Welcome to my blog! Eventually i have managed to get the time to write something. Im afraid my first blog shall cover a lot- from bangkok, through laos to vietnam- have done a lot in 1 month!
Arrived in bangkok first, it was good but i didn’t pay much attention to it as i had been warned a few times that “it gets better than bangkok!” we mainly just visted lots of temples, including the grand palace which was very impressive. We stayed not far from KoSan road which was a bit mental- full of tourists so glad we weren’t actually staying on it! After that we got a sleeper train up to chiang mai in the north of thailand. That was an experience in itself! Although we didn’t sleep as the beds were tiny (well mainly just the top bunk that colin slept on!), it was good fun. Chiang mai was nice, it’s a big city but no way near as bad as bangkok. Visited yet more temples here and did the dreaded thai cooking course…as some of you know colin and i got VERY ill from it so wont go into too much detail here! the annoying thing is that it was a good course and we learnt lots, but cooked about 6 different courses so have been put off just about every thai dish (anything with lemongrass). I am trying not to remember chiang mai for illness, but for its amazing night market. It’s a massive street full of markets, selling very simialr gear, but all things that you would pay a fortune for back home. Sadly i had to limit myself to 2 items as nothing else will fit in my backpack!
So after chiang mai, we went to the Elephant Nature Park for 1 weeks volunteering, a day later than planned, again due to illness! This was a great expereince as i cant imagine any other way that you could work so close to elephants. The park is basically a home for ex-working elephants who have been really badly treated during their time logging/trekking around thailand and burma (along with 50 dogs, 30 cats and lots of buffalo). It was horrible to see how badly they were treated; one named Jokia was blinded in both eyes by her mahout because she “wouldn’t behave”. Now she has a special elephant friend who guides her around the park and they panic if they loose each other, its really great to see their friendship. So i would urge anyone coming to s.e asia NOT to go trekking… Since colin and i were both volunteers, we did a lot more stuff than people who were just staying at the park but we did help with the feeding and bathing of the elephants everyday. One of the days we went to a school and somehow the two of us ended up getting put into a classroom with 11-12 year old children and told to teach them english…the teacher took this as an opportunity to leave! We didn’t know this would happen to us but we managed to entertain them for an hour, although i think most of the enertainment invloved them laughing at us.
Following an emotional goodbye from the elephants, we left to go to Laos. We took a slow boat for 2 days down the mekong river. Defo a great opportunity to see part of the country, but i think once is enough! They cramed as many people as they could on a boat so we all had to fight for a seat. We were lucky to get a wooden bench with a cushion. We stopped for a night in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere called PakBeng. Due to the amount of people on the boat, it was a mad dash for accomodation. Laos itself was nice, spent around 1 week there in total. Our first stop after the boat was Luang Prabang which was a really nice town, very quiet with a few temples and nice coffee shops with PROPER FORTHY MILK! We then travelled with some people we met on a minibus through a lot of mountains and bendy roads to Vang Vieng. This was very disappointing as it was full of young british holiday makers – i don’t know where they came from because havnt seen anything like that the whole time we’ve been away! Basically all we did there was go “tubing” which invloves floating down the river on a rubber ring (roughly 2 hours without stopping). The idea is you stop at lots of bars on the way but we had little money and not much desire to stop at too many due to the amount of drunk people dancing in bikinis! Next we left for the capital, vientiane. Wasn’t much to do there and i somehow manged to get ill again (blaming the noodles) so we spent most of our time sitting in this great little café that was just like beanscene- right at home!
That brings me, finally, to where we are now: Ha Noi, vietnam. We got a flight here because have very little time. We didn’t get off to a very good start as the flight was delayed, then when we finally arrived the “tourist info” at the airport pretended to phone the guesthouses we were planning to have a look at and told us they were all full! Eventually we realised what they were doing and got a taxi to one of the guesthouses. The taxi driver then stopped at 2 other hotels whose staff came out trying to convince us that that was the hotel we wanted to go to- despite the huge sign on the front of the hotel saying differnetly! It was a bit scary as it was late at night and had no idea where we were or if the taxi driver had any intention of taking us to a legit hotel! Eventually i got angry and he took us..haha. we have been here a few days now though and have got used to the madness! Crossing the road is a chore, but it seems you just walk onto hundreds of oncoming motorbikes and they swerve you! Went around a few of the sights today and went to a water puppet show this evening. its very famous around the world so it was great to see. Tomorrow we fly down to Da Nang in order to get to Hoi An. Hopefully will be a litter quieter than Hanoi.
Congratualtions- you have reached the end of my first blog, hopefully you are still awake. I promise my next installement wont be as long…i plan to keep it up to date…!
