Hanoi!!!

Can't quite believe I'm going to do another post today but here it is. I awoke quite early due to my malaria tablets giving me strange dreams (they do that sometimes) and the first thing I try to do is log onto Facebook and there is no connection, I'm not sure if its the hotel or Vietnam that won't let me, so if you don't hear from me for quite sometime on Facebook it's because it could be blocked.

Lloyd and I met up with Steve and Nick and we jumped in a taxi and headed for the Ho Chi Min museum, we got there around 11:30 and found out it was closed until 2, so we hung around for a bit and I got to play with my camera.

After having a look around we had a bite to eat and then decided to try to find another museum, two local girls pointed us in the direction of the war museum so we headed over to have a look. I love war films but generally the idea of fighting and killing in real life is a different matter but this museum was well worth visiting. I was surprised by how big the museum was and outside they had a massive monument made from a shot down B-52 bomber.

By the time we had a good look around it was 2pm so headed back to the Ho Chi Min museum, this was like no museum I had seen before, but again well worth visiting.

So far I'm loving Hanoi, it really reminds me of London. The people have been friendly, you don't get hassled on the streets much and food has been great. It's Steves birthday tomorrow and then New Year so we have lots to do in the next few days, I really can't wait to see what else this city has to offer.

Vang Vieng

We have just managed to escape Vang Vieng, I say escaped because this was one seriously messed up place. There’s more bars than shops and pretty much the only thing you can do is drink and go tubing so that’s what we did.  We pretty much became regulars in a bar called Sakuba, we befriended one of barmen called Carl (not his real name I am sure) and he always kept our drinks topped up. We had a few wild nights and met a few new people who all seemed to drink in the same places.

On our last day (Christmas) we decided to have a go at tubing, tubing is basically floating down the river and stopping off at bars to get drunk. Here we drunk buckets (literally) of vodka/whiskey and coke. The whole ‘float’ down the river is supposed to take around 3 hours but we didn’t even manage to make it all the way down as 3 bars in we ended up staying and getting drunk then jumped into a tuk-tuk and headed back to Skauba bar and then to another bar called Q.

I did have a great time but 3 nights of hard drinking does take it out of you, I feel like I’ve aged by 10 years J and the fact that I didn’t take my camera out once annoyed me a bit. After we said goodbye to Vang Veign we moved down to Vientiane and booked our 22 hour bus ride to Hanoi. The 22 hour ride is probably going to take more like 24/25.

By the time this blog is posted I will be in Vietnam (Hanoi) still with Nick and Steven so we can spend Stephens birthday with him and Celebrate New year.  

Vang Vieng

I must apologise for the amount of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in my last post. I had a blazing hangover and was writing early in the morning, I hope I've not made as many errors in this post!

I am currently in Vang Vieng which was a 7 hour cramped mini van drive south of Luang Prabang. We're having a chilling out day today and then we may try tubing tomorrow. Vang Vieng is a small town full of bars, we will be spending Christmas here and then we have to decide whether to travel to Vientiane to spend 1 day there before we head to Hanoi for New Year.

On the journey to Vang Vieng we travelled through beautiful scenery and hills, it was hard to enjoy the journey as we were bouncing around in our seats (the roads are not the best around here). I still enjoyed the ride as it's all part of the adventure. I'm now going to go out and explore and see what Vang Vieng is really about. I've posted some photos bellow of my last few days in Luang Prabang, which included seeing a great sunset, bike riding and going to a water fall.

I would love to revisit Luang Prabang and would recommend it to anyone.

Trip to loas

Two of our new friends Steven and Mark (from Amsterdam) who we met on our jungle trek joined us for out long trip to Laos. We were first driven for around 4 hours to a small town just outside the border, on the way we picked up a few other people. Mary from the USA, Jorge form Spain and Helen and Bo from Canada.

We had to stay over night in a small village near the Laos border, the overnight stay was very basic but the food was good and the beds not too uncomfortable. Lloyd and I ended up staying up late and having a few drinks and going to as bar with Jorge and Mary, I’m positive the host/hostess was a lady boy, the first one I have managed to I.D. at around 12:30 I decided that I wanted to have garlic bread so I persuaded the gang to help me hunt some down, we didn’t manage to find any but we did find a small bar run by a chap from Belgium who had a massive scar on his face and seemed to take a shine to me (he seemed to think that I looked like a goal keeper for a football team). He seemed really crazy so I Mary and I made our escape and left Jorge and Lloyd behind. Lloyd told me the next morning that this crazy guy had dome quite a bit of time in jail; I’m surprised that Jorge and Lloyd made it back in one piece.

The next day we awoke early to head to the border of Laos to sort out Visas and then board a slow boat to another village which was about another 7 hours away from Lauang Prabang. While on the boat we met a few new people but I was quite tired so I slept most of the way, luckily I did wake a few times to take some photos.

We finally arrived at the half way point of our journey after 7 hours, we all went out together along with a few Australian girls for a few drinks and lots of food, the food itself was amazing and very, very cheap. There were around twelve of us and we all ordered a dish, rice and nan breads etc, and around 2 bottles of beer. The amount spent could not have been more than £5 each after we split the bill. When we had finished we were planning on going for a few more drinks but the village had a 10 o clock curfew so we all headed back to our rooms for an early night as we had to get up early for the next 8 hour trip to Lauang Prabang.

The second day was just as long but the trip was a little easier and I managed to stay awake the whole trip and took some decent photos on the way. When we arrived Mark and Cindy were waiting at the dock to great us all, after we dropped our bags off and had a quick shower we all went and had something to eat and drink

Chang Mai Trek

We set off with a group of 11 other peolpe to start a 3 day hike and trek into the hills of Chang Mai. I honestly didn’t think it would be as hard as it was but it was worth doing and everyone in the group was really friendly. Lloyd and I bonded and made friends with a couple from the south of England called Mark and Cindy. The walk itself took us through amazing scenery and our guide Jayjay made sure everyone was looked after. Each night we stopped in a local village and had food by candle light and then sat around a campfire talking and drinking beer. Our final stop was by a waterfall; here we managed to have a swim and lounged around before we had food and another campfire. Mark had bought a bottle of vodka with him so we drank that and set off some fireworks.

After the final night we made our way back into the hills where we walked for about another 2 hours, we were then driven by truck to a place where we got to ride elephants, this was my least favourite part of the whole trek. The least I could after the elephant ride was to buy him some bananas. After the Elephant ride was finished we were then taken to the river for a ‘‘slow’’ raft ride. Pretty much everyone got soaked, I just about made it to the end without falling in and with about 15 meters to go the raft tipped and I fell in.

It’s really hard to write about everything that happened on the trek but it certainly was a great way to meet new people. When we arrived back at the hostel a few of us had drinks together and ended up getting very drunk.

The next day Mark, Cindy, Lloyd and I rented a couple of scooters and drove out to a really old temple in the hills. The temple itself was beautiful but it was full of tourists, we then drove back down into Chang Mai. In all honesty I enjoyed the bike ride more than the seeing the temple. Tonight a few of us are going to watch a kickboxing match; I’ve never been to anything like that before so it should be interesting.

Tomorrow is our last day in Chang Mai, it’s a great city and worth visiting and I would recommend it to anyone.

My next up date will be from Laos.

After an 11 hour flight from Heathrow we landed tired, jet lagged and hungry, but it wasn’t long until we were thrown in to the busy centre of Bangkok. Luckily our taxi ride was not too far to our hotel and we arrived there in under an hour.

Our first 3 days were spent in the Viangthai hotel, it was cheap but clean so we couldn’t complain. After we arrived and cleaned ourselves up we decided that we should go out and have something to eat and have a few drinks; luckily there were plenty of places to eat directly outside our hotel. The food in Thailand is so cheap but all good quality and the beer just as cheap; needless to say we ended up drinking too much and spent the rest of the next day battling a hangover and jetlag. The next two days were spent battling jet lag, the heat and plotting our next move.

At the moment I am about 500 miles north of Bangkok, we decided to head north to a city called Chang Mai, it was quite a trek, and we set off from our hotel at 7am and didn’t arrive in Chang Mai until around 10pm. We have a rest day tomorrow and then we head into the hills for a three day trek to visit a local village and see some elephants.  Hopefully I will get some better pictures then; the ones I've posted were mainly taken from a moving train!

I’ve learnt that its quite hard to blog while on the move but it’s good to get the first one done, so I apologise for the briefness its gone midnight here and after a long trek I’m beat!