Blue Lagoon

After a long and well deserved 12hour sleep, i met up with Alastair ad Chris for breakfast. It was lovely to see them both again! I spent the day with Joel and Kristin at the blue lagoon. It's a beautiful lagoon in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains.

It's very pretty and the water was gorgeous. There were swings for us to play on and trees for us to jump off so we had lots of fun!

There were a few groups of people up there so it was a really good laugh.

We're meeting Chris and Alastair later in the 'bucket bar', so who knows what kind of state we'll be in for tubing tomorrow!

xx

Vang Veing

Joel, Kristine and I booked ourselves on a 7am bus to Vang Vieng for this morning, so we met up with Alex and Karl in Lao Lao bar for some farewell drinks. Joel and Kristine were very sensible and were back in bed by midnight to have a good rest before the 9hour journey. I decided to stay out and work my way through the Lao Lao whiskey cocktail list!

At 6.35am, I thought I should stop drinking and make my way home, seeing as I hadn't packed my bag and was leaving on a bus 25minutes later. When I got back to the hotel Joel was all ready to go, flapping about because I wasn't ready. As usual all my belongings were scattered around the room, Joel called it 'the room of devestation', (a pretty acurate description). I quickly shoved everything into my bag and got dressed. My backpack was ridiculously huge and heavy and I still had to carry plastic bags full of clothes as I had no room in my backpack due to all the shopping i'd done. But I still managed to get on the bus in time.

Nine hours later, we arrived in Vang Vieng, which is a small town surrounded by moutains and filled with little resturants and chilled out bars, all of which are constantly showing 'Friends'. Everyone comes here to go tubing and kayaking along the Mekong, which I can't wait to do! Alastair and Chris are meeting us here tomorrow, I'm looking forward to seeing them again and can't wait for us all to go tubing together.

Luang Prabang Waterfalls

Joel and I had another early start this morning to meet Kristine for breakfast in the Swedish bakery, (i am going to get so fat if i keep eating cakes for breakfast!) It was a gorgeous sunny day so we decided to go to the waterfalls. As usual in order to get there we had to do an Indiana Jones style jungle walk, over rickety bamboo bridges and rivers. The were lots of ugly insects, huge spiders and lizards on the walk, Joel was very scared but I think I'm getting used to the jungle now...finally! There were lots of smaller waterfalls on the way which were very pretty.

To get to the main waterfall, Tad Sae, we had to get a little wooden boat along the river. It was right in the middle of the jungle and was absolute paradise. It was a huge multitiered waterfall with lots of small turquiose pools to swim in. The trees were growing in the waterfalls, it was unbelievable (You can't really see how amazing it was from the photos). Of all the waterfalls that I have seen on this trip this was definately the most impressive (sorry to say it Nikki, but it really is).

Best of all, we had the whole place to ourselves so we had lots of time to swim about and play in the beautiful clear blue pools.

It was one of my most favourite places that Ive been to on my travels and itis an absolute must for people travelling to Laos!!

I'm off to Lao Lao bar now for some post-swimming beers. I was very adventurous last night and had a water buffalo burger! It was surprisingly very yummy, so maybe I'll have another one with my beer.

xx

All by myself

I left Nikki in a scummy hotel room early Sunday morning. It was sad saying goodbye, but I'm glad to hear she got back okay and is enjoying being back in HK. I was meant to meet Joel in Luang Prabang but there was a mix up with his bus journey so, I was heading north on my own. I was a little worried I wouldn't meet anyone because it can be difficult to meet people when your traveling alone but luckily, as soon as I had left Nikki I met Kristine who was also heading to Luang Prabang so I had someone to talk to on the long 11hour journey.

When we arrived we checked ourselves into a nice, clean hotel with a hot shower and big bed, it was such a luxury compared to the crappy places Nikki and I had been staying in. We went for dinner and had a look around the night market where I wanted to buy everything!!

Luckily Joel had managed to sort his bus out quickly so he arrived in Luang Prabang the next day. It was great to see him again and exchange stories, but we are missing Nikki's presence (we have no one to take the piss out of now). We spent the day walking around the town, shopping and relaxing in all the little cafes.

Luang Prabang is a gorgeous town filled with modern resturants, bars, temples and shops selling handmade jewelry and crafts. It's surrounded by the Mekong river and big green mountains, so it's absolutely beautiful! It's very peaceful and laid back here. There are lots of young children and teenagers attending Buddhist school and training to be Buddhist monks, so the place is filled with young people wearing orange robes doing their duties around town.

We met Kristine for dinner and treated ourselves in a nice French resturant with a bottle of wine (definately not on the backpackers budget!)I'm so classy now Nikki's left me! Despite the name 'Crazy Bob' the wine was delicious, especially after not having a glass for months! We went to Lao Lao bar which has an awesome beer garden, where we met Alex and Karl.

As usual, 11.30 came and the music stopped and it was last orders. There is a national curfew of midnight here! Quite a shock to someone who is use to seeing the sunrise most days. Apparently the place to go after midnight is the bowling alley, so we made our way there. The bowling alley was packed with travellers and was more like a dodgy night club than a bowling alley. After here we decided to head to the only club in the town, which was filled with young locals (we were the only westerners in the place) and they were playing terrible Lao dance and pop music, so we didn't stay for long.

I woke up early today to meet the boys at the Swedish bakery for a yummy (but very unhealthy) breakfast. Despite the hangovers, we hired bikes for the day to explore the town a bit more. We stopped off at Xieng Thong temples, a courtyard with five pretty temples on the Mekong. Even though I've been to see a thousand Buddhist temples, i'm still amazed at them all as there's always something original about each one. These temples were very funky, quite hippy-like actually. They were brightly coloured and full of beautiful, colourful mosaics, inside and out. Joel called them the 'party temples' which is a perfect way to describe them. I loved them!

We stopped off at a couple of little antique shops which sold gorgeous jewelry and lots of buddhas! One of the guys in the shop taught me alot about the buddhas, so now I want to buy them all (Nikki look out for a large package heading to the flat!) We stopped off at a funky bar for stuffed crust pizza (what a treat!) and beers (probably not the best idea whilst riding a bike).

This afternoon we went to a temple at the top of a huge hill, it was a difficult climb! But worth it for the fantastic views of the town and the Mekong at sunset.

I'm off to the night market again now...if I continue shopping like this I'll be back in Hong Kong with Nikki in no time!

xx

I'm back

Well after 86 days, I ran out of money in true Nikki style! This meant that I had to leave Laura (I'm really sorry Mummy Mcegan) and make my way back to Hong Kong to start looking for a job. I have left her in capable hands though as she will probably meet up with Joel and Alastair and Chris.

I am really sad that I had to leave early and did not want to go at all! It Has been so weird spending the last two days without Laura and now being back in Hong Kng without her! After spedning so much time together, Im missing her!

I have has the most amazing time ever whilst we have been travelling and met some wicked people. I dont think I need to say much more about how fabulous it was and what an experinece it was becasue this blog pretty much sums it up! I highly reccomend anyone to do it!

After a 12 hour bus ride (on a nice bus this time), a day on Khoa San road in Bangkok with my backpack and a flight, I arrived in Hong Kong last night and went straight to the bridge! It was really nice to see everyone and catch up. They were all asking about Laura too. I am staying on the sofa at our flat for a while and applying for jobs which is going to be pretty boring!

I would say that I am going to give my liver a rest for a while too now im back but i know that probably wont happen!!

Laura I hope you carry on having an amazing time. Take care!

Nikki
xxxxx

Vientiane

We've had a fantastic couple of days in lovely Vientiane. It's a beautiful little city, very French! Yesterday, we had our monthly dose of history and culture as we visited the National Museum and the victory monument, which is very pretty.


Last night we went bowling. Real life bowling, not Nintendo wii bowling. It turns out that we are much better at the Wii version of the game! It was a tough game but Nikki won by three points. Later we went to Blue Banana Bar which has every kid's board game from Hungry Hippos to Jenga, so we chilled there for the night with some beer Lao.


We were up bright and early this morning to do the rest of the sights. We walked for miles and miles around the city today. We visited Sisamet, a fabulous buddist temple containing over 10,000 small silver Buddha statues in the walls of the temple. It was very impressive! We went to That Luang, a very important Buddist monument which is surrounded by beautiful temples. On the way there we noticed two big musical fountains in a small park, which were very pretty and kept us both entertained for a while. Then we had a walk along the Mekong river and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by a hotel pool.


It's Nikki's last night of travelling before she heads of to Bangkok tomorrow and I leave for Luang Prabang, so this is the last blog entry from the both of us!


xxx

Local bus hell!

We left the lovely Four Thousand Islands on Wednesday and booked ourselves onto an 8 hour bus journey to Savanakhet. The only buses that were available were local buses which we've been on before, they're usually hot, cramped and dirty but they're cheap and get you there in the end. However when we booked ourselves on a local bus in Laos, we weren't expecting this:

We also weren't expecting to be sharing our bus with live chickens!!! We squashed onto the bus with 14 other people and set off down the dusty bumpy paths of Laos on our long journey to Savanakhet. After 10 minutes we stopped and women carrying 8 sacks of live frogs got on the bus, the frogs were jumping around in the sacks, it was horrible! 5 minutes later we stopped again and a man loaded the bus with 4 more bags of unknown live animals! By this point we couldn't put our feet on the floor due to all the animals jumping around and flapping about. We stopped another three times after this so that people could load the bus with random live animals in bags and everytime we stopped we had women running to the bus trying to sell us frog satay and BBQ crickets! Its no surprise that Nikki and I skipped breakfast that morning. We stayed on this bus for two hours, and we were so glad to get off and change buses, which as usual didnt go smoothly. We were left wondering around the dusty town trying to find our bus, finally after an hour we managed to get on the right bus. The 8 hour journey turned into a 12hour journey due to the local bus stopping every 40minutes at horrible 'service stations' filled with goats and chickens (if one of us doesn't get bird flu i'll be very surprised!) It was so frustrating! The toilet stops included the bus pulling over to the side of the road for everyone to get out and pee on the side of the street (we didnt bother!)

When we finally arrived in Savvanakhet we were dusty and dirty and generally pissed off. And the 'fascinating city, tree-lined streets and beautiful french colonial buildings' (as the Lonely Planet describes it) was full of run down buildings and wild dogs! We checked ourselves into a lovely hotel:

I suppose you could compare this to a prison cell

And we decided to leave Savanakhet the next morning!

We woke at 7.30 the next morning to have a wonder around the town before we left, we thought it might look better in the sunshine. It was a very quiet, old town, we felt like we gone back to the 19th century, but some of it was pretty. We were going to go to the Dinosaur museum, a random attraction to put in the middle of no wehere, but there was no english so we didnt bother.

We left yesterday and arrived in the capital city, Vientiane, last night, which we much prefer!

Sadly, this is our last two days together. Due to Nikki's finicial situation she has to go back to Hong Kong and get herself a job asap. We're both very sad and it wll be very strange as we have spent every minute of the past three months together so it will be very wierd for me to be travelling without her. Nikki is obviously upset about leaving but is excited about seeing everyone back in Hong Kong. I'm going to head to Luang Prabang to meet Joel and do the rest of my journey wth him.

We're going to make sure we have an amazing last two days in Vientiane before Nikki goes south to Bangkok and I go north to Luang Prabang.

Don Khon

Last night, we managed to find the only place on the island with a pool table so we had a long drawn out game of pool and some dinner. It was very quiet in all the resturants so we went back to chill in the hammocks and read. We had a very early night, we were in bed before 10pm. We had just got into bed when all the electricity went off, we assumed it was just a power cut. The electricity didn't come back on and was still off this morning...we then realised that the island only has electricity from 6pm until 10pm! So, if you're not in bed before 10pm when the island turns into complete darkness, then theres no chance of finding your bed (you can imagine how difficult it is trying to use the squat tiolet in the middle of the night!)

We were up and out and on our bikes by 9am this morning ready to explore Don Khon island. We cycled 25 kilometres around Don Det and Don Khon, through all the pretty fields and villages. We cycled down to the largest waterfall in Asia (volume-wise) which was amazing! We were very impressed. I couldn't capture it all in one photo because it was so huge!

We then continued to cycle down to the beach, not exactly the type of beach you would like to sunbathe or swim at. The sand was really sparkly, like it had glitter in it, anybody know why? It looked very pretty anyway.

We stopped off for lunch at a cute resturant along the river then relaxed in the hammocks for a couple of hours, to get out of the sun.

This evening we hired a wooden boat with a man and his young son to take us on a trip around the islands to watch the sun set. The sunset was beautiful and the islands and the river looked very pretty. At one point we were sailing on the Mekong with Cambodia at one side of us and Laos at the other side, which was quite cool.

The little boy drove the boat the whole way around the islands.

Cambodia

We've had a fantastic couple of days on the islands, it's definately worth coming here if you're heading to Laos, its one of our favourite places. We're up early tomorrow to catch a boat and two buses to Savanhket for a couple of days, (hopefully they have electricity there!)

xxx

Four Thousand Islands

Sadly, we've left the land of Mekong Whiskey and karaoke bus rides and made our way to Laos. Three days after leaving Sihanoukville, we arrived at Don Det Island part of Four Thousand Islands early this morning. It was quite a journey as we had some long bus rides, a stop over in Phonm Penh and a stop over in Stung Treng (literally the middle of nowhere!!)




The view from our little wooden hut.



Don Det is a very small and quiet island on the Mekong river. Its lined with wooden huts and some cute resturants along the river. There are a few backpackers here but there is a very laid back atmosphere (dont think there'll be any vodka buckets here). We managed to find ourselves a wooden shed with a barred window and barely enough room for both Nikki and I to stand in. It also comes with a luxury squat toilet! Nothing but four star for us girls.


This is why the word Ghetto was invented!

Note the lovely bathroom 'door' on the right. I just love the Tom and Jerry pillow! Our room has one pink light bulb in the corner, which is our only source of light ( I had to put my super big flash on to take this photo) and the light switch is on the hut next door!

It does have a little area with lots of hammocks on the river which is pretty.

The island does have electricity between 6pm and 10am, thank goodness, I wont have to listen to Nikki moan about the heat when we're going to sleep! But no electricity during the day means no air con or fans to tackle the 33 degree heat and no swimming pools or beaches for us to cool down in which makes the heat pretty unbearable.

After we arrived and checked in to our fabulous wooden shed, we hired some 1950's bikes (we're very into our cycling now) to explore the island a bit more. We really enjoyed riding along the river, through the gorgous green feilds and little villages.
The village school (how cute!)

The local bus station...would you get in one of those 'buses'?

It was very picturesque...until i got a puncture (you can image the scene wasn't too pretty then). It sounded like my bike had actually exploded. So, i had to walk all the way back, and it was a long way back, pushing my broken bike in the hot, humid mid-day sun! When I Finally I got it repaired, we set off again on a different path. we have hired bikes alot recently and learnt how to dodge mopeds, trucks, bikes, food stalls and street kids, but what we hadnt prepared for was bulls. They were everywhere, and quite scary to be honest! We rode all around the island and went accross the bridge to Don Khon island which we are going to explore a bit more tomorrow. On our way back we stopped at the bakery for some yummy homemade cakes.



We're just off to get something to eat and maybe a quiet drink, but i don't think theres much going on here past sunset so we'll probabaly be having a very early night ready to tackle the bikes and bulls tomorrow morning!

xx

Number 9

We're back at lovely number 9 guesthouse in Phonm Penh, just for one night then we head to Laos early tomorrow morning.

We had our last night with Alastair and Chris on Thursday, which resulted in ridiculous drinking games with buckets and some messy games of ring of fire! The boys have left us to go to Vietnam but we'll hopefully see them in a couple of weeks in Laos when we met up with Joel.

So it's back to just Nikki and me now. We've been travelling with other people for the past 6 weeks so it's quite strange for it to be just the two of us again. It was very quiet in Sihanoukville yesterday without any of the boys, we spent our last day by the pool, watched a dvd and were in bed by 9.30 for a very well deserved sleep! We were woken up at 7am today by the sound of horrendous Cambodian music being blasted accross the whole of Serendipity beach to celebrate a local wedding. This went on all morning, we were so glad to be leaving at 12 o'clock. Apparently the bride has 15 dress changes on the big day so the noise is probably still going on now.

It's a two day journey up to Four Thousand Island in Laos, were they have no electricity or internet so this will be the last you'll be hearing of us for the next few days.

xx

Bamboo Island

We've had a lazy few days in Sihanoukville, drinking lots of buckets, topping up our tans and playing in the swimming pool. Nikki, Joel and I having a sunset swim.
We've spend the past five days with Chris and Alastair so it's been lots of fun. Chris is officially the funniest person we have ever met so we've had more than a few laughs. Joel has left us in the care of the two boys (probably not a great idea as that just means bigger buckets and more beer towers!) He's left us to spend ten days in Vietnam then we'll meet up with him again in North Laos.

Today we went on a boat trip to Bamboo Island, a beautiful secluded island near Sihanoukville. The beach was very quiet and relaxed here, so we just chilled and sunbathed the whole afternoon, perfect!

Bamboo Island

We wanted to stay for sunset but unfortunately there was a storm heading our way. It was a pretty scary ride home as our little wooden boat got caught up in the massive thunderstorm! The driver couldn't even see were we were going, but we managed to get back safe and sound, soaking wet and cold. (Nikki was very unhappy about this!)

After two days back in the world of employment, we decided that due to Nikki's horrific hangovers and my dodgy kidneys, that 3weeks of drinking buckets non-stop wasn't really going to work for us! So we basically quit before we started. It was a good idea at the time and i'm sure it would be fun, but I think it would proabably kill one of us.

We're spending a couple more days here before we head north, to Four Thousand Island in Laos.

xxx