pai and a change of plans

I spent afew days in Chiang Mai, in northern thailand, and then took a minibus 3hours to Pai. Pai is awesome, another town where I wish I could live forever. The slogan of the town seemed to be "do nothing in Pai" which is exactly what I did. Pai is just a small town surrounded by hills and trees with a river running through it and a main drag of bohemian cafes, art galleries, and clothes shops but its got something special about it. I even got to stay at a flash place with a pool and sauna and a tv and dvd player in my room, and ran into my aussie friend I met way back in Cambodia. After lazing around there for about a week I got my last 12hr thailand bus trip back to bangkok to sort out my Indian visa. So then I hung around bangkok by myself bored out of my mind waiting the week it takes to process the visa and decided to book myself a flight back to NZ on Tuesday instead. A random change of plans but I guess that's what happens. So the current plan is to work at Cooks beach for afew months to get some money and then continue on with the India/Nepal plan when things in Nepal are abit less dangerous and full of maoist bombings.

laos photos

Vang Vieng: the bridge over the river I tubed down, rice fields and limestone cliffs, my gang of guides that led me through a cave, swimming hole. Luang Prabang: a waterfall that a group of us climbed up and stood ontop of, a swing at the bottom of the waterfall. In the jungle next to this place there was a bear rescue centre and a tiger rescue centre where bears and a tiger were saved from po

achers and are now in a big enclosure in the jungle. In other news, I survived the 2day boat trip down the Mekong River to get from Laos to Thailand so I can sort out my visa and get to India in a week or so.

vang vieng

Vang Vieng is a cool little town, quite strange, but lots of fun. The main street is lined with restaurants all playing back-to-back episodes of 'Friends' and you can usually hear about 3 different episodes all going at the same time. I spent about 6 days here, biking around little villages, exploring caves, swimming in waterholes, and of course I had to go tubing. You pay your money, they put a number on your hand, cram you into a tuktuk, drive you 4km up the river and give you a tractor tyre to float down the river in. As you float along bar-owners fish you in with bamboo sticks, give you as much free lao lao whiskey as you want and try to convince you that it's a good idea to jump off their bamboo tower ropeswings before heading down the river to the next bar. Now, this all seems like a good idea at the beginning, but when you're blind-drunk and still have to float 2 more kilometers down the river in a tyre to get home, you start to wonder what you were thinking. But yeah, lots of fun and lots of good people.

photos

A bunch of random photos: the first 3 are in Cambodia....the road from Poipet to Siem Reap, Wats of Angkor. The next lot are in Vietnam....women washing carrots in a dam in Dalat, the red canyon in Mui Ne. The last photo is of Seppon, a small village in Laos.

laos (yay!)

I spent afew hours trapped in a limbo of not being allowed into Laos and not being allowed back into Vietnam, just sitting on a bench playing backgammon, waiting. The border crossing was all going smoothl and the man had stamped me through and given me a visa, but then he tried to charge me $40USD for the visa when I knew it was meant to be $30USD. It wasn't the money, but the fact that people just blatantly lie to your face and try to rip you off, thinking that every tourist is just rolling in money. When I asked him why I was being charged that much he said it was a "service fee" because they office was closed (despite there being an 'open' sign up and him sitting in the window) so I said I'd just wait until the office was back open. Then he started bargaining with me, offering me $37USD for the visa. I refused to bargain over a fixed visa price so he got really angry and stamped CANCELLED on my visa and threw my passport at me. When he returned he was much calmer and continued the bargaining, offering me $35 for the visa. Eventually I gave in and paid him $31 just to get out of there.
I got on a truck to a little village called Seppon which was awesome. Everyone there was either terrified or curious about seeing two white faces in their town and even though noone spoke english and all I could say in Laos was hello, goodbye, and thank you, everyone was so friendly and helpful. I managed to order a vegan meal by pointing at pictures of onions and then got on a truck the next day to Savannakhet. It was the best ride I've had so far, I got to sit up in the cab with the driver who shared all his yummy snacks with me and spent a couple of hours reading out all the road signs to practise speaking Laos. Laos is awesome, everyone is just so nice and happy to come up and say hello without trying to sell you something.

Hey lady, you want motorbike?!

I left Dalat for Nah Trang where I was meant to spend just one night before getting on the bus to Hoi An but couldn't bear to get on another long shitty bus ride so ended up spending 4 days in Nah Trang. The second I got off the bus in Nah Trang I was screamed at by moto drivers as usual but I have to give them points for their persistence. To get away from them I went into a cafe to have some lunch and just relax before looking for a guesthouse. The moto driver came on into the cafe, brought a beer, sat down at the table, and went on and on about how he just wants to say hello and not sell me anything while at the same time trying to make me sign up for a tour. After lunch he then followed me on his moto and trying to make me go into his friends hotels and watching to see where I was going to stay. It got beyond annoying and got pretty creepy.
So I found a hotel and then went down onto the beach which from a distance looked really beautiful until I got close up and saw not only mounds of rubbish but dead rats and used syringes everywhere, and some guy going for a crap on the beach. The next day I walked to the opposite end of the beach where the touristy area is and the beach was clean, the sand was raked, and the water wasn't full of rubbish so it was pretty interesting to see the two sides to Nah Trang. We hunted out places to buy Beer Hoi (blackmarket beer for around 15cents a handle), met some cool locals, and ended up having a pretty good time there.
Time is ticking so I had to either get on the bus I'd paid for or buy a train or plane ticket, and decided on a rad sleeper train to whoosh me off to Hue and from there I'll be heading into Laos.
I went to a vegetarian restaurant in Hue which had lots of fake-meat options on the menu including intestines, kidneys, and ears! I got the chicken but think I should go back tonight and order the intestines.