men everywhere you go. Needless to say, I was happy to get out of there and get to Vang Vieng, the tubing capital of the world. Vang Vieng is an extremely unique place. First I'll explain the tubing. Basically, you can rent a tube and are dropped off 4 km up the road where you enter the water near the first of about 15 bars. You can start by grabbing a Mojito at the "Mojito Bar," a nonprofit bar that benefits children and local schools. Then you head to the next bar, and the next, and the next . . . Each bar has a platform on the river and there is dancing and various other water activities, including swings, zip lines, springboards, and a huge water slide. It's a truly unique experience and I really enjoyed it (although I stayed away from the swings over 20 ft high). When you're not tubing the river, you can grab a sandwich or pancake at any one of the tens of road stands in town, or you can scope out a restaurant to watch, Friends, The Simpsons, Family Guy, or a movie. Everyone says you get stuck in Vang Vieng, but we didn't believe them. Both times I went there, I stayed two days longer than I had planned.
I really wanted to do a couple of treks in Laos, but Lauren wasn't that interested, so after (the first trip to) Vang Vieng, we headed up to Luang Prabang where I found Matt, a South African who also wanted to go trekking. Luang Prabang is known for it's temples and fantastic night market where they sell all sorts of wares and souvenirs, so I spent a few days there before saying goodbye to Lauren for the time being and Matt and I went on a 3-day hilltribe trek. It was pretty amazing (see the pics). The first night we stayed with a family in their home. There was no toilet in the village, so we had to use the jungle. Hilltribe life is indescribably different from ours and it was so interesting to see (and good to get some exercise). On our second night we stayed with a family in another village in a separate building on their compound. After dinner our guide, Khampha, gathered all the children in the village (around 30) and they stood around our table and sang us songs. It was so beautiful I was nearly in tears. Afterward, we played with the children until it was their bedtime. In the morning I woke up and sat by the fire with the family. They were roasting rats for their breakfast (we had baguettes and cheese, thankfully) and had given a two year old a rat head. She was happily sucking on it, digging brain out with her finger every now and then and savoring every bite. We finished our trek that day and took a day in Luang Prabang to do laundry and rest.
Once recuperated, Matt and I headed up to Luang Nam Tha to go on another 3-day trek. This trek was much harder than the first and I relished it. The first night was strange. We stayed in a tiny village with no shop and no beer to celebrate Obama's inauguration (it was Jan 20). We also arrived there at 1:30 in the afternoon and our guides went right to bed (one was suffering from a hangover since we had booked our trek at 9P the night before), so we were thoroughly bored for many hours before heading for bed. The rest of the trek was fantastic though. We arrived at the next village around 4P, after a grueling and long day of trekking, to find it overflowing with welcoming locals and Beer Lao. We spent most of the rest of our time there playing with the children and having a generally good time. One of the three chiefs of the village came to talk to us and turned out to be a woman! She answered our many questions about hilltribe life and showed us the book of her people's history. It dated back to her grandfather (she was probably a great grandmother herself) and was written in Chinese (they're very close to the border there).
The day after our trek, we began working our way back down to Vientiane, stopping again in Luang Prabang to take advantage of the night market. The ride from Luang Nam Tha to Luang Prabang is also a grueling 9 hour bumpy and curvy ride and you need a break after that! Lonely Planet advises you to carry extra water and snacks on bus travel in Laos because flat tires are common. They weren't kidding!! We got a flat on our way back down to Luang Prabang and then again on our way back to Vang Vieng! We stayed 4 nights more in Vang Vieng (although we'd intended to stay 2) and met dozens of people. Vang Vieng is probably one of the best places in SE Asia to meet people outside the beaches of Thailand. It's just a very social setting and I think that's the draw of it.
After our second trip to Vang Vieng, Matt and I headed back to Vientiane (and got another flat tire along the way) to catch a train to Bangkok and so I could get a visa for Thailand. They used to allow you a free 30-day stay on arrival, but they've changed the rules for land borders, so now you only get 15 days. So I went to the Thai Embassy on Thursday to try to get a visa and agreed to pay a tuk tuk driver 60,000 kip roundtrip (about $7), but when we got there, there were 150 people in line, so he left me there and made me pay 30,000. So I wait for 1 1/2 hours and then they tell me I need more pages in my passport because all of mine are full (they had given me 8 new pages at the Laos border, but those are apparently only for Laos visas [in case I want to visit 7 more times]) and they won't do it there. So I barter with another tuk tuk driver to take me to the US Embassy for 30,000 kip return, but when I get there they say they can't help me until 1P and the Thai Embassy doesn't take applications after noon AND they're not open on Sat, so there's no point in going Friday cause I wouldn't get it back until Mon (I need to be in Thailand by then). So then I tell the tuk tuk driver I'm not going back and offer him 15,000, but he wants 20,000. In the end though, I got him to give it to me for 15,000. Matt was in our room sleeping the whole time cause there wasn't really a reason for him to come, so it wasn't the best day. Later, after getting pages in my passport (which turned out to be obnoxiously fast and easy), I blew out my flip flop. Then I find out all the trains are full because they just celebrated Chinese New Year here and everyone is on their way home. So we'll be on an overnight bus. So travelling isn't all fun and games. In fact, it's a lot of work (not to mention putting up with constantly getting ripped off, using squat toilets, pulling mysterious items out of your food and continuing to eat it, having to haggle for every item or ride, enduring tens of 12 + hour bus rides in seats that were built for 1/2 hour bus rides for very small Asian people, etc.), but it's worth it to me. However, at the moment I need a vacation from my travels, so I meet up with Lauren again tomorrow and on Feb 3rd I'll be heading out on a 4-day 14-dive cruise in the Similan Islands on the Andaman side of Thailand. However, the first two weeks in Laos were ridiculously cold (dropping down to the low 50s at night) and I wasn't prepared, so I am now recovering from the second of two colds I've received while here, so hopefully my sinuses will be clear by then!
I hope you are all doing well! You can check out my most recent pictures at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2665620&l=1a250&id=8369089 AND
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2673144&l=aca95&id=8369089
Sierra
