Sarah & Richard's Travels

It has been a while since we posted our last blog, we have been busy getting back on the 'rails'. We are both back in London now and Rich is looking for a job now, Sarah has been working already for almost 5 weeks now.

There will be coming some more updates soon, here a quick overview from what's coming up.

* New Zealand
* Holland
* Friesland
* London

Please see here an Video from our Mongolia tour, this video was made by one of the guys on our tour; his name is Guna and the video is wonderfull. By watching the clip...... well I just wanna go back to Mongolia right now and do it all over.

Enjoy watching - sit back and put your speakers on!

From Hong Kong we got to experience the new Airbus A380 on the short four hour flight to Singapore where we had a night before connecting to Auckland, our final destination the next morning. The flight was pretty good as was the entertainment system and it did feel a lot more roomy. Whether that was the larger windows though I'm still not sure...Rich enjoyed the entertainment system and food before landing in Singapore. It hardly feels like you're moving when you take off and fly in tese things!

Singapore airport was a breeze and we were out and in a taxi on our way to a friends place in no time at all. After a little confusion with the tazi driver we found the place and headed into town to try the famous Singapore Chilli Crab. The huge crab came along drenched in a sort of sweet chilli sauce which was gorgeous, although the crab did prove a little difficult to eat - Richy even broke a pair of crackers we had to get the crab out! It was a feast where we also tried Singapore noodles and a range of other yummy foods!!! On our way back it was a short stop at Raffles Hotel, one of the oldest hotels in Singapore and world famous. Approaching the building, in a beautiful courtyard the lights were twinkling and I loved it instantly. Walking through to the bar you could tell this was a place of distinction and class - I loved it! The Long Bar where I tried the famed Singapore Sling was upstairs and felt surprisingly casual with a live band that night and...wait for it...peanut shells all over the floor! I couldn't believe a place like Raffles would have peanut shells all over the floor - it looked so messy! But, it is apparantly tradition and therefore allowed. The Singapore Sling was interesting...tasted kind of like a jellybean, I enjoyed one, but dont' think I'd try it again. Would love to go and stay at Raffles one day!

It was a short sleep before a taxi to the airport and our 10 hour flight back to Auckland where we were met and my adventure ended. Richy's however continues as he sees New Zealand and works here for a year...more from him later.

After four days back in Bangkok at our favourite hostel, Lub D we flew up to the bustling city of Hong Kong and what an amazing place!

There are high rises towering everywhere and you are constantly bombarded by neon lights, advertising, traffic and people, yet somehow it's all great. It has such an energy and great vibe to it.

We were lucky enough to stay in a friends apartment overlooking Happy Valley Race Course, our first stop on the Wednesday night the day we arrived. It was great fun - completely packed with locals and expats alike, all enjoying a few drinks, the races and of course putting a few dollars on to bet. Unfortunately we didn't make our million here at the races, but a great evening was had in a party like atmosphere and it was cheap to get it - only 10 Hong Kong Dollars or around 1 pound which you could use your Octopus card (transport card for travelling like Oyster Card in London and can also be used to pay for small items in 7 Elevens and other stores) to pay for. Crazy sums of money were bet that evening in betting completely government run, so all proceeds go back to the community. During our time we saw that the Zoo and Uni accommodation (among plenty of other things I'm sure) was sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Being such a big city with very little land all the horses live in high rise buildings. At first I thought this was a joke, but it's true, they live in high rises complete with air con and are taken down to the track for workouts daily! Think I'd prefer to be a New Zealand racehorse really.

The rest of our six days in Hong Kong was spent exploring all the different areas, from central to Lamma Island to Kowloon, Stanley Bay and the New Territories which is what the locals call the countryside. Stanley Bay was a cool chilled out beach side town with markets and good little cafes etc and was extremely busy on the Sunday we were there, there's some pretty cool high rise apartments over this way as well. We had lunch with our friend at a tiny village not far from Stanley Bay, a place few tourists venture as it's not easily accessible without a car and loved the quaint streets with the low rise buildings, a quiet village feel, which felt miles from central Hong Kong, despite being just 10 - 15 mins drive away.

We discovered a lot of walking routes in Hong Kong and had we had more time we could have ventured onto some of the many incredibly steep hill tops in the 'country' to try these out. However we opted for the lazy routes of taking the worlds longest covered escalator (800m) up to the midlevels area (mostly residential high rise apartments). We people watched as we passed the restaurants and bars lined along the way and peeked into a couple of shops as we passed by before heading up the Peak by tram.

The tram climbs 363m and feels like you are being pulled up almost vertical at some points! We arrived just before sunset and enjoyed the view, though it was a bit hazy to see too far and not long later the sun dropped and we could see all the lights of Hong Kong below. The city is awesome during the day, but at night the lights look amazing.

Down on the harbour at Kowloon or Central the lights were stunning and they had a Christmas themed 'Symphony of Light' playing every night with laser lights, walking Santa's, Christmas Bells and Baubles illuminating the buildings, as well as some lights for the East Asian Games (a regional version and downsized version of the Olympics) which were being held while we were there.

And that was Hong Kong! We felt we'd got to see the city pretty well in six days, but there is so much more to explore and we look forward to having more stop overs in Hong Kong soon!

Despite being only 2 hours bus ride from Pakse the 4,000 Islands, right on the border with Cambodia, are in a world of their own which usually has many advantages in terms of getting away from it all. For us however it was a different story. The morning we left none of the cash machines in Pakse were working being either locked or under maintenance so we had a grand total of 550,000 kip (around 40pounds) for three days for two of us and we had to get back to Pakse at least. It was to be a challange and we made it (save for 120,000 which we changed at a hideously bad rate).

Apart from this small challenge and an altercation with some locals on Don Khon the islands were brilliant. We had a small boat ride from the mainland over to the island of Don Khon. There seem to be three islands where tourists head, the biggest is Don Kone, Don Khong being the middle size and Don Det (more later) the smallest. Even though tourists choose these islands there were relatively few and it was great to get away from them for awhile! Yes, yes I know we are tourists as well...

Don Khon had a few accommodation options, but most of the decent ones were already full and the rest ridiculously expensive as Don Khon has the worst value for money out of the two we stayed on. So we ended up in a bamboo bungalow for the grand total of 30,000 kip (around 2.10pound per night). I didn't know places existed this cheap. It certainly wasn't the Ritz, far from it, but being on the river we had the best view possible (at no extra charge thank you very much) and a great hammock to swing away the afternoon...there was just the small problem of shared cold shower and toilet, no light or fan in the room and a door that wouldn't shut. But it was a roof over our heads and you can't really complain for two pounds I suppose? We spent that afternoon chilling out in a restaurant and then swinging horizontally on the hammock.

Next day I decided we should move and see if the grass was greener on the otherside...and greener it was. We had noticed the day before a 10,000kip fee which we thought was to cross the bridge to the island of Don Det This bridge has been around since the time of the French and connects the two islands over a small channel. We went to pass the point and were immediately called back by the guys in the booth who told us we each had to pay. We were a bit confused as thought it was for crossing the bridge, but then they say 'no Don Khon is tourist island now, you must pay for roads'. Having not paid the day before we thought this pretty weird and looking at the signage thought it was for the bridge. But to cut a long story short we got a little angry and so did the locals so we went back to where we came from (and for some reason didn't have to pay for this) and spoke to someone who explained what it was all about and then went back and paid. Whilst we're only talking about less than a pound each you must think we are crazy (and rude), but we got used to being short changed for things in Laos (they have a habit of giving $1 or so less change than you should get which soon adds up) so we were on our guard.

After this little altercation we packed up, shouldered our bags and walked peacefully over the bridge to Don Det, right through golden rice paddy fields in the middle of the island to what is known as 'Sunset Boulevard' which has a string of accommodation options from 1.50 per night, for basic, basic riverside bungalow, to around 15 pounds / night for larger more modern bungalows with very comfy looking matresses and bathrooms. If we hadn't been so poor I probably would have opted for this. There was also a ridiculous option of Little Eden for around 80 USD / night...slightly out of our budget. Nevertheless we found a great deal (well we thought so anyway) where for the same price as the night before (2pounds) we got a way better bungalow with our own hot water bathroom, fan and electricity...awesome! Turns out there are advantages to a place where more tourists are and therefore more competition!

There's a lot of kayaking trips around the islands here and you can also go and see the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin which is on the border with Cambodia. We opted to hire bikes, the basic ones which were the cheapest and cycle around the islands. We opted for a different route than what we had walked and cycled along the coast watching long tails come and go with tourists, or rice, or beer and supplies loaded up on top. Some of the kids here had started to realise what they can get out of tourists and would quite sweetly offer (or sometimes force) a small flower into your hands in return for money. It's quite sad to see it happening, but I suppose life is hard and that's what they've learnt - some tourists = money. We crossed back over the bridge and cycled to the waterfalls between the islands which were surprisingly big and dropped quite a way (it all felt quite flat so was strange to see the big drop) and then cycled through the native jungle to the south of the island where trips leave to see the Dolphins. From there we followed the old railway track which the French have left derelict and saw the little train rusting away on it's turntable. All was going well until Richy got a flat tyre on the bike, with the rocky road I was surprised it didn't happen sooner, so it was unfortunately a long hike back to the bungalow for Richy.

We spent another day chilling out before getting on a bus all the way to back to Bangkok via Pakse and Ubon Ratchathani - a long, overnight journey with a very interesting bus driver and lots of unscheduled stops to pick up and drop off - I'm sure we could have arrived about 2 hours earlier had this not been the case!

All in all 4000 Islands (Si Phan Don) was a great place to chill out and spend some time and very little money. The sunsets were amazing also!

From the riveting capital of Laos that is Vientiane we took another overnight bus to Pakse, 10 hours away. Overnight buses are not my favourite form of transport but this journey seemed to be tonnes better than the one in China and flew by until we were dropped just out of town at the rather early hour of 5.30am. About 10 of us jumped in a Tuk Tuk complete with all our packs and were driven around to various hotels in town. Needless to say the thing was pretty overloaded and I was surprised we didn't tip whilst turning the corner...there was even a person seated each side of the driver!

Like Vientiane there isn't a lot to do in Pakse and it certainly doesn't have many tourist niceties in terms of plush western style restaurants or shops. Here it was a case of stick to the local stuff and don't bother with the rest...as for shopping, well... Our first day was spent organising the rest of the time there and where we'd head to next. As there wasn't really anything else to do we booked a tour to the Bolaven Plateau for the next day.

We were waiting for our tour to start when a German couple arrived for the same tour. Turns out one of their sons was a German exchange student who came to NZ for a three month exchange. Not only did he go to NZ, but he went to the same school and year as me (Martin Schmid for any ex Northcote people)! It's such a small world.

Anyway, aside from that the tour was ok, but a lot of driving in the back of an oversized Tuk Tuk which wasn't so fun when we were on the 12km of unsealed road they forgot to tell us about. Needless to say we were caked in dust by the time we finished!

We saw 4 different waterfalls along the tour, all of which were very pretty but didn't compare to the gorgeous Tad Sae falls in Luang Prabang. The Bolaven Plateau is famous for it's coffee and we stopped at a farm along the way where we learnt about how the trees grow and how they make the coffee. Most of the big companies are owned by Vietnamese families, so a lot of the farmers don't see a lot of money from the coffee and 5 hectares would earn them around US$2000-3000 per year, so not a lot. They can make more when they start to dry and process the beans, but ultimately the roasting is done by a larger company which is where most of the value is added. They grew Arabica and Robusta as well as some other wierd type that gets exported to Cambodia. We saw quite a few bomb craters and old shells at the farms as the area is close to Attepeu which was heavily bombed by the US for its' proximity to the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War.

Our next stop was a tiny ethinc minority village where we looked around the village. I felt a bit rude 'intruding' on the village like that without giving anything back and felt it would be better to have lunch or something there so they can at least earn some money from the tourists who come and look around. It was a village where they still practice buffalo sacrifice for the good harvests. For those of you who've seen the movie Apocalypse Now you may remember a crazed scene where villagers sacrifice a buffalo amid lots of music and heavy rain etc...this is what they practice here. They also keep coffins under their houses ready for when they die which we all thought a bit wierd. It's unlucky for the ethnic Laos to do this, but the Mon-Khmer minorities believe they will be ready for death if they keep a coffin under the house. Most of the villagers we saw were smoking these huge bamboo pipes of tobacco including small childrn no older than 8-10. We all thought it very unhealthy for the kids especially but our guide said they smoked like that because there was nothing else to do in the village which didn't surprise us either as life looked very slow. One girl was wearing a 'sexy girl' t-shirt, something I doubt she'd be wearing if they knew what it meant...it was a bit sad to see really, but I guess it's clothing for them as they don't have much money.

Our favourite waterfall was Tad Lo where there also were a few resorts and bungalows, it would be a nice day to spend a few days chilling out and between trekking and swimming in the falls there'd be plenty to do...of course there's always just lazing in a hammock as well!

We had hoped to be on a three day kayaking tour down to 4,000 islands the next day, but it wasn't to be as we couldn't get anymore people to join and is was just too expensive for the two of us by ourselves, so instead we booked a bus down to the islands.

Photos from Thailand

http://picasaweb.google.com/rico.bakker/Thailand

A selection of photos from Laos so far

http://picasaweb.google.com/rico.bakker/Laos#

We arrived in Vientiane today after a 4 hour bus ride from Vang Vieng. It was a pretty good journey compared to the road from Luang Prabang and we made it to Vientianne around 2pm. We took awhile finding a hotel as it was a little cooler here than everywhere we've been so far so didn't feel the need to ditch our packs at the first half decent prospect.

We've spent the afternoon wandering around and it's the smallest capital city I've ever been in! There doesn't seem to be much to see so I think we'll be heading down towards Pakse, the Bolaven Plateau and 4000 islands area pretty soon.

I'll update this again as soon as we have more news about Vientiane...

To quote all the t-shirts in the shops and the hundreds of travellers we've seen in this part of the world we've been 'In the Tube in Vang Vieng, Laos'.

We took a bus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng whic took around 6 hours even though it is only around 250km! The roads are soooo hilly and windy that any travel in northern Laos takes forever - at least this roads were sealed though! And the scenery was stunning - Huge mountains completely covered in greenery as far as the eye could see. We passed by several villages which looked very poor with small wooden and bamboo houses on stilts with rooves made of dried palm tree leaves and another type of leaf. We saw chillies drying on the rooves, a kid having his haircut with comb and scissors on the side of the road and people carrying heavy baskets of wood in a little bamboo basket on thier back, even the little kids had a full basket each much like a girl in the west would copy Mum with a doll, but this was reality for them, hard, heavy work as soon as they can walk almost! The closer we got to Vang Vieng the more prosperous the villages got - both larger in size and with sturdier concrete / brick housing, certianly not like that away from town though. The scenery also changed to more karst formations similar to what we'd seen in southern China around Guilin and Yangshuo.

So the thing to do in Vang Vieng is hire a tube and float down the river, so that's what we did! The whold ride without stopping in the dry season is around 2 hours, but the whole idea is to stop at every bar along the route - yes it's crazy! We got to the launch point and about half the Tuk Tuk got off and went straight to the bar for the first 'bucket'. Hmmmm we thought and took out time sorting our stuff and checking things out. We bought a water (aren't we boring) and jumped into the river(which was a bit cold to start with) and caught the current to the next bar. The first part is filled with them and at each spot someone is trying to 'fish' for you by throwing a catch rope to pull you into the bar. Most bars give you free food or shots or bananas if you buy some kind of alcohol and at some bars you have to ask for a menu with non alcholic options! We opted to share a beer and Richy tried to Lao Lao which almost killed him it was so potent!!! Never again he said and that was it for the rest of the day! Each bar pumps music out and there is some form of activity whether it be a huge slide, a flying fox or some big swing and you're supposed to comeplete the swing challenge or something. Richy went on the flying fox which was pretty cool, but I wasn't game...and neither were a lot of others. Most of the structures look pretty dodgy with rickety platforms and dodgy wires, so that was the last of the swings and flying foxes for us.

We jumped in the tube again and floated down to another place which promised table tennis and a massive slide - oh la la and jumped out (or fell into the water which was pretty deep at this point) and made it onto dry land. We met a Spanish couple there who've been travelling for over a year and were with us in thinking the whole bar thing with stopping at each bar for a bucket seemed totally crazy! So we had a few good games of tale tennis and volleyball and joined them for the rest of the way. We floated for a bit and there were a couple of half decent sets of rapids to run down, but the last part seemed a bit slow, with nowhere to stop (after being inundated with bars at the start) and we were pleased to get to the last rapids which were the best and make it to the bridge. Later on that night around 7.30pm we were still seeing people getting off the tubes in the dark!

There's loads of trekking, rock climbing and caving options around Vang Vieng but we opted to go to Vientiane (the capital) the next day so met up with the Spanish couple Emilio and Laura for dinner that evening at one of the spots of the river. There are loads of awesome bungalows and chill out spots on the river and one guy at another table was playing his guitar which was awesome!

After our lovely two day slow boat from Thailand we arrived in Luang Prabang in the north of Laos, which we both immediately loved. There is something about it that is just chilled out. No one is in a rush, there's plants and trees everywhere, in fact when you climb up Phousi Mountain in the middle of town, pretty much all you can see is trees and the jungle in the distance. You can easily wander around town in a couple of hours but there's loads of boutique shops, little alleys and awesome bars and cafes to explore, so it can take awhile at the same time!

Our favourite place was a bar called Utopia, situated on the Nam Khan river it was like a tropical oasis with loungers and chilled out areas overlooking the river, a volleyball court, and loads of tables amongst trees, it was gorgeous we could have spent hours there!

Kayaking
We spent a day kayaking down the river and visited Tad Sae waterfalls which were gorgeous! It was beautiful turquoise water cascading over smooth stones down through the jungle with all these trees in and around the waterfalls. There were pools at the base of the falls and at various levels throughout where we could swin and the water was cold, but refreshing! The rest of the day was spent kayaking down the river which was pretty easy with only a few sets of rapids, that were quite fun. We did pretty well in our double (unlike on Ko Tao) until we had to kayak over the end of the rapids to our exit point where the current carried us into a tree! Oops.

Weaving
Another day was spent learning to weave and we are both very proud to have our own hand woven placemats! lol. There's a cool little gallery and weaving centre called Ock Pok Tok (or something like that) where they do up to three day weaving courses so we signd up for a day and learnt the art of dying silk and weaving. The dye lesson was cool as it used all natural products - bark, lemongrass, indigo leaves, tumeric root and various other natural products which we either boiled up in water or made into a paste with a pestle and mortar before adding cold water and then dropping in the silk strands and stirring them around for while. Sometimes we had to add things to strengthen or weaken the colour - rusty nails to make red and lime to get a darker green, so it was pretty interesting really. In the afternoon we started with our placemats which took around 4 hours for us to make! The professionals who were teaching us (two local girls) can make 5-6 peices (much larger as well) in a day! At first it was pretty quiet as we concentrated trying to get our footing right on the pedals, throwing the shuttle across, banging down the threads and then doing it all again from the other direction. We eventually got the hang of this but by that time it was time for the pattern which brought chaos with the addition of another shuttle and colour and having to lift up pieces of thread and inserting a plank of wood to lift up different threads to create the pattern! We got a few laughs from our teachers and they had to jump in and fix things a couple of times but we got there eventually and then started the easy part again - yay! The last part was done for us luckily as it involved setting up the loom and taking bits and pieces out which I think would have confused us completely! It was a pretty fun day and great to do something a bit different to what we've been doing so far.

Hiring Bikes
We hired bikes one day and explored the city, tried to make it out 36kms to another waterfall, but it was way to hot and hilly so turned back about half way. One of my friend's who has been cycling South East Asia for a few months would have been aghast at our effort! Next time...or we could just try a tuk tuk.

Monks Receiving Alms
We got up at the extremely early hour of 6am to see the Monks receing alms one morning. Every day the monks come down the main road of Luang Prabang to receive food and other offerings from people along the main road. I couldn't believe how many tourists stood in front of them and pretty much shoved cameras in their faces and also used the flash, it was terrible! Granted I got a couple of shots as well, but not from up close and not with the flash - it just didn't seem right to be disturbing them like that. There were locals (and a few good tourists) lining the pavement kneeling on thier mats and blessing and offering sticky rice, bananas and other foods and flowers to the monks as they passed who would put the offerings into their big steel pots they were carrying over their shoulders. I'm not quite sure about the traditions behind the alms so must find out, but I was a bit perplexed about the four monks also giving alms and not receiving... Also on the other side of the monks stood little kids waiting with plastic bags for food from the monks. I was surprised that they were 'allowed' to do that (they didn't look like homeless kids, in fact we saw no homeless people), but there were loads of kids and a few monks would drop a few pieces of food in the bags.

We have finally arrived in Luang Prabang after two long days on a slow boat from the border with Thailand. Our journey started in Chiang Mai where we took a bus up to the border town which was around 4hours away. Apart from the cat we hit near Chiang Koek (the border town) it was a pretty uneventful journey and we were thankful to have a guesthouse all included so we could go to sleep straight away after our 1am arrival.

It was up at 7am to be driven the short distance to the border which was right on the Mekong river which is the border for a proportion of Laos and Thailand. THe border was like a little building with about 500m to the river for the crossing. Once we'd 'checked out' of Thailand it felt as though you could just calmly walk away back into Thailand with no problems. It looked the same in Laos on the other side. We took a little long tail boat over the river to Laos where we had no problems getting our visa on arrival and entering Laos. This was where the waiting started.

We hung around for about an hour waiting for various people and for a truck to take us to the ferry terminal. The rust bucket finally turned up and took us a short ride where we were told we would have a 10 minute wait. 2 hours later we were almost ready to leave having waited for people to turn up in dribs and drabs in various forms of transport.

I was thankful to have 'invested' 40 baht in a cushion as the seats on the boat were moveable wooden plank benches, some of which wobbled rather ominously when we sat down...

We arrived in the tiny town of Pak Beng around 6.30pm at which time it was dark so finding our bags was an interesting experience considering everyone had warned everyone of bag scams with they take your bags and charge you a fee to get them back. This of course created paranoia with everyone and meant chaos whe trying to find and get the bags off the boat!

There's pretty much nothing to do in Pak Beng except have dinner and go to sleep which is what we did, it's a really sleepy town and only has electricity (from generators) between 6pm and midnight, so too bad if you want to stay up later...find a candle!

The next day was another long wait having been told the boat would leave at 9am we were ready on the boat at 8.45 with everyone else, but of course it didn't leave until 10.15! It was another long slow day, but luckily this time the drunk, loud Australians from the day before were sufficiently hungover to be quiet for most of the day...

We stopped at one point to pick someone up and some Canadian guy jumped in for a swim, the earful he got from the lady afterwards (in Laos of course) was hilarious and provided the entertainment for the day. She looked and sounded pretty angry, but the turned around to walk towards to bow and had a little smile on her face...

We arrived in Luang Prabang a little earlier in the light and managed to find a guesthouse pretty easily. See next update for the rest of Luang Prabang.