Inevitable question post travel: What was your favourite part?
Another inevitable question: Where was your favourite place?

Does saying that I want to pack all my friends up and move them to Luang Prabang answer that question? I loved Luang Prabang so so much, with all its French architecture and baguettes, the cheap comfy cafes and bars, the lack of supermarkets and 7/11s. Actually, the lack of supermarkets is one thing that would get to me if I were to live in Luang Prabang. I LOVE SUPERMARKETS. I think it’s something to do with the fact they’re full of food. I could probably overcome that with the help of warm mornings to explore the fresh food market though.

Luang Prabang is where I first touched an elephant! They’re huge (but still smaller than African Elephants, those must be HUGE) and tough. I recommend wearing long pants if you’re going to ride them without a seat because their skin and hair is rough as fuck and will scratch up your thighs. We rode around in a chair through the forest, over creeks, and up and down steep paths. And then we rode on the elephant’s back to the river and took it for a swim. The mahouts were egging the elephants on to throw us in the water, and you can see right there how elegantly I handled that. I thought I might drown…till I realised I could touch the bottom.

While we were in Luang Prabang we took an hour long tuk tuk ride with a couple of other tourists to the Kuang Si waterfall. Stunning turquoise water, a bunch of swimming holes, and you can even climb to the top of the fall if you’re that way inclined (we were, it was steep). And at the entrance there’s a bear sanctuary! Look at the cute bear climbing into his little pool! AWWW.

Our first experience with mangosteen / A bamboo bridge which is built new every year and taken down during the rainy season / The streets after a huge lightning storm which took out the power / Giraffes of Beer Lao / French architecture / Cosy forest hideouts

Archways made out of trees / Temple kitties / Riverside dining / Mosaiced temples / Village Women Union

See all the Luang Prabang photos on Flickr

Baanrimtaling Guesthouse, Chiang Khong // Simple living on the river // Huge spider

From Chiang Mai we bused to Chiang Khong and boated to the Laos side of the river and the town of Huay Xai. Considering we were crossing into another country it was surprisingly easy. Wait in line on the Thai side for a passport stamp. Pay a small fee for the 5 minute boat trip across the river. Wait in line and pay for a visa and stamp on the Laos side. Done.

Snakes in alcohol // Sunset over the Mekong // Communist flag // Beer Lao

Huay Xai is a typical border town. Specialising in tourist fare: cushions for your boat trip, tickets for your boat trip, sandwiches for your boat trip. We could have tried to jump straight from Thailand onto the 2 day boat but we were in no rush. It gave us a chance to meet Mr Singkham the lively 71 year old French/Laos/English speaking proprietor of Aramid Guesthouse who had some pretty strong opinions of stupid French tourists and the Laos government. It was ok though as he seemed to like us.

After stories of horrible nine hour trips stuck on wooden seats next to the motor, we were well prepared for slow boating. Arriving very early, armed with cushions, we were pleasantly surprised by a near empty boat full of comfortable ex car seats. We chose 3 at the front of the boat (far away from the engine) and settled in for our long wait.
Our first experience of Laos time sees leaving time rolling around, with a full boat, waiting for another tour bus. There is no way they’ll fit with us so another, bigger, boat is drafted. Tour bus fills second boat and it leaves an hour after schedule. We finally leave 15 minutes later. First in first served does not apply.

Day 2 is supposed to leave dead on 9 (we’re early again to get good seats) so when they’ve only pulled up one boat, and there are still stupid fucking tourists coming down the hill at 9.10, I can’t quit believe the audacity of some people. Once again, showing up late gets you a less crowded boat that leaves first. Lame.

The two days are really nice though. The Mekong river is a lot rockier than I expected. Quite rugged and beautiful. There are so so many trees.

At the start of day two I saw my first elephant being ridden across the way!

There are plenty of fisherman and swimming children to observe. Houseboats and huts. A prison. A cave. A mudslide. And if a previously boat phobic person can praise it there is nothing to be afraid of.

Just promise me you won’t take the speed boat!

See all the Huay Xai – Luang Prabang photos on Flickr

Looking back on it Chiang Mai was one of the best places we visited during the trip. Definitely my favourite place in Thailand. It’s such a shame we didn’t get to explore the city properly, or get any photos of it (because of Songkran). And that we didn’t have enough time to go back again. I’d really love to go back one day when the city isn’t full of bucket wielding maniacs.

However, the boys loved our time in Chiang Mai because of the bucket wielding maniacs. Or because they were the bucket wielding maniacs. The day after we arrived the water fighting started and it hadn’t stopped when we left about 4 days later. I only participated on the first day (lame I know, I just wasn’t having any fun being saturated by iced water when it wasn’t even sunny!), and even then I went back to the guesthouse after a few hours.

Thankfully the boys didn’t let me stop them from having a good time, which meant finding a “gang” of both tourists and locals to join and terrorise the streets with. They loaded themselves up with aforementioned iced water and stopped anyone and everyone, even going so far as to wave down songthaew in order to douse the passengers. Meanies.

A bit tired of only being able to leave the guesthouse hours after the sun had gone down we booked ourselves in for a cooking course on our last day. Pui, the overly talkative teacher, was so great. About 10 of us showed up at her house in the morning for a full day of cooking (and talking, and playing with her dog Lady Gogo). Even though it was a small kitchen with one cooking station we all got a chance to participate and ask as many questions as we needed. After eating the huge feed we had cooked ourselves we were invited to rest in her garden or her lounge and have a little nap before we cooked even more food!

See all the Chiang Mai photos on Flickr

The slow and arduous task of labelling, sorting, and uploading to all the places has begun. I was at least smart enough to not take my nice camera away for 3 months so I didn’t spend too long behind the lens trying to get everything right. I pointed. I shot. I didn’t bother to edit because these photos aren’t getting any better.

Our first stop in Bangkok was full of temples. And temple fatigue. Wat Pho, which houses a giant reclining buddha, was ridiculously ornate. Millions of pieces of pottery cover the stupas (the spires) to make flowers and other patterns. You really haven’t experienced opulence until you’ve seen the temples dedicated to Buddhism in Asia. All gold, all the time.

My favourite building was the white fort we found. Dirtied up with years of Bangkok dirt and fumes it was just the right amount of worn down grandeur. Plus it looks like a castle.

It was a shame to find that any photos we’d seen of Bangkok’s temples backed by beautiful skies must have been photoshopped. That city is way too full of pollution to see the sun. No wonder it’s so seedy, it hasn’t seen light in decades.

See all the Bangkok photos on Flickr

If you have to choose one big city to visit in Vietnam make it Saigon. Unless you’re into the whole overcrowded, bad food, not enough room to walk on the street but too much shit on the sidewalk thing that Hanoi is offering.

Beautiful yes. But as with most beautiful things in Vietnam the experience is being ruined by scammy tour agencies selling you the world and delivery a piece of dirt. Our day trip to Ha Long Bay with The Sinh Tourist was excellent. Our day trip from Ha Long to Cat Ba, booked at the pier, was bullshit.

My advice is skip Ha Long City and go straight to Cat Ba Island via Haiphong boat. You get all the views and not so much of the rip off.

Or go to Ninh Binh where the jutting mountains are just as magical but set in river and rice paddy.

The view of Laos from our Thailand balcony

Chang Khong is a wee border town on the way to Laos (or on the way out, depending on your direction). Picking a guesthouse straight out of the LP lead us to Banrimtaling Guesthouse, and a room with such awesome views over the Mekong river and into Laos that I suggested we stay another night.

It was in Chiang Khong that we experienced one of the more perplexing moments of our trip thus far. A Songkran (still going!) concert was being held about 1km down the river, so with some newly made American friends and a half time Chang Khong local we made our way toward the music.

We arrive to find a huge open air stage – the back lined with musicians, the front featuring a few male singers and 8 scantily clad young Thai girls doing sexy stripper dances and grinding on amps. Occasionally a different girl would take the stage to sing by herself and had men groping and putting money in her bra and underwear. We still have no idea if this was part of the Miss Songkran festival, our local Thai friend’s English was limited when it came to us exclaiming “WTF”.

The audience in the field was made up of, almost exclusively, very very drunk Thai people. The males generally old and lecherous; some of the women found the tall white girl (me) quite an entertaining sight and gave me drinks and dried banana chips and danced with me.

Not being able to drink beer has been the biggest hassle of this trip. I’m sure weird stripper show would have been more fun if I was drunk like everyone else. But I think our friend D, drunk and missing his girlfriend, had a good enough time for everyone.

The rest of the night was spent circling our guesthouse trying to find a way to get back to it without passing the 3 barking stray dogs in our path. They were at every turn. Eventually we gathered D and our new friends, along with some bamboo poles, only for the menacing dogs to be gone!

After being smeared with talc and given whisky shots by locals

Chiang Mai seemed pretty sweet. It would have been good to explore the city but we were there during Thai new year – which turns Chiang Mai into a week long water fight. Not even exaggerating.

My memories

1. My first sighting of the moat which surrounds the old city. 
2. Songkran – Thai New Year. Traditionally a sprinkling of water was placed on hands, now it’s full on water warfare, particularly around the moat where buckets are easily refilled with filthy water.
3. The full body shock you get when you’re drenched by water from a trough housing one huge mother of a block of ice.
4. Lounging in a hammock and using an outdoor computer in the beautiful surrounds of our guest house (Gongkaew)
5. Being woken up by the kissing sounds and boop boop boops of geckos in the room.
6. Cheaper food than Bangkok. If you’re on a strict budget you can still get a tasty big dinner for $1.20nzd
7. Fruit smoothies from our “local” for $1.50.
8. Getting drunk on Samsong rum  & visiting a wicked jazz bar.
9. Meeting Pui at her street side eatery and being enticed by her overly talkative and friendly nature to attend a full day cooking class in her home.
10. Not being able to get any photos for fear of drowning my camera. 
11. A toad biting Brend’s foot.

Thankfully if you have some wits about you the lessons you’ll learn in Bangkok shouldn’t cost too much.

Stupidly we fell for the ol’ scammy scam scam twice. And didn’t even recognise the first time was scammy till it happened again. These bastards are subtle!

Day one in Bangkok was split between taxis and tuk tuks.

Taxi

The taxi from the airport was a fantastic first Bangkok experience. This city looks nothing like I expected. it’s beautiful and grimey and full of trees. No one cares much for road rules, but I trust the weavin, dodging, drivers here more than the slow moving vehicles of home because the drivers seem to be far more awake, making sure they don’t crash into any one of hundred obstacles.

Our taxi driver wasn’t out to make a quick buck. Instead of sitting in a traffic jam and watching the meter tick over he followed a small line of cars turning around and going up an off ramp the wrong way to get to a less congested part of the highay. Fuck yeah.

Tuk Tuk

The scene.
We decide to have a first explore of the city, walking in the hot sun in the vague direction of something or other and our friend D spies a guy bowing his head three times at a temple. He asks why and the guy says it’s for good luck.

This guy is going to become our unofficial tour guide.

He tells us about the best temples to see. That today is a special holiday so they have free entry (which did see to be correct?), that our tuk tuk driver would take us to all these places for 30 baht, and that this huge factory is open for today only for a look around (ding ding ding).
He pulls up a tuk tuk for us and hands the driver our map with Thai scribbled all over it and we’re away.

Dodging weaving, seemingly risking our lives. But I feel safe. We see a huge standing buddha, we see the lucky buddha – 700 years old and solid gold, we see the factory. Or rather we see a suit shop – the factory is glossed over when we ask to see it. We get a free beer and we leave after much awkward conversation about how we are not going to buy anything. Our driver asks for his gas voucher. We tell him we’re not buying anything so he doesn’t get one. He seems sad and annoyed but I’m thinking he can get fucked. The boys offer him 100 baht is he’ll just drop us at China Town. He Does.

We don’t even realise this is a scam. Our unofficial tour guide has given us his “name”, “number”, and says he works for the official tourist agency in Chiang Mai.

Even so, 100 baht is less than $5nzd. We got a driver for the avo and actually started exploring right away rather than pissing around trying to figure the city out.

*More stories soon. I’ve entered Laos where wifi is not so common and I’ll probably use the compy more than my phone for the net.

The view from the outdoor computers at my hostel

Hello from beautiful Chiang Mai!

The past fourish days have been pretty crazy, as you’d expect to hear from a first time traveler jumping in the deep end of Bangkok.

It’s unfortunate that the biggest PITA so far happened in New Zealand. While we know we’re only allowed in Thailand for a touristic stay for 30 days, no one told us (even when we were checking visa requirements with our travel agent) that we needed proof of ongoing travel. So when we finally got to the front of the check in queue after a 90 minute wait, with only 30 minutes left, and were told we needed that proof of ongoing travel, things started to get stressy. We explained our plans for overland travel but they wouldn’t let us check in without an onward ticket.

So, with our original tickets booked through Flight Centre we were sent to the Auckland International Branch where we were told we’d have to contact our (very apologetic) travel consultant in Wellington.

Long story short I:

• booked two Air Asia tickets to Cambodia (because they were our cheapest option
• got to run (sprint) through the airport three times
• saved the day with only minutes to spare
• didn’t cry
• gained one of “those” stories before I’d even left the country.

But wait, there’s more.

Our bags were only checked through to Kuala Lumpur where we were stopping over for a night. Meaning we had to go through immigration, collect our bags, check them back in straight away, and go back through customs. Pretty ridiculous, but thankfully went without issue. And I have a Malaysian stamp in my passport for the hassle.

The worst part about this story?
When we came through Bangkok Airport they didn’t give a flying fuck about our exit ticket. Our friend flew Thai Airways without an ongoing ticket and had no problems.

So it all came down to wrong person, wrong time at Air Malaysia.

Boo-urns.

* Less sob story, more OMGWTF is this place coming soon.
** My unedited photos can be found in my flickr account if you’re interested. I’ll try to at least flip them to their proper orientation and delete duplicates when I get access a compy that isn’t fuck awful slow.