To the Mekong and beyond !!!!!

Having said goodbye to all our new friends in Pai and getting the WORST passport photos ever taken for our Laos visas (see previous blog entry for proof !) we jumped on the overnight minibus to take us to the Thai / Laos border. After approximately 3 hours sleep we were woken up and herded on to a small river taxi to make the short trip across the Mekong between the two countries, where after passing through immigration and suffering the indignation of having to hand over the aforementioned photos we found ourselves in Laos, a country so laid-back it makes Rhyll look like New York.

The next 2 days were spent on a slow boat travelling down the Mekong river towards Luang Prabang. This started off as a fun experience but soon deteriorated into the equivalent of a never-ending coach journey on the M4 but with better scenery.

At one point Charlotte was tempted to jump overboard and start swimming as she was adamant that this would be a faster method of getting to our destination.

Along the way we stopped off at Pak Beng where we had our first experiences of Laotian food and the craziness that seems to infect all the locals in the form of a group of 40+ women walking up the street whooping & giggling like they had all been at the mushroom shakes !

After 2 butt-aching days we disembarked from the slow boat in Luang Prabang which turned out to be a kind of middle-aged French peoples holiday resort, complete with bistros & creperies, surrounded by buddhist temples.

Which was all very nice but  once we'd been there a day we'd seen most of it so we jumped in a minivan which was only slightly more crowded than the slowboat and set off for Vang Vieng which has achieved legendary status on the traveler trail as the home of "tubing" but more about that later....

Vang Vieng was surrounded by beautiful scenery and we managed to get ourselves a hut right on the river

Even if we did have to cross the worlds most rickety bridge to reach it !

With this done we hired a moped and set off to see some of the local scenery which included the biggest waterfall we've seen to date

Before heading back into town to watch an amazing sunset and laugh at all the people flailing drunkenly down the river in the darkness at the end of their tubing experience safe in the knowledge that as we were both older & wiser than the majority of travelers in town that definitely would not be us

That evening we met another couple from England and arranged to go "tubing" with them the following day. For those who don't know tubing involves hiring a large inner tube in town and then being driven 4 kilometers up stream where you plop yourself in the river and float back into town stopping off at the various riverside bars along the way - which should take about 3 hours. Sounds like a recipe for disaster (and in Matts brothers case actually was....but that's another story), but as previously stated we are a bit older and therefore a bit more responsible so we knew we'd be ok.

Therefore the next morning we found ourselves crossing yet another rickety bridge on our way to the first bar at the start of the tubing run

Things got off to an ominous start when as we crossed the threshold of the bar we had our heads held back with our mouths open whilst staff members poured a large quantity of Laotian whisky down our throats......mmmm whisky breakfast. As soon as we'd got over the shock of this we sat down with our new friends Luke & Rachel and had a few warm up beers

Once we'd got the first 4 or 5 beers inside us to settle our stomachs after our whisky treat we thought  2 hours was probably long enough for the first bar so only stumbling slightly we jumped in the river, Charlotte banging her ass on the riverbed as she did so (grace & poise baby, grace & poise) and began "tubing".....

...unfortunately within 25 meters we "somehow" found ourselves being towed into the next bar (which you can see in the video HERE) where we were yet again forced to drink a large shot of Laotian whisky meaning that we "had" to buy a bucket of rum & pineapple to get rid of the taste and as it was 2 for 1 it meant that we accidentally ended up with a bucket each ! This was a good thing however as it gave both of us the courage to jump off the high dive board

With Matt insisting that he do it with his Chelsea flag

(little tip for you all from Matt - don't do this whilst suffering with piles as it's bloody painful when you land !)

Upon checking our watches we realised that yet another 2 hours had passed and we were still only 25 meters from our start point. Shit ! So it was back in the tubes again, this time swaying considerably as we did so, and off down the river we went determined to make it past the next bar....which we duly did, Yay us ! Alas the next bar was too much of a temptation so we found oursleves being lassoed and dragged into shore again with Matt managing to lose his sunglasses in the process by falling off the ladder while attempting to get out of the river (it's alright though because he "found" another pair on the floor almost immediately)

By this time we were acting like the kind of people you want to have out there in the world representing the UK

But at least they didn't make us drink anymore of that lovely whisky.

Charlotte & Rachel then decided to entertain Luke & Matt, and therefore the whole bar, by putting on a dance show....not that kind of show ! It was in fact a perfect demonstration of "drunken English chicks dancing to Michael Jackson" and was highly appreciated, if not fully understood, by all present.....but you don't have to take our word for it, check out the youtube video HERE

It was now 17:40 meaning that we had 20 minutes to return our innertubes or risk losing our deposit (a whopping $4 !) so it was back in the tubes. By this point we were using the "fall in the river and hang on for dear life" method.

We soon realised that this was a bad idea as the sun rapidly disappeared and we found ourselves completely drunk, floating in near darkness in freezing cold water on a river which seemed to have suddenly sped up and developed lots of whirlpools and rocks for us to crash into ! After an hour of flailing drunkenly in the darkness and shrieking at each other (well mostly it was Charlotte doing the shrieking) we decided to give up and pull in at the next bar/hotel where we could get a rickshaw to take us back into town. Tubing had beaten us. Thank god we're "older & wiser" eh.

The next morning we decided that we'd have another crack at tubing but this time we'd go early and ensure that we didn't stop at all the bars so we could finish it ! This started badly when we suddenly realised that we'd been in the first bar for 2 hours again.....but then Matt put his foot down and insisted that we get going.

From this point it was pretty much plain sailing, except for when the staff at the bar where we stopped for lunch decided to put on an impromptu cock-fight for us

Those of you who know Charlotte well may be surprised to learn that instead of being horrified by this she stood up and started shouting "COCK-FIGHT ! COCK-FIGHT !"......or on second thoughts maybe you won't be. This minor incident aside it was a much more sedate day and we had a great time floating down the river together AND more importantly got our tubes back in time to reclaim our deposits.

Next up on our list of activities was something that we had been watching take place for the last few days - hot air ballooning, something which neither of us had tried. Our first attempt was a failure when the safety crew (yes they had a saftey crew. Amazing !) said it was too windy, therefore the next mornng just before sunrise we found ourselves standing next to a rapidly inflating giant balloon which we would be entrusting our lives too

We were both a bit nervous at take off which I think you can see here with Matts worried look and Charlottes maniacal laughter

But soon we were enjoying floating above the Laotian countryside....this was until the point of landing when the pilot (we assumed he was the pilot because he had a jumpsuit saying so) seemed to have no idea what to do and instead of landing at our designated site crash landed in a local farmers field !

Which seemed to amuse the locals no end....

.....the farmer not so much though. However we survived unscathed and can now say that we have been in an "air crash".

The following day we bid farewell to yet another set of friends and hopped on a bus to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. Vientiane is not your typical capital city, for starters you'd have no idea that you'd left the "countryside" and entered an "urban" area until someone pointed it out to you and then when we reached the city centre we found that it was basically 4 streets that intersected. In fact the only things we can really report are that it has a bowling alley (where Charlotte whipped Matt - Check out her strike !)

A mini Arc de Triomph built out of concrete donated by the Americans for a runway and described by the Laotian heritage sign as

And you can watch some beautiful sunsets over the Mekong (ok we know we're obsessed with sunsets)

So after spending a fun filled 10 days in Laos we were ready to head back into Thailand to rendezvous with Sean, Jukkis & Susy for sexy-party-time Bangkok style on Matt's birthday......

Charlotte is allowed to write her 1st blog post (but is barred from organising / looking after anything else!)

Thailand


So after a day flying from from Bali to Jakarta and then from Jakarta to Thailand we arrived tired in Bangkok to discover 3 things:

1. The news reports were in fact correct - much of Thailand was flooded and the river which flows through the center of Bangkok was definitely going to burst its bank within a few days...

2. Despite avidly following news reports about the floods with something bordering on an unhealthy fixation  Charlotte had booked us into a hotel right next to the river....

3. Charlotte had left Matt's very expensive camera (30th birthday present from his mum and dad - so sorry Vic and Bren) on the plane.

Not the best of starts!!

After much apologising and several frustrating phone calls between Charlotte and various Bangkok airport staff and Air Asia employees we were dis-heartened to discover that the Air Asia cleaning staff had not diligently handed the very expensive camera into lost property, but instead somewhere out there in S E Asia someone is in possession of a $400 camera and a photo of Charlotte looking like she has a big black knob... but even this couldn't cheer Matt up.

Here's a picture from the i-pod which is what Charlotte was wanting to photograph before "the loss" took place.

After a lot of grovelling by Charlotte Matt rallied pretty quickly and was not as angry as she thought he might have been. We took our minds off the missing camera and all the pictures which we had lost and set about "Operation River Watch" with our American friend Scott who we had hooked up with again having left him in India.

We had a chilled out few days discovering the parts of Bangkok which were not flooded, hanging with Scott, taking him to McDonalds for his birthday and drinking coffee whilst always keeping one eye on the river (sadly no photos though as still wrangling with travel insurance company at this point!).  After Scott left for Burma we hooked up with Bre and Mike (more American's) who we'd met in Indonesia and Charlotte reminded herself why she should be on an international ban of drinking buckets of Sang-Son Whiskey and Coke. Fortunately she has a forgiving boyfriend and no more will be said here about her behavior!

 (no one who is sure who the couple are at the back left!!)

We were really enjoying our time in Bangkok but when the hotel built a wall across the front door to stop the flood waters getting in we decided that they must know something we didn't and it was time to head North!

In an attempt to get herself out of the camera/Sang-Song dog house Charlotte bought the bus tickets for us to leave the next day. This went successfully enough as did the purchase of a replacement camera. Everything was looking rosey again - well,  until we woke up the next morning and started to pack. It appears that during the night someone must have broken into our room and stolen the bus tickets. So, to Matt (and Charlotte's) horror, Charlotte was forced to go back to Mr Thai and beg for replacement tickets. Mr Thai was slightly confused as to how the tickets could have been misplaced in such a short time - but he could see the rising panic in Charlotte's face and kindly agreed.

We took the bus to Chang Mai that evening which was a good plan as the flooding was starting to get pretty deep as we travelled out of the city.

We both took a Valium (which you can buy over the counter - and by now we both needed for one reason or another!!) and settled in for the 14 hour journey. It was all going well until the bus broke down about midnight and we were woken up and herded into a Thai Karaoke bar at the side of the motorway filled with crazy drunk locals singing loudly and waving whiskey bottles around! This was not something which either of us coped with very well (thanks largely to the valium) and was one of the most surreal things which has happened to us yet! Some welding, drilling, numerous Thai versions of terrible songs and two more break downs later and we arrived in Chang Mai.

We checked into a guest house which cost less than $2 a night and appeared to be inhabited by single men - mainly of our parents age who were all friendly enough. Touch ! But after the sun went down and the lady-boys came out we kind of felt like the odd ones out in what turned out to be essentially a transexual brothel and decided that it was probably a good time to leave and head to Pai - immediately!

The journey to Pai was much less traumatic and we arrived to find a beautiful small town in the middle of the hills with a friendly cool vibe, lots of small bars and street food stalls. It was exactly what we were after.

After a few days at the "Happy House" Hostel we had met some new mates and everything seemed right with the world again.

Matt was even allowed off the leash to head out with Luke who had lived in the hostel for 14 months!!

During this "free-time" Matt was able to answer the question that we know is on all of your lips "What does a ladyboy look for in a man ?" unfortunately the answer is errr..well...Matt ! After 2 nights of constant harassment, many suggestive remarks, and offers which we won't repeat here Matt was forced to take Charlotte to the bar and parade her around in front of his new stalker in the vain hope that it would get the message - Charlotte was just gutted that she had missed all the fun/fear of the previous 2 nights.

Whilst in Pai we hired the worlds crappest bike (Charlotte had to get off every time we hit a hill) and went fishing.

Charlotte fished for her first time and caught 2 piranha fish - YES PIRANHA!! and a baby Coy Carp. Matt caught nothing but constantly reminded Charlotte that it's called "fishing" not "catching".

To cheer him up we booked to go on a white water rafting trip the next day. Now everyone had warned us - "take sunscreen" - 8 hours on a river and you'll fry. So Matt - who doesn't have Charlotte's gypsy skin - was particularly concerned about this advice and after checking with Charlotte that she had "definitely" put the cream in the bag was alarmed to discover when we arrived at the river that it wasn't there. Charlotte can only assume that someone must have taken it out of the bag and driven it back to the guest house and put it back on the bed where we found it later. Very inconsiderate and pretty bad luck! For Matt this was the final straw. And his reaction must have been surprising to the 8 people we were about the start rafting with - who would have been forgiven for thinking it was a slight "over reaction" and possibly a bit frightening! However, when Matt was shouting about "sunscreen" Charlotte knew he meant "camera/bus tickets/the only time Matt asked her to look after the passports and she left them in the internet cafe/the time she bought the wrong train tickets for Agra". But there you have it - our first fight in 4 months - not the most dignified start to a rafting trip and it didn't go unnoticed that no-one swoped to the second boat with us when the groups split after 30 mins on the water - but hey hoy we had a good day, considering that we both secretly hoped the other person might drown!!

However all was forgiven later that day when our 4X4's front wheel skidded off the road and hung over a cliff edge. We all had to jump out of the back and wedge rocks under the back wheels to stop it falling down into the ravine !! Nothing like a near death experience to put things into perspective. Anyway, in future Charlotte has promised to try not to loose/break/forget stuff and Matt has agreed to try and not get (too) angry when she does. We'll keep you posted on how it goes !

We celebrated our first fight/making up by going out for "a few beers" as we had to get up early for our bus to Loas the next day.

Unfortunaetly nobody had told us that we needed passport photos for our Laos Visa - and that we needed to take them with us to the border. Advice to future travellers - have passport photos taken the night before you go out "for a few beers" - not in a mad panic the morning after! Myra Hindleys corpse after a crack overdose is not a good look - and you'll definately get your bag searched!!

So armed with these beauties we left Pai and headed to Chiang Kong - the border with Laos to board a slow boat down the Mekong - we'll let you know how that went soon !