We went on the craziest 3 bus trip of our lives to get from Luang Prabang in Laos to Hanoi Vietnam and it took over 30 hours - it was local bus travel (not VIP aircon assigned seats bus!) I don't have much time but I think this story will make you laugh...
We got on the bus at 4-30pm on Sunday afternoon - our bags taken off our backs and thrown onto the roof (without being tied down - we were terrified they were going to bounce off mid way!) We realise that we don't have assigned seats and have to climb over an aisle full of packages and suitcases to get to the back where we squeezed into these tiny chairs and got stared at by a lot of people. We were then confused that the bus wasn't going where we expected, so that was a whole hullabaloo as everyone was looking at our ticket not sure if the bus actually went to our destination. We managed to terrify the hell out of another traveller in this process as we asked him where the bus was heading - he told us it was heading to 'Nong Khai' which we believed to be a city in Thailand and hence in the complete opposite direction to where we needed to be. He was actually trying to say Nong Kiaw which is a city in Northern Laos but also got confused when we told him he was going the wrong way. I think we may have ruined his bus trip and then we couldn't even get to the poor guy afterwards to apologise. An older western man in the back of the bus yells at us to just sit down, but we yell back that we may not be on the right bus and we are worried about our bags flailing about on the top of a bus, unanchored. We finally get a little settled (though still uneasy as we have no idea where we are even going!) until suddenly the bus pulls over - after about half an hour - to get petrol. We see this as an opportunity to see what the story is with our bags. Shelly disembarks and tries to find the bus driver who is now at a stall buying piles of cds to play on the ride (we would hours later wake up to Sean Paul blasting through the speakers!) We try and sleep but its impossible..there is a girl vomitting her poor lungs out right in front of me..I'm scared its going to go on the floor and roll back to me so I get out of my seat and sit amongst a ton of luggage and rice packages in the middle of the aisle. This was actually much more comfortable and gave us all more space. Shell was sitting next to a guy who worked doing goodness knows what on the bus (we figured he was working as we always found him climbing in and out of windows onto the roof and then back through different windows- once terrifying the life out of me! This gave us at least a little confidence that he was tying our bags down!) He fell asleep multiple times on Shell's shoulder and eventually after waking up embarrassed a couple of times, he vanished to somewhere in the front of the bus. We finally manage to get some sleep (a bare minimum!) and arrive at Sam Nua bus station after 15 hours to catch another bus to the border of Vietnam.
We arrive at 8-15am and head straight to the ticket counter. The man tells us in broken English that the bus left at 8am and there's only one bus a day. I almost cry (the town is so crappy we would have had to stay at the bus stand for 24 hours!!!) The look of desperation leads the guy to call the bus back for us and thank goodness we get on. There are just 5 people on the bus - we think "this is awesome!!!" We forget we are in Asia. The next half hour of driving around and we have a bus full to double past capacity. People are sitting on laps. Shelly and I are on a seat thats meant for 2 and a half people with 5 of us squished on. The small floor area in the front of this mini bus now has 8 people squatting together. We pass through the border crossing with no trouble and stop on the other side for lunch - we try to ask the small street noodle lady what she is selling and she stares at us blankly and shoos us away. It has now been 18 hours since the last time we ate anything. We finally get hold of a weird bread roll. We get back on the bus and notice there is now a bamboo cage of chickens squawking under our seat. The bus driver is driving like a madman and smoking and talking on the phone at the same time. He is also constantly stopping to pick up and drop off deliveries - a profitable smuggling business over the border I'm sure. We drive past another bus that has overturned into a stream on the side of the road. We learn from the legitamitely dazed and shocked French couple that climb onto the bus (having to pay a second fare!) that they were also trying to get to Hanoi but the driver was drunk. That certainly settles our nerves! We stop at a checkpoint and see a ferret hung by 1 paw and his neck squirming around off the tent - we get sad and want to drive on. The next thing we know the driver is paying these guards money and they pass him the ferret through the front window. The thing smells like death and is ferociously squirming and biting at everything. They pass this thing back through the bus right past our heads and hang it off the door in the bus. Eventually (after loud protests and squealing on our behalf - and hysterical laughing on behalf of the vietnamese) they find a cage and put it on the top of the bus - but for the whole journey we could just smell this poor dying animal. The woman in front of us is throwing up into a bottle so we give her the window seat and Jessie is now sitting on the floor against my legs. A few hours later we roll up to a cellphone shop and a guy donned in mafia gear (black vest with huge gold chains and earings) comes out and BUYS the FERRET. Now, we actually are completely gobsmacked. The poor animal is thrown from the top of the roof looking stiff as ever - though still moving a fraction and taken into the store with him and the driver and him exchange cash. We finally arrive for a dinner stop at 7pm. But we have no Vietnamese money to pay and there are no ATMs in sight. We get back on the bus only to be told we are changing buses (our bags are being thrown to another bus!) We get on this bus to find ZERO seats! (of course all the Vietnamese are in the know and have secured all the comfy spots!) They move us around and Im stuck in the very back with about an inch of leg room - one leg finds refuge in the air for the next 4 hours! - I also bruised my cocksyx a week ago so I have trouble sitting down as it is! The driver is swinging madly in and out of oncoming traffic and I have to constantly close my eyes to avoid seeing a massive truck coming at us. Every 2 minutes I'm raised off my seat a foot in the air over massive bumps and potholes. We arrive at 11pm (30 hours after leaving!!) and are pretty much thrown off the bus onto the side of the road into the jaws of the awaiting taxi drivers. We get sadistically ripped off by the taxi driver but are too tired to even notice at this point. We eventually find a good hostel, eat some rejuvenating pumpkin soup and PASS OUT.
And that is the story of how we arrived in Vietnam. It was a hilarious and ridiculous trip that I would never repeat in a million years BUT it was pretty entertaining and has brought us a lot of laughs in the couple of days since.
Home in 10 days!!!!! Seeeeeeeeeeeeee you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon!
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
A little hop, skip and Jump Jump over the Bay of Bengal.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeelloooooooooooooooooooooooooooo out there. It has been more than a month since the last post I wrote in Mumbai and I know that ordinarily I should be continuing the story of our adventure in India. I will come back to that in due time but since we are actually now in Laos with the past two week of adventures still fresh in my mind, I thought I'd change it up a bit and write about what we have been doing here.
After arriving fresh off the plane to Bangkok, Thailand and partying with Sang-Sonm Whisky bucket non-stop for 4 days (literally I have just one mere hungover day time picture of Khao San road), we bustled 2 hours south to a timeshare resort on the beach in Pattaya. Now Pattaya is not exactly a lady traveler's favourite destination - mainly because of the extremely indiscreet sex industry, but we had the timeshare in a swanky two bedroom apartment in a fancy resort (which was a massive change to our budget accommodations in India - to actually sleep on a bed with a proper soft mattress was like a touch of heaven!) We spent a week recuperating and rejuvenating our energy laying at the pool, watching movies, reading, chilling on the beach, eating at the Korean Buffet like professionals, drinking a couple of much needed cocktails and trying to decide what to do next.
We taxi-ed up to Bangkok for Halloween where I was pretty set on staying in and getting some rest, however when a 5 metre high DJ stage was erected a foot outside the entrance to our hostel and dance music and strobe lights began to make my bed vibrate, I figured it was a losing battle, put on my dancing shoes and plunged into the madness. We danced all night with hundreds of Thai locals, foreigners and others in scary masks and dragged ourselves into bed for a few hours around 7am. The next day was lost once again but at least we managed to get ourselves to the bus station in one piece and board our overnight bus to Nong Khai (a little city at the Lao border.)
Nong Khai was such a pleasant surprise, mainly because of 'Mut Mee Guesthouse' - a rustic setting in a gorgeous garden complete with hammocks, swings and quiet nestled on the banks of the Mekong River. We loved it so much that we decided to stay an extra day and explore the local spots. The city is also relatively small and flat which gave us the perfect opportunity to learn how to drive scooters. We rented 2 between the three of us from the cute little man across the street and after a few disaster-free practice rounds of the block, we set off toward the famous Sculpture Garden where we snapped some fun pictures with the interesting stone sculptures - some of which were the size of a small building. We scooted around town for most of the afternoon stopping at a couple of markets and whizzing through all the rice paddies along the Mekong, waving at the local farmers and taking in the truly breath taking scenery. We stopped to watch the sun set at a beautiful spot on the river with some local fisherman and then buzzed along the highway in the evening breeze back to the guesthouse for a traditional thai/lao dinner on the floating restaurant. We were back in our room soon after wards, getting ready for bed when we noticed an exceptionally large shadow on our window/mosquito netting. It turns out it was a white and brown spotted ghekko the size of your arm stalking a moth the size of your hand. We crept out onto the balcony to watch this natural wonder in action, jumping with fright every time anything moved a muscle. It was quite the way to end such a productive day in Nong Khai, especially since it left us laughing our heads off to get ourselves to sleep. .
We woke up and crossed the border early with our 'on arrival visas' taking no time at all and hitched a Tuk Tuk to Vientiane. After checking in to our hostel, we ambled along the river (the second of 4 places where we would encounter the great Mekong in Laos.) and had some street food and delicious BEERLAO's (for which the Lao people are extremely proud) before getting an early night's rest. We woke up and headed for the BEERLAO brewery hoping to get a tour and a beer tasting. BeerLao is like Coca Cola for most countries in Lao. You find it on every street corner, on every billboard and everyone knows about it and it tastes pretty dam delicious. Sadly when we got to the factory because of construction (of course) we weren't able to catch the tour but we did sneak in a tasting and watch an interesting video. We then decided to walk along the road back towards the city stopping at various road side local restaurants for more BeerLaos. This was so much fun and we met a lovely entourage of Lao people who were all too happy to teach us about their food and culture. (We were given the local delicacy - raw pork sausage with fresh hot chillies!) But after the 3rd of 4th restaurant, it was dark, we were drunk and it was time to try and get back into the city - however we were 15kms out and without a Tuk Tuk in sight resorted to sticking out our thumbs on the side of the road, hoping like hell for a decent lift. Luckily we were picked up by a lovely group of young Laotians (and not the inevitable serial killer) on their way back from Luang Prabang and they happily dropped us back in our area. We went from their to another bar for a BeerLao Tower, had a street side banana pancake and fell into bed around 3am. Another Successful day in Laos.
And so it was on to Vang Vieng. A 5 hour bus ride, inclusive of the typical tyre changes and we arrived, settling into a homely, cheap and comforatble guest house for the night. We woke up ready for a long day ahead - an activity famous to Vang Vieng and well known to tourists around the world - TUBING!!!!!!! One basically hires a tube, is taken by Tuk Tuk to a point at the top of the Nam Song River and then spends the afternoon floating downstream while stopping in the numerous bars along the way for Liquor Buckets, dancing, sliding and swinging. At least one person dies each year doing stupid drunken things like going head first down a steep slide and smashing into the side or getting lost after dark in the river never to be found again - so we were of course a little apprehensive about drinking our usual amounts of happy juice - but it didn't stop us from having a wicked time. On arrival at the first bar we were spray painted and fed with LAOLAO whisky shots, we danced,slid and swung and then dragged our tubes into the water to begin the adventure. It was very peaceful just observing the mountains, the scenery and enjoying the water before we were thrown a rope to be pulled in to the next bar. Bar by Bar we went, drinking some buckets, having some tequilas, swinging wildly into the air and dancing up a storm in the sun. By the third bar we were happy chappys and decided to press on to the 4th bar, giving us a little more time to enjoy the water. At the fourth bar we came upon the 'Death slide' which was very wide and had a hell of a dip before flinging you back upwards and into the water. It was great fun, but unfortunately on my second go, I came off the slide at a bad angle to the water and bruised what i think is my cocksyx. Now more than a week later, it is still painful to sit down in certain angles making our numerous long bus rides since not a very enjoyable experience. But the day was still not over. We floated on and caught a Tuk Tuk back to the tubing station just in time to get our deposit back and then after a change of wet clothes for dry ones, headed over a rickety bamboo bridge to 'BUCKET BAR' where we drank and danced all night with every other person in Vang Vieng. A truly blissful, hilarious and all around brilliant day. I would recommend tubing at least once to anyone passing through Laos!
We spent most of the next day recovering and then took a painfully bumpy (especially with a bruised cocksyx!) minibus ride 6 hours north to Luang Prabang and then after a few hours downtown another 15 hour bus ride up and down some more mountains North West to Huay Xai where the famous 'Gibbon Experience' in the Bokeo Nature Reserve awaited us. Although it was the most costly part of our trip, it was completely worth it. It is a Conservation Program that aimed to save the Black Crested Gibbon from extinction by giving the local villagers jobs as guides, builders, cooks and the like that provided a better income for them and their families than they previously earned by hunting Gibbons. They created a zip lining experience throughout the reserve where only handful of tourists a day can search for Gibbons and other wildlife, trek and hike with unlimited access to the reserve and use the many loooong cables to zip around while sleeping in small tree houses up to 200 metres above the ground, accessible only by cable. And wow, it was an incredible experience. We were taken by Tuk Tuk to a small village on the outside of the reserve, 3 hours outside of Huay Xai. We of course had to stop en route for a tyre change and even helped a Lao family push their tractor up a muddy hill. We arrived at the village and embarked on a 2 hour hike into the forest, eventually reaching the first camp at the top of a humungous hill where we were allocated to our treehouses and given our harnasses. We hiked for another hour or so and zipped over our first few cables, eventually taking another short cable to reach TREEHOUSE 3 - which had the best view over the whole tree covered valley. We practiced our zipping in and out of the tree house to get used to the steering and braking and had a sunset dinner with our 2 new roommates from the Netherlands. We watched the beautiful sunset (some from the open freezing cold shower!) and after some cards, we felt it was time for bed at the very late hour of 7:30PM.. With just a Mosquito net and a thin tin roof covering us from the sea of stars, we slept like babies. We were woken up early (at 5am) by the other group coming to watch the sunrise from our magnificient viewpoint. (Instead of a knock on the door, we just hear the zoooom zooom and inevitable landing of people arriving by cable.) After eventually getting a spot on our own railing, we stood in silence listening to the Gibbons singing to each other in the trees echoing all over the hills. They were so close to our tree house that we felt we had to go out and look for them, even though our guides (Ja To and Dtoo) hadn't arrived yet. Luckily we did explore because we saw some female(light brown coloured) Gibbons jumping through the trees.(Sadly it was much to fast to get a picture!) But wow, it was incredible. We hiked back to our tree house to find our guides waiting for us with breakfast of sticky rice(a loatian staple food), vegetables and omelette. We spent the rest of the day on the Gibbon Search, hiking and zipping around the reserve. Again, we were lucky to hear an entire troupe of Gibbons moving above us in the trees. It was so exciting. We hiked and zipped up and down short hills, down hills, steep hills and the death hill. We zipped and zipped till we could zip no more seeing some of the most incredible views and mind blowing feelings I've ever had eventually retreating back to tree house 3 for the night (once again sleep came to visit at 8pm.) We were up just before dawn to go out on a morning trek and after a little more zipping gathered our belongings together to make the long hike back to the village. We learnt how to play Rattenball (a local game similar to volleyball) with the guides back at camp and then trekked through the rice paddies back to the village where an ice cold BEERLAO awaited us. Another 3 hour Tuk Tuk singing Lao and English songs and playing games with the guides and we were back in Huay Xai ready to jump straight onto the overnight bus to Luang Prabang.
We are leaving Luang Prabang tonight for the Vietnamese border and hope to arrive in Hanoi by tomorrow night. It has been a fantastic experience in Laos and I really hope to be back here again one day. I loved the gorgeous scenery, friendly people, delicious food and laid back attitude.
We have just 10 days in Vietnam (as we spent a lot longer than expected in Laos) and will be back in Bangkok for a few days before we fly home on the 29th of November.
Hope you enjjoyed reading and I'll be seeing you sooooooooooooooooooooooooon
Sending Love (as always!)
Katie
After arriving fresh off the plane to Bangkok, Thailand and partying with Sang-Sonm Whisky bucket non-stop for 4 days (literally I have just one mere hungover day time picture of Khao San road), we bustled 2 hours south to a timeshare resort on the beach in Pattaya. Now Pattaya is not exactly a lady traveler's favourite destination - mainly because of the extremely indiscreet sex industry, but we had the timeshare in a swanky two bedroom apartment in a fancy resort (which was a massive change to our budget accommodations in India - to actually sleep on a bed with a proper soft mattress was like a touch of heaven!) We spent a week recuperating and rejuvenating our energy laying at the pool, watching movies, reading, chilling on the beach, eating at the Korean Buffet like professionals, drinking a couple of much needed cocktails and trying to decide what to do next.
We taxi-ed up to Bangkok for Halloween where I was pretty set on staying in and getting some rest, however when a 5 metre high DJ stage was erected a foot outside the entrance to our hostel and dance music and strobe lights began to make my bed vibrate, I figured it was a losing battle, put on my dancing shoes and plunged into the madness. We danced all night with hundreds of Thai locals, foreigners and others in scary masks and dragged ourselves into bed for a few hours around 7am. The next day was lost once again but at least we managed to get ourselves to the bus station in one piece and board our overnight bus to Nong Khai (a little city at the Lao border.)
Nong Khai was such a pleasant surprise, mainly because of 'Mut Mee Guesthouse' - a rustic setting in a gorgeous garden complete with hammocks, swings and quiet nestled on the banks of the Mekong River. We loved it so much that we decided to stay an extra day and explore the local spots. The city is also relatively small and flat which gave us the perfect opportunity to learn how to drive scooters. We rented 2 between the three of us from the cute little man across the street and after a few disaster-free practice rounds of the block, we set off toward the famous Sculpture Garden where we snapped some fun pictures with the interesting stone sculptures - some of which were the size of a small building. We scooted around town for most of the afternoon stopping at a couple of markets and whizzing through all the rice paddies along the Mekong, waving at the local farmers and taking in the truly breath taking scenery. We stopped to watch the sun set at a beautiful spot on the river with some local fisherman and then buzzed along the highway in the evening breeze back to the guesthouse for a traditional thai/lao dinner on the floating restaurant. We were back in our room soon after wards, getting ready for bed when we noticed an exceptionally large shadow on our window/mosquito netting. It turns out it was a white and brown spotted ghekko the size of your arm stalking a moth the size of your hand. We crept out onto the balcony to watch this natural wonder in action, jumping with fright every time anything moved a muscle. It was quite the way to end such a productive day in Nong Khai, especially since it left us laughing our heads off to get ourselves to sleep. .
We woke up and crossed the border early with our 'on arrival visas' taking no time at all and hitched a Tuk Tuk to Vientiane. After checking in to our hostel, we ambled along the river (the second of 4 places where we would encounter the great Mekong in Laos.) and had some street food and delicious BEERLAO's (for which the Lao people are extremely proud) before getting an early night's rest. We woke up and headed for the BEERLAO brewery hoping to get a tour and a beer tasting. BeerLao is like Coca Cola for most countries in Lao. You find it on every street corner, on every billboard and everyone knows about it and it tastes pretty dam delicious. Sadly when we got to the factory because of construction (of course) we weren't able to catch the tour but we did sneak in a tasting and watch an interesting video. We then decided to walk along the road back towards the city stopping at various road side local restaurants for more BeerLaos. This was so much fun and we met a lovely entourage of Lao people who were all too happy to teach us about their food and culture. (We were given the local delicacy - raw pork sausage with fresh hot chillies!) But after the 3rd of 4th restaurant, it was dark, we were drunk and it was time to try and get back into the city - however we were 15kms out and without a Tuk Tuk in sight resorted to sticking out our thumbs on the side of the road, hoping like hell for a decent lift. Luckily we were picked up by a lovely group of young Laotians (and not the inevitable serial killer) on their way back from Luang Prabang and they happily dropped us back in our area. We went from their to another bar for a BeerLao Tower, had a street side banana pancake and fell into bed around 3am. Another Successful day in Laos.
And so it was on to Vang Vieng. A 5 hour bus ride, inclusive of the typical tyre changes and we arrived, settling into a homely, cheap and comforatble guest house for the night. We woke up ready for a long day ahead - an activity famous to Vang Vieng and well known to tourists around the world - TUBING!!!!!!! One basically hires a tube, is taken by Tuk Tuk to a point at the top of the Nam Song River and then spends the afternoon floating downstream while stopping in the numerous bars along the way for Liquor Buckets, dancing, sliding and swinging. At least one person dies each year doing stupid drunken things like going head first down a steep slide and smashing into the side or getting lost after dark in the river never to be found again - so we were of course a little apprehensive about drinking our usual amounts of happy juice - but it didn't stop us from having a wicked time. On arrival at the first bar we were spray painted and fed with LAOLAO whisky shots, we danced,slid and swung and then dragged our tubes into the water to begin the adventure. It was very peaceful just observing the mountains, the scenery and enjoying the water before we were thrown a rope to be pulled in to the next bar. Bar by Bar we went, drinking some buckets, having some tequilas, swinging wildly into the air and dancing up a storm in the sun. By the third bar we were happy chappys and decided to press on to the 4th bar, giving us a little more time to enjoy the water. At the fourth bar we came upon the 'Death slide' which was very wide and had a hell of a dip before flinging you back upwards and into the water. It was great fun, but unfortunately on my second go, I came off the slide at a bad angle to the water and bruised what i think is my cocksyx. Now more than a week later, it is still painful to sit down in certain angles making our numerous long bus rides since not a very enjoyable experience. But the day was still not over. We floated on and caught a Tuk Tuk back to the tubing station just in time to get our deposit back and then after a change of wet clothes for dry ones, headed over a rickety bamboo bridge to 'BUCKET BAR' where we drank and danced all night with every other person in Vang Vieng. A truly blissful, hilarious and all around brilliant day. I would recommend tubing at least once to anyone passing through Laos!
We spent most of the next day recovering and then took a painfully bumpy (especially with a bruised cocksyx!) minibus ride 6 hours north to Luang Prabang and then after a few hours downtown another 15 hour bus ride up and down some more mountains North West to Huay Xai where the famous 'Gibbon Experience' in the Bokeo Nature Reserve awaited us. Although it was the most costly part of our trip, it was completely worth it. It is a Conservation Program that aimed to save the Black Crested Gibbon from extinction by giving the local villagers jobs as guides, builders, cooks and the like that provided a better income for them and their families than they previously earned by hunting Gibbons. They created a zip lining experience throughout the reserve where only handful of tourists a day can search for Gibbons and other wildlife, trek and hike with unlimited access to the reserve and use the many loooong cables to zip around while sleeping in small tree houses up to 200 metres above the ground, accessible only by cable. And wow, it was an incredible experience. We were taken by Tuk Tuk to a small village on the outside of the reserve, 3 hours outside of Huay Xai. We of course had to stop en route for a tyre change and even helped a Lao family push their tractor up a muddy hill. We arrived at the village and embarked on a 2 hour hike into the forest, eventually reaching the first camp at the top of a humungous hill where we were allocated to our treehouses and given our harnasses. We hiked for another hour or so and zipped over our first few cables, eventually taking another short cable to reach TREEHOUSE 3 - which had the best view over the whole tree covered valley. We practiced our zipping in and out of the tree house to get used to the steering and braking and had a sunset dinner with our 2 new roommates from the Netherlands. We watched the beautiful sunset (some from the open freezing cold shower!) and after some cards, we felt it was time for bed at the very late hour of 7:30PM.. With just a Mosquito net and a thin tin roof covering us from the sea of stars, we slept like babies. We were woken up early (at 5am) by the other group coming to watch the sunrise from our magnificient viewpoint. (Instead of a knock on the door, we just hear the zoooom zooom and inevitable landing of people arriving by cable.) After eventually getting a spot on our own railing, we stood in silence listening to the Gibbons singing to each other in the trees echoing all over the hills. They were so close to our tree house that we felt we had to go out and look for them, even though our guides (Ja To and Dtoo) hadn't arrived yet. Luckily we did explore because we saw some female(light brown coloured) Gibbons jumping through the trees.(Sadly it was much to fast to get a picture!) But wow, it was incredible. We hiked back to our tree house to find our guides waiting for us with breakfast of sticky rice(a loatian staple food), vegetables and omelette. We spent the rest of the day on the Gibbon Search, hiking and zipping around the reserve. Again, we were lucky to hear an entire troupe of Gibbons moving above us in the trees. It was so exciting. We hiked and zipped up and down short hills, down hills, steep hills and the death hill. We zipped and zipped till we could zip no more seeing some of the most incredible views and mind blowing feelings I've ever had eventually retreating back to tree house 3 for the night (once again sleep came to visit at 8pm.) We were up just before dawn to go out on a morning trek and after a little more zipping gathered our belongings together to make the long hike back to the village. We learnt how to play Rattenball (a local game similar to volleyball) with the guides back at camp and then trekked through the rice paddies back to the village where an ice cold BEERLAO awaited us. Another 3 hour Tuk Tuk singing Lao and English songs and playing games with the guides and we were back in Huay Xai ready to jump straight onto the overnight bus to Luang Prabang.
We are leaving Luang Prabang tonight for the Vietnamese border and hope to arrive in Hanoi by tomorrow night. It has been a fantastic experience in Laos and I really hope to be back here again one day. I loved the gorgeous scenery, friendly people, delicious food and laid back attitude.
We have just 10 days in Vietnam (as we spent a lot longer than expected in Laos) and will be back in Bangkok for a few days before we fly home on the 29th of November.
Hope you enjjoyed reading and I'll be seeing you sooooooooooooooooooooooooon
Sending Love (as always!)
Katie
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