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