two-ket.

The title is Will's joke, referring to the fact that Vang Vieng, destination number 2 in Laos, is pretty much exactly like Phuket only on a river not a sea and in Laos not Thailand. This little town, which I imagine used to be a peaceful idyll for fishermen and villagers, has turned into a place that exists exclusively for tourists...loud, drunken tourists. We spent only one day in Vamg Vieng. That was enough. But it was a nice day.

We hired pushbikes and road out of town along 'cave road'(this is just what I have taken to calling it because I don't know its real name and it is the road to all the caves) and after a few distractions we eventually found the cave we were looking for, complete with welcoming lagoon at its base. On our way along cave road two little boys decided they didn't really want to walk all the way home so they jumped on the back of our bikes and we rode onward until they jumped off and ran into their respective houses with their respective cheeky grins.

After exploring the huge cavern of darkness we started the ride home, but after about 5 minutes the chain on Will's crappy rental bike snapped, so we had to think of another way to get the nearly useless bike home. So what do you do when there are two people and only one bike on which the pedals work? Simple, you connect the two bikes and have a bit of a sit down while your grilfriend pedals you both home! Most of the locals we passed had a good laugh about that...some of them just stared in incomprehension. That was our day, and here are some pictures from it.

sabaai-dii! welcome to laos...

Welcome to Laos...you need tuk tuk?

After 2 days traveling on a boat along the Mekong from Huay Xai (where we crossed the border from Thailand) to Luang Prabang, what we really, really didn't need was a tuk tuk. Luckily the drivers were understanding and undemanding.

Luang Prabang is a lovely little town, with a small peninsula, a lantern-lit night market and lots of cafes, restaurants and street food. We whiled away a little of each evening at the market which was a pleasant stroll as most of the vendors were too busy eating, lounging or laughing with their friends to bother uninterested passers-by.

Luang Prabang is a town for relaxing and certainly no place to rush...so we didn't. We hired bicycles and rode around to some temples where we spoke to a novice monk with excellent English and got totally ripped off by 3 cute, little girls selling bracelets. We had 'traditional Lao' massages (that, if I'm being honest, were not really relaxing at all...more like the feeling you get when you are being beaten up I wold imagine) and we visited book shops and French cafes. We also took part in a cooking course where we learned to make banana soup and stuffed bamboo shoots and lemon grass. Then we stuffed our faces with the fruits of our labours.

There were tour operators all over town advertising trips to a nearby waterfall, but having an unfavourable view of group tours we decided to rent a scooter and drive out ourselves. It being monsoon season the falls were even more impressive than usual...

On the way back to town I decided it must be my turn to drive the scooter as I had never done it before and thought it looked like fun. Everybody who knows me well will be shaking your heads right now, at the truly terribe idea that this was. And you would be right to do so. And Will knew this as well I think, but he also knew that I would get very cranky if I wasn't allowed to have a turn so he hoped for the best and gave me control.

Everything was going spectacularly well...until a giant butterfly (it was like a small bird, honestly, I'm not even lying) flew into my chest and I stopped concentraing on the road in order to make sure the butterfly wasn't on me anywhere. Perfectly reasonable. And it wasn't. But we also weren't on the road anymore, we were driving through the scrub and in the confusion I forgot that I had to remove my hand from the accelerator to stop and tried dragging my feet on the ground. So then I had to do this...

That and I am no longer allowed to ride scooters or motorbikes (by the rule of a worried boyfriend). But that is ok with me.

further a-field

After we laughed with relief at making our flight off Phuket, we had a look at our trusty guide book to find a guest house in Chiang Mai, a town in the north of Thailand, and our next destination. We decided on what looked like a winner, cheap and comfortable with internet and a restaurant. Until we got there and it was closed....since it was nearly 11 at night we weren't being to picky and just went to the next cheap, open place we could find. Apparently it was a place filled with elephants that liked to wake up irritatingly early.

After not too much sleep (because you must never have TOO much sleep....hmmmm) we left the noisy place and went back to our first choice. Then we went to book an overnight trek for the following day and to find trekking shoes, which suddenly seemed like a very important addition to our backpacks.

At 10 the next morning we were picked up and met our trekking buddies which included a father and daughter from Barcelona, a girl from London, a guy who was Canadian but was living in Afghanistan as he served in the army and two German boys who had that odd German way about them. After driving for a while and stopping occasionally at places that gave us opportunities to buy things, we had some fried rice for lunch and then set off on our trek for the day. Our trek for the day involved walking to the top of a really, really big hill where we would sleep for the night in bamboo huts, but it turned out the Germans thought it was a race up the mountain and charged off ahead leaving me to wonder if I was indeed an obese couch potato. Apparently not though, they just wanted to prove themselves. But the exercise was worth it in the end...

We hung out in the little village on the mountain for the rest of the evening and after dinner when we all realised we had no playing cards and there was no TV our guide showed us riddles he made with toothpicks and none of us solved any of them. Then he sung acoustic Thai songs to us with his guitar and when he offered his guitar around nobody else could play it. Then we realised we were probably the worst group ever.

The next day we set off down the moutain at a leisurely 10am. It was far far easier than climbing it, though a challenge presented itself in trying not to slip down the near vertical sections of slippery mud we were walking down. We got to the bottom and found our elephant friends who were going to take us for a walk around the river.

Then we rafted in the river. That was my favourite thing to do. After we had rafted a little (but not too much because I think the wet season makes the river too dangerous in some sections) we did some bridge jumping and then we were back on the road to Chiang Mai.

We had a bit more of a poke around Chiang Mai then we caught the bus to Chiang Rai, further north and nearer the border crossing into Laos. Nothing remarkable happened in Chiang Rai...it's a nice little town and there was a monsoonal thunder storm while we were snuggled up cosily in our $5 a night guest house. This is how we entertained ourselves.

And I think I might leave you all to ponder that...