lurking in laos (part 2)

Evening bugs

After a stressful wait for the bus to Vang Vieng, we were finally collected from our hostel and boarded another creepy local bus. We both were given odd and probably dangerous fold up seats right next to the driver, who drove like a crazy person and loved to use his horn. There were a few occasions where he almost tipped the bus over!

we stumbled cross a nice hotel where we bartered the price to around £5 a night! we had a big balcony, huge double bed and a single bed.

 Vang Vieng is a very relaxed, smallish town in keeping with the lurking culture of laotions. There are some nice bars which we enjoyed on our 1st night. on this night we  were persuaded to cycle the 7km to the blue lagoon by someone who claimed it was a "lovely ride". it was in fact a treacherous journey, along very bumpy roads in the searing heat. holly also sustained an injury en route which started out as a small cut but became very infected later on.

The blue lagoon itself was very pretty and we enjoyed swimming and sunbathing here. we did however treat ourselves to a tuk tuk home.

During our time in VV, steph also sustained a nasty injury on a motorbike, resulting in an ugly burn which also got infected.

On our 3rd night we had a brainwave to sublet our single bed to a friend from our first night, thus saving even more money, however he decided to inform the hotel of our scheming nipping that plan in the bud :(

we had another night out at the only club in town and somehow ended up having a gathering in our room (404). All the bars and club shut really early here much to our annoyance. A french lady complained to us about the noise even though it was only 1am and we werent being loud! she then preceded  to inform reception there was a pa rty in 404.

We arranged to go tubing the next day with our new friends which was really fun however due to a government crackdown only about 3 bars were still open on the river, thus we bought our own alcohol. A bottle of vodka here cost about £1 which was very beneficial to our money saving.
we both fell out of our tubes at various points, getting more injuries. the river was quite shallow at some points and we had to lift up our bums!

Our next stop is Luang Prabang in north laos which requires an overnight bus.

Lurking in Laos

sorry we have been off the map for a while we have been busy; lurking in loas.  after some poor planning, all tourist busses to laos  were fully booked' thus we decided to get there ourselves and navigate the thai bus network. we ended up in many odd bus stations with many hours of waiting and significantly annoyed all laotions on the local bus by making them wait ages for us to get our visas! we finally arrived in Vientiane and checked ourselves in a hostel due to the promise of free vodka and breakfast. unfortunately we were put into a 16 bed dorm which was full of creeps, smelt like the unwashed and was choc a bloc with inconsiderate ingrates who loved nothing more than getting up at 6am and turning on ALL main lights; not the "reading light" as the hostel suggested.

vientiane was not our fave place as there was not a great deal to do and full of what we call, lurkers; as people tended to just sit. to fill our days however we hired bikes nd using our amazing skills learned during cycling proficiency navigated the crazy capital.

we went to an awful mall which was more like an inside hovel filled with lurkers. the night market was also disappointing as there were ugly clothes and nothing of cultural significance. an interesting find was the cope museum - about americas evil bombing of laos during the Vietnam war. there are still many of these uxos or bombys littered over laos which often blow up people and/or a limb off. cope gives these people false limbs. to cheer ourselvs up after the horrors we had witnessed/to contribute to new limbs for others we bought an ice cream, to share.

we went on one night out and at a nice rooftop bar made some laos friends who then took us to a night club. apart from a fat white man with his thai bride we were the only westerners in there so subjected to much staring as eacb laos person seemed to lurk around tables and didnt really dance. 

our second night we drank our free vodka  at our hostel and just sat and talked and lurked until we were told to end the meeting  by the hostel owner.

notable food highlights included a lovely breakfast (eggs benedict and a real fry up), a nice curry and many pancakes which steph enjoys to drown in condensed milk.

next morning we were off early to vang vieng, yet were forgotten about by the tour company and again boarded a creepy local bus where we had awful seats - one next to the driver and one literally in the door of the bus!


laters lurkers 

the life of pai

evening :)
after a long journey to pai on many winding roads, we arrived at our destination. the search then had to begin for a hostel which we thought would be difficult with a group of 6! luckily though we found a lovely, cheap apartment above a burger restaurant with massive beds and a nice living area.
we ventured out for a meal and met some more friends from our other hostel in Chiang Mai, unfortunately the food was not only horrible but expensive too, which greatly upset us for many days.
we decided to drink in the apartment before heading out that night however when we left at around midnight, most places were closing up and we could only have 1 drink :( we have got more used to the early closing and more relaxed culture though now.

the next day we visited a lovely waterfall, however it was very cold. many Thai children performed some very dangerous looking stunts which a few of our group then attempted. we did not partake in this activity as we feel too mature for such activities!!

we next visited the hot springs which have several pools of different temperature water which was really relaxing. there's a special area where you can boil eggs so we attempted this too. unfortunately we failed with both our eggs so a kind German man donated us an egg which we then pretended to our friends we cooked.

another friend from the jungle trek campfire joined us in the evening and we are pleased to say we had a delicious meal of falafel that night which cheered us up. We then traversed to a fun reggae bar caled don't cry, where someone did cry when Holly broke his dreadlock during a game we played called 'behold the dreadlock''. We then had to quickly evacuate and run home. oops.

p.s
our punctuation is usually impeccable however the effect is ruined by writing the blog on the kindle.

it's a bug' s trek

hello bugs. hope you are enjoying the snow haha. we experienced similar conditions on our  "VIP" bus to Chiang Mai. The air con was freezing. we finally arrived early morning and after befriending 2 fellow travellers, began the search for a room. we did not realise how difficult this would be but eventually stumbled across a gem. the owner is a lovely father figure who waits up for us to return every night. He also said he would pick us up from anywhere in the town if we were stuck. sweet.

we then bugged along to a temple and went along to a ' monks chat' where you could ask monks questions about their lives. our monk said some have facebook and they can only eat if people donate them food. we then went to the night bazaar where we suffered much hotel envy after seeing some of the gems Chang MaI has to offer! the next morning we were DYING from too much healthy eating, vitamins and that one barcadi breezed we shared at a club called zoes. we were rudely awoken from our sleep by the leader of the cooking class we forgot we booked. with haste we put on shoes and left the hostel. the cooking course was completely organic and set on a beautiful rural farm with lovely hammocks for napping, which we appreciated. we cooked green curry, jungle curry, pad Thai, veg spring rolls and many other Thai foods. Stephanie had to overcome her phobia of shrimp when she had to step up to the mark and cook some of hollys food when hollys illness took a turn for a worse. however  holly was soon as right as rain and we could both enjoy the farm an d the course. we particularly enjoyed the hour set aside after lunch especially for sleeping. upon our return a new guest had checked into our hostel who surprisingly went to stephs old school. it's a small world after all. we all went out to a cool reggae bar where we met some Thai locals who taught us many useful words such as ' free' ' ma' which means more and 'baa' which means crazy.

again we felt tired for the beginnings of its a bugs trek (which for those of you who do not know is a 3 day 2 night trek to visit hill tribes) and did not enjoy the orchids farm as it was yawn. we really enjoyed the elephant ride yet Elmo often got precariously close to the edge of many treacherous drops. the long neck tribe was also interesting yet we decided we would hate to be a long neck and would leave at first opportunity.

then the actual walk began and holly became sick again and lost her appetite. we decided that being ill on a jungle trek was going to be awful. luckily a kind German soldier carried her rucksack which he said added '1 kg to his weight". outside the gate of the hill tribe 4 hours on holly was finally sick and could begin the long road to recovery. the accommodation was substandard yet very natural. we slept for 11 hours roughly so believe we were truly exhausted. it's a  bugs trek continued the next day still in our converse and vans navigating the treacherous conditions of the jungle. other bugs were more prepared in hiking boots and with sleeping bags. it is unfortunately not in our nature to be prepared. We went to some beautiful waterfalls which were deceptively cold however holly braved the freezing conditions and Steph dipped her feet. finally we arrived at our destination for the night, which somehow managed to be more cold and uncomfortable than the previous night. We did however enjoy a campfire sing song with another bug trek and there were many nationalities present. there were French, German, Dutch,English, Danish and American and we sang songs from all nations.

we awoke stiff and cold after little sleep. we walked a bit more, until we stopped to do white water and bamboo rafting. this was very fun but very wet. we both managed to fall between the bamboo rafts though luckily we're unhurt.

now back in Chiang Mai, our dream is a pizza which we shall have soon. tomorrow we are off to pai where we will chill out and recover.  

goodbye

Tuk tuk love

greetings bugs from Thailand! we eventually made it to the hostel; henceforth known as the hovel. the staff are really nice and love us. the food is also delish and Indian whoop. first night out we met standardly many creeps which we subsequently have been avoiding ~ hard in a tiny road. during an escape mission, we bumped into some rich Canadians who we spent some of days in Bangkok with. they were lovely guys and when we were with them (as they said) "you girls don't have to pay for anything because we will". cute. their hotel was also AMAZING especially the roof top pool! in an unfortunate twist of events', they became a little obsessive and we felt began to ' clip our wings'. we did not respond well to this and thUS it was bye bye to the Canadians :(. we have had many fresh Thai experiences - we had a Thai massage which hurt Stephanie yet I thought was relaxing :). we've also eaten loads of street food like pad Thai and noodle soup! hols even ate a scorpion and a creepy leaf filled with flying ants. creepy. itsabugslife/death. we think we are finally getting over our jet lag but our sleeping pattern has been strange. but oh well. there is so much fake stuff here we've got hats and glasses and creepy trousers. and some nice hair braids!! our haggling skills have definitely become great cos you have to haggle for everything!
Due to the slum like conditions of the hovel, we are yet to spend a night here, thus have befriended many fellow travellers with generous spirits who kindly share their expensive facilities with us. we are sure they expect something in return but offer them only our wit and companionship. Then the Great Escape ensues again.

We have become buddies with many street children who love us because we encourage our new friends to purchase the roses they sell.

However it may seem, we did not just come to partay thus tried to visit a temple earlier, but were rejected for inappropriate attire. Tomorrow we are going to the Grand Palace so had to buy some creepy trousers so the monks do not get offended. We will also go to the floating market to buy yet more crap. In the evening we will finally depart Bangkok for Chiang Mai which we are very excited about :)

laters

Day one

airport was very long..we feel like we now live at one as we spent the majority of our last 2 days hanging around waiting for flights. Dehli airport was pretty nice although strangely really cold - outside temperature was a freeeezing 3 degrees! Currys on the plane were really nice though, entertainment not so. We've never been fans of creepy films like prometheus! We almost got upgraded on the second flight, but our amazing first class seats were cruelly taken away from us when someone realised we weren't actually meant to be there!