Tubing

We've had a few crazy nights in Vang Vieng (and spent alot of time watch re-runs of friends to get over them).

We went tubing on sunday (floating down the river on an inflatable tube). Every few metres there was another bar that we got dragged into. All of which have ridiculously high swings, zip lines and a horrific slide (possibly the most terrifying experience of my life!)But lots of fun!

Me and Michelle on the zip line.

Alastair on the scary swing.

It had rained all day so by the end of the day the bars had turned into giant mud baths. It is as dangerous as it sounds! Sarah was found clinging onto a bridge in the dark after going missing for a couple of hours, luckily she was rescued by some locals. We were all a bit bruised the day after but no major injuries. We have really missed Nikki being here, although god knows what injuries she would have suffered.

Of course we did our bit of charity work in the first bar. Drinking for the sake of the disadvataged kids. I cant think of a better way to raise money!

Joel and Sarah have left today to kayak all the way down to Vientiane (hope they make it!) Kristin has gone back to London. It was sad saying goodbye to her last night.

I'm staying here with Chris and Alastair to do some more tubing. Wish me luck!

xxx

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