Tales from Lao-Lao Land

Lao-Lao is the local rice whiskey, its similar to the Thai whiskey - Mekong, or Saamsong, but with more of a Turpintine flavour, but more on that later...

So we've moved south from Luang Phabang. Michelle and I both came to really enjoy that city. It has a lot of charm, and the Kueng Xi waterfalls were completely amazing (and brilliant for swimming...as per the video which has hopefully attached)



We spent our last night in a beautiful hotel, to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary... fantastic!

Then it was on to Vangvieng - a 5 hour minivan ride along a windy, potholed road. I don't know what we were expecting from Vangvieng, but the reality was something completely out of the ordinary. Packed with bars that pump untill curfew (yep, theres an 11pm curfew here) - it seems that every falang (forigner) in the country comes here to party - and party they do! The main attraction in the town seems to be tubing - sitting on the Nam Song River on a tractor tyre innertube, and floating from bar to bar getting very wasted on Lao-Lao Buckets and various "special" items! When you sit at the bar they slip a little menu in front of you with "additional" things to try...

We were put off this on the first day we arrived, as very intoxicated (and sopping wet) people filled the town up, stumbling around. Not pretty. We decided to do some caving, and kayaking instead, which was a brilliant experience.

The town is also filled with bars playing "Friends" re-runs. Probably more than half a dozen bars, where you sit on pillows and cushions and relax in front of some TV - something which Michelle and I did on our last day there, as we were both feeling a bit under the weather.

Currently we're in the capital, Vientaine (pronounced Vienchang) for one night before heading south to Pakxe on the 14 hour overnight bus. Exciting.

Hmmm... I can't seem to link to images, Firefox is in Thai on this computer! You'll just have to check back again soon, or have a look on our facebook pages.

Moving South

Hi all, and thanks for the comments! :)
Laos for me has had highlights and low lights, pleased to be moving on tomorrow to Pakse in an overnight bus! Viengtaine isn't my favourite place nor is Vangvieng...

Lowlights:
got a slight cold (probably from the cave tubing)
bus rides to each next destination - sorry mum, but sometimes i dont think i'll make it out alive!
the down right rude, egocentric, noisey boys on the slow boat (for 2 days!!!!) keeping us up till 3am... then hearing them vomiting for hours after... NOT PLESANT!
Vomiting for a few hours due to over heating & a headache

Laos Highlights:
cheap tasty market food & fruit shakes
delightful little wine bars
Wedding Anniversary in Luang Prabang - the hotel made such a fuss!!!
Seeing silk weaving across the river in a village
Watching saa paper being made (similar to tapa making process)
Sunsets on the Mekong
1 hr Laos Massage
Cave tubing
kayaking down the river in Vangvieng
hearing buddha mythology at temples
meeting Viv & Rob from Holland who are travelling for about a year including NZ, sorry we won't be there to put you up for a few nights, talk about bad timing!

Arina & Jared - i LOVE the snowman pic, you 2 must be freezing!!! Meanwhile i'm sitting in 30+ degree heat! Sorry to hear J is under the weather :( see you in a few months and stay safe! p.s. thanks for the lovely warm anniversary wishes! xox
Adam & Fi - How is the job hunting going? And come to think of it house hunting too???
Tash - Thanks to you both for the warm wishes!
Mum & Dad - no need to worry (accept when ever i'm in a minivan with a crazy Laos driver and animals are walking across roads so we have to swerve to miss them!) We are both doing well! Hope you had such a blast in ChCh with the whanau. p.s. You know Shaunie would never let anything happen to me mum!
Jeannette & Peter - Thanks for putting up with mum and dad, hope they weren't too much trouble... he he he
Ma & Pa - thanks for all your emails, for checking in on mum, and for your anniversary wishes! xox
Justine, Sabine & Rohan - if you ever go to Thailand, you are going to need to get a container to ship everything back you'd want to buy for your house! Every market place has something that i think would be perfect for your home. Hope the new year has started well and Sabine likes her new class.
Kahn - thanks for your email! Let me know when you've organised and confirmed dates for Europe, can't wait to see you, love to your mum too - Eldene, hopefully you're reading that yourself and managed to get on to my blog xox
Big hugs and kisses to everyone who is taking the time to read our travels! xox

Loving Laos

Well a long 2 days down the Mekong. Thankfully there was some breath taking scenery to view. More expensive than we'd anticipated, but hopefully it will get cheaper when we head futher South. Tummy troubles has resolved itself, for now... Enjoying the food, eating A LOT of vegetarian, the food markets are enough to put you off for life! BLOOD, GUTS, HOOVES, HEADS, RODENTS and we haven't even got to Cambodia yet... yikes! Nicole, you would not cope at all, you think its bad enough when Andrew goes hunting and brings home a carcass! Warmer in Laos which is nice. Will miss the train travel in Thailand, you can't read a book on the bus! Read a few books and enjoying the time to be able too!
Tracey - The Book Thief was beautifully written, loved the creative way the author put the story together, and an appropriate time when i read it at Kanchanaburi too, going to war museums etc. Thanks heaps xox
Nicole - Hows the Egypt plans coming?? Read 'Gathering Light' by Jennifer Donnelly, must be her first book, worth the read.
Ginny & Scott - looks like the house is coming along, you 2 working 24-7?
Mum & Dad - booked a really nice place to stay for our wedding anniversary, thanks heaps! Will be total luxury!
Tasha - Yes, you were right, SE ASIA is the best! I look forward to hearing your travels in South America.
Kelly & John - thanks soooo much for getting our luggage to London. You're the best! How was Tiri?
Dave & Christine - Christine, how is your leg healing? Let us know if you 2 will make it to Vietnam in April.
Anwar (travel clinic Dr) - thank you sooo much for the G-whizz recommedation. I think i pee standing up more than i do sitting down... lol
CS19 - have a great start back with Terry. I hope you kept up that reading in the holidays!
My soon to be year 7's - Best of luck on your first day at Intermediate. Its the best! Get involved in heaps of extra-curricular stuff and you'll make heaps of friends.
Michele - good to see you are showing Adrien the country side and getting lots of use out of the tent with the kids.
Ok, must go, water falls and bears to see now.
xox

Capitilism is Alive and Well in Laos

So we're finally in Laos, land of a million elephants (or something). The slow boat was very scenic, but no as pleasant as it could have been thanks to some extreemly drunk aussies and some fairly drunk poms (who proceeded to become extreemly drunk outside our guesthouse bedroom untill 2am). It was definately a worthwhile trip though, Pakbeng (where you stop for the night, to break up the 2 day journey) was a cute little town, and there is something romantic about floating down the river. Let me quickly dispell any notions of comfort though. The seats are little, narrow wooden bench seats that more suited to being some sadist ministers church pews. You have very little space (much of which is taken up by aforementioned drunk Englishmen). Luang Phabang came as a relief... Many Many thanks to B for suggesting we buy the cushions. Amen for those.

So thats where we are now, Luang Phabang - a beautiful city with lots of French Colonial charm, on the convergance of the Mekong, and the Nam Ou rivers.

Luang Phabang is a bit of an anomoly though. Prces here are fairly high, thanks to a huge influx of package tourists paying top dollar for everything. There are also some pretty well off Loatians - we've seen someone driving around in a Hummer H2! It doesn't help that the currency here is ridiculous, the smallest note is 500kip, but I haven't seen any of those, mostly everything is in multiples of 1000. Its terrifying to consider that our fairly basic guesthouse costs us 80000kip per night! They use 3 currencies actively here, just to confust things more! USD, Thai Baht and Kip are all accepted... Michelle and I spend half our time trying to work out what everything costs!

At the moment we're waiting untill 1.30 when we head off to Kueng Xi waterfalls for a dip to cool off in the heat of the afternoon. Tomorrow we're planning on going to the Pak Ou Caves where there are apparently several thousand buddha statues, then to the Whiskey Village. Alright. Although I've heard that Lao Lao (Laos Whiskey) tastes kinda like paint thinners.

After that, who knows... we've booked into a FLASH hotel to celebrate our wedding anniversary, then we'll head off to Vang Vieng for some tubing.

Jared, beer in Laos is amazingly, cheaper than Thailand. Even though it sounds expensive 8000kip is about 30baht, for a big bottle. Where are you man, I need a drinking buddy!

Thats it from me for now, will post again after we've had some more adventures.

Love to all.

Far North Thailand Pics

Thanks to everyone who has commented, we really appreciate hearing for you!

So, into some photos!

Michelle and I by the Mae Ping River in Chiang Mai.Yunnan Village near Pai
Michelle fending off the morning cold, overlooking Pai


Watching life go by, riverside in Pai

Mmmmm, frog on a stick, just like mummy makes. At the local produce market, Lampang.

The next image isn't for the sensitive of stomach, so you might want to hit page-down...

Alright... todays game is GUESS THE MYSTERY MEAT.


I'm pleased to say its not dog (the head was there, and it looked fairly rodentish, but its pretty big). Thats all I can really say about it.

Elephant Conservation Centre, between Lampang and Chiang Mai.


Monks in Lampang, buying cloth. What colour should we get?


Ok thats all for now (from me at least). In Chiang Rai at the moment, quite a lovely town, very friendly... heading to Chang Khong tomorrow to cross the border into Laos.

Busy Bee's in the North

Well, its been a pretty busy little week really... well, comparatively anyway.

On Monday we left for Pai (pronounced kinda like "bye") via Mini-van, except we got picked up from our guest-house in a Saawngthaew - a covered ute with 2 rows of bench seats on either side. Michelle and I quickly, although slightly worriedly, accepted this as our fate for the next 3 hours. They crammed 10 of us in and away we went - that is until we reached the ACTUAL mini van, which carried us in comfort through the 762 corner's on the road to Pai. Pai is a cute wee town (thanks Annie for the tip) on the banks of a river in the far north west of Thailand. It seems to be a bit of a haven for musicians and artists and that sort - kinda like a Thai version of Matakana perhaps. Being way up in the mountains, and with a cold snap heading in from China, Pai turns pretty darned chilly at night. I know its winter and all, but aren't we supposed to be in the tropics??? With night-time temperatures around 10 (or colder) and a morning fog that keeps things brisk well into the morning it doesn't really heat up until about 11.30. Fine by me (although I was feeling a bit blue-knee'd in shorts) but Michelle was freezing.

Anyway, after 11ish it was great, getting up into the high 20's as we've come to expect. We hired a Chinese made (JCB for any that care) scooter which I nick-named "squeeky" and proceeded to explore the local attractions - a Great Barrier style "hot-springs", a muddy creak which you sat in, and some local villages - very cute. I also had an "altercation" with the local traffic law enforcement. Fairly intimidating, but I paid the small fine and everything was great. With that done there is only one thing to do in Pai - sit by the river and drink fruit shakes, which we proceeded to do with great delight, watching the local fishermen and bamboo rafts float by. Rather pleasant.

Then we mini-van'd back to Chiang Mai for a night before catching the local train to Lampang - 3 hours south. The train cost an unbelievable 23baht each - about $1.

Lampang was... interesting. Also a cute (in its own way) riverside town. Though in this town we spent the entire first afternoon wandering around, without seeing one single tourist! We were getting the occasional odd look from the locals too, and those that could speak some English could only manage one or two words. So it turns out that we'd wandered well off the usual tourist trail! No problem, it gave me a good opportunity to practice my thai (Phom passat thai neit noy!!!) and Michelle and I got to try out our skills at charades. We stumbled (there were no english signs, so we were relying on the out-of-date Lonely Planet to see us right) into a local food market - cue more odd looks - where they were selling every every kind of food imaginable, and some that are beyond imagination - when I post photos next we can all play "guess the mystery meat" - Hint, you can see a paw.

Yeah...

Our culinary adventures were only just beginning, as that night I ordered a Larb Moo (Pork Salad). My salad came with a whole range of pig parts, so the salad resembled something from Fear Factor. In fact we're pretty sure that there was indeed, pig's anus in there.

The next morning we ate some nice safe muffins, before taking a Horse and Carriage ride through the city, before heading out to the National Elephant Sanctuary and worlds first Elephant Hospital. What an amazing experience! There were dozens of Chang (Elephants) from huge Males with tusks that were so long they crossed in front of their trunks, through to wee baby elephants. So we fed them (just for you Arina), had a ride, watched them bathe, and saw an elephant show. Incredible!

When we got back to our guest house a night market was setting up outside, so we spent the evening strolling the local market, again only seeing one or two non-local faces amongst the crowd. We did happen to meet a couple of Mormon missionaries, which I found entirely amusing. They were both very nice, but good luck trying to convert 60 million devout Buddhists!

The people of Lampang were brilliant, even though most only knew one or 2 words of English, they invited us to sit with them and tried to converse as best they could. They offered us samples of their food (which Michelle was dodgy on after the previous nights debacle) and were very kind. Well thats what I hope was happening anyway!

Now were back in Chiang Mai for a 3rd time, heading to Chaing Rai tomorrow, then on to Laos...

11.1.09 - A night of culinary delights

The first day we're up on our finances. It;s been a day of a lot of walking and sight seeing. From taking a stroll down to the river to a walk through into the old city. We've taken in the vibes of Chiang Mai and loving every minute of it. Tonight however was a favourite, starting out with a walk through the Sunday markets by the "Gate". I was into trying locally6 made wine. I started with a lychee wine - semi dry, not so pleasant on the nose but a delicious drop none the less. 11% alcohol, 50% fruit (lychee I suspect) and 40% herbs. In fact it was such a nice drop that i had to try another. The only thing missing was Ginny & Scott our wine tasting pals! Second drop was a strawberry wine, it was sweet, soft pink and easy to drink. Shaun i and tried some Chiang Mai sausage, chicken kebab (which we ate one bite of and decided to throw the rest out - neither of us wanted a repeat of the previous weeks Thai belly, and well i don't think our chances would've been high with the gai (chicken) being barely luke warm. As we began to walk past the other food vendors heading for the Roof Top bar (RTB) our eyes sighted steamed spring rolls, had to try those, along with chicken balls. All that for 20 baht ($1) seemed a steal. Lychee wine was 30 baht and strawberry wine 20 baht a glass. We climbed the stairs of the RTB after kindly being escorted across the frantic road by traffic police. They'd come on duty in preparation for the madness of the night markets that were still to come. Shaun and I watched an amazing sunset and a birds eye view of the night market below. We finished our drinks ready to peruse the markets once more. We were so spoiled for choice we'd already had wine, entrees and next was the main course. There were savoury treats for miles and in every block to tantalise our taste buds. We settled on BBQ moo (pork) possibly the BEST pork I've ever eaten, had the smokey flavours of the best Matapouri BBQ's. Next on the list was prawn steamed dumplings, more spring rolls and finally to finish mango and sticky rice and banana and chocolate roti - Aroy Mark Mark (delicious). I arrived back at the guest house feeling particularly spoiled by the culinary delights I can't wait to see waits in store for tomorrow as we move on to our next destination - Pai.