from one capital to another...

In the last week we have travelled from Vientiane to Phnom Penh, and though on the map you would not think it to be a very long journey, when you add the 'Asian public transport' aspect to the mix, it becomes a whole different game. Generally the waiting-around-for-no-apparent-reason-yet-a-really-long-time game.

We spent probably 3-4 hours (but it felt like 10) on a tuk-tuk that would comfortably hold 5, with 20ish people, all the luggage and a chicken. We had one "5 hour" bus trip that took 8 or 9 hours. We had a tire explode on one of our buses.

Anyway, that is all behind us now.

As I said, we left Vang Vieng and headed for Vientiane, the capital of Laos. We did some shopping, had a bit of a massage, went bowling, spent a few evenings on what would be a very relaxed river front if it weren't for the insanely loud, ridiculous Western music all the stall holders were playing at the nearby market. A stall promoting Milo was playing Linkin Park. Why?

We also went zip-lining which is superfun and extremely terrifying and basically involves flying-foxing between trees in the canopy of a forest. In case you haven't had a very good day or just need a bit of a laugh, this is what we looked like when we did it...

And the photo above is the end of our zip-lining adventure...Will being lowered down to safe ground, as shaky and adrenaline-filled as I was, I imagine.
After we had hit the 'big city' we left for our first stop on our journey to the Cambodian border. It was a tiny little village that had a 7km lake tunnelling through an enormous cave as its drawcard. It was a town in a very beautiful setting, and Will and I could hardly control our childlike delight over all of the baby animals exploring around. Everyone was friendly also...a little boy stopped us in the street so I could give him a high 5.

And there is the spooky entrance to the spooky 7km of cave we boated through. Spooky.

We left this town almost as soon as we finished our caving adventure and began a hell of a few days spent almost exlcusively on public transport, but I won't bore with any details. Although one of the towns we stopped in had a lantern festival celebrating the end of the Bhuddist Lent that was quite pretty to look at, and on the same night we were slightly terrified our tuk-tuk driver was going to murder us. But only for a moment, then he didn't. Apart from that...buses.
And this chapter ends in Si Phan Don, a region of islands at the base of Laos, where we spent one day kayaking and searching for Irrawaddy dolphins (of which there are only 20 left in this area and only one baby has been born in the last 3 years...needless to say they are incredibly rare and endangered, although we did see a few and I even managed to film them doing a bit of frolicking) before we crossed the border into Cambodia.

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.