Chiang Rai, Thailand

Country change: check.
Chiang Rai, nice easy reacquaintance with an old pal. Definitly noticing the Bangkok airport thing - its so quiet, and its great! Hardly another tourist around. Just mooched about, started contacting Uk recruitment agencies and stuff online. Ate a mega icecream sundae.

Night Market

Crazy town clock.

The Gibbon Experience - Bokeo, Laos

We bused to Houay Xai and met up with Skinalicious (skinny and alice), who had been in Thailand. We had jacked up this Gibbon Experience trip, heard good things about it but really had no idea what we'd be doing. See for yourself. Above - Long drop toilet out of a tree house 30m in the air.

Breaking dawn from our bed in treehouse 2

Launching into the unknown - thick mist filling the valleys on the first morning. I think this zip line was 300m long, and about 75m high in the middle...

Good old friends, it was just like the good old times. Nobody changes.

Our group with the guides. We all looked out for each other. The guiding was minimal - they showed us the ropes (literally) then allowed us to do as much zipping as we wanted before dark each day, responsible for our own harnesses, attaching our own equipment, and each other! The responsibilty made it more real, more scary and more exciting.

Swimming in a freezing cold lagoon. Can you feel the hesitation?


Here is a vid of me coming in on a zip line. First vid on the blog, go me!



Then it was bye skinalicious, we went back to the border town Huoay Xai, and now we are back in Thailand! To be continued. 17 days til Tokyo.

Luang Nam Tha, Laos

Luang Nam Tha and 60ks to the north Muang Sing(10k's from China) are tourist spots for treks into authentic hill tribe villages. We stayed here, not for the trekking but to do a motorcycle ride to Muang Sing, check the chinese border (below), and mountain bike around the area. You can see the villages on your own anyway. It'd definitly be a less busy spot for 'ethno treks' than North Thailand where its super popular.

Muong Ngoi, Laos

An hour further north on the river and you get to this place accessible only by boat. One main street. Gorgeous.

We did an amazing walk through valleys so perfect they seemed artificial. The next day we went fishing with locals, throwing nets, checking permanent lines, and drifting through river rapids with, uh.. drift nets, I guess. We then made a shelter out of bamboo on a sand bar and cooked them up on, once again, bamboo.

We observed a woman get off a boat and give birth in a squat position halfway up the stairs in the bottom left of the pic above, while we ate our noodle soup breakfast. Insane.

Crystal clear stream, full of fish, coming out of a cave.

Nong Kiaw, Laos

We took supposedly the most scenic river cruise in Laos (as an alternative to the popular river trip from Luang Prabang to the border with Thailand - Huoay Xai) to a more isolated part of the country. FINALY the Laos I had imagined.

This was a toilet stop in the 7.5 hr journey.

Nong Kiaw is accessible more quickly (and cheaply) by road, but we wanted river time. We ate great Indian food here somehow, and I talked to a blind tourist for an hour over dinner before I realised he was blind at all. Incredible guy. He wasnt even wearing sunglasses.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Here is me being honest about the scenery. A lot of my pics make out that we are the only tourists in the area. Thats a horrible lie. SO you can see above and below here and you realise what a circus even Laos can be. Luang Prabang is a stunning place with a boutique vibe that appeals to older tourists. It has a superb craft market.

These photos are taken in more remote areas where we were the only tourists though. We were such a novelty that they waved us in to help with the rice harvest!

Ladies and Gentlemen, once again I give you the Mekong.

Being dry season the river subsides and the muddy bank become fertile vege gardens.

Vang Vieng, Laos

We arrived Vang Vieng with our same posse from Veintiene and hit the tubing. The name is slightly misleading, sure you get in a tube and float down the river but you unload every 50m into a bar/extreme swing/slide/zipline and perform painful acrobatics usually involving plunging towards the river from a great height. I was bruised and sore for, say...5 days after? but it was adreniline pumpin fun, freakn frightning.

Id put a bet down more people get hurt playing mud volleyball than the swings etc, there are roots and holes and ridges hidden in that pit!

See the trapeze in the top left corner? Yeah, high, see?

Bucket bar, a local institution, $2 for a bucket full of 'whiskey' and coke. Then you get a bacon sandwich on the way home. GENIUS

If you can see through the haze of adreniline and booze you get treated to absolutely beautiful surroundings.

The main part about Vang Vieng though was staying at an Organic Farm, famous for its mulberries and goat cheese. We both wanted to help out here, Megan wanted to help teach english to local kids, and I wanted to dig a hole, and somehow miraculously we both got our way!

Check out the hole! Its for goat droppings and urine to drain into for use as compost! Yep, dug a 5 foot deep shit hole in Laos. Unique. We spent around about a week in the area altogether.

Vientiene, Laos

We formed a biker gang with mates met on the bus in Vientiene, and soaked up the relaxed ambiance around Laos' capital. Such a modest capital. You can gaze across the Mekong from your restaurant at the banks of Thailand on the other side. If you cross the friendship bridge by road remember to switch driving sides!

I had a mare with my bike, the derailer went into the spokes of my wheel at speed when I was trying to change gear. Retard gang member. Even though it was hardly my fault I had to foot most of the bill! (about US$30).

Hanoi, Vietnam

Dont have many pics from Hanoi, even though we were here 3 times. Dunno what it was, but it frustrated us a bit with its pushiness, and if you wanna see anything you have to book an expensive tour along with the masses. It was beautiful though, full of small lakes (especially after the floods) and narrow 'themed' streets, that is every street has its own specialty (toys, shoes, buttons, speakers...)

We left from here in an army truck to get through the floods, then commenced our 22 hr bus to Vientiene in Laos, armed with an abundance of snacks and confection to get us through.

Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island, Vietnam

We booked a tour from our backpackers to Halong Bay with a group of good sorts who talked more shit than me almost. Below you can see a special handshake taking place between Kev and I. It follows on to clicking your fingers wrong then peering through the hole like a spy glass.

The photos above are from when Megan and I stayed on longer than the rest of the group at the lovely Cat Ba Island, the biggest of the thousands of islands in the bay (and the only one that was inhabited).

On the kayaking part of the tour I got in trouble for coming back to the boat late, and then we had to wait for my search party to come back, by then it was dark and we had to sail through the rocky waters back to dock with only a flashlight.

Friends, togetherness, laughter, good times together with friends.