Tuesday, 31 May 2011

The Deluxe Boat

I have a new filming destination to suggest to the crew at Lord of the Rings... Ditch New Zeland and go for Halong Bay. They could probably use the money more in Vietnam and the scenery is spectacular.

We only had time to speed around the bay for a day (anyone planning on going try and factor in a 2 day, 1 night trip, it sounds like better value for money) but we still managed to see all the main sites and even crack out a bit of kayaking, the best way to get up close to the fishing villages.

We had a bit of a flash packer experience as we ended up on a very posh boat (the deluxe) and certainly managed to wangle a VERY nice lunch complete with token Desperate Housewives to make us in our travelly gear feel pretty disgusting as they spoke of their swankey expat homes in Singapore with their manicured nails and pearl necklaces.

We also went and saw the caves in the bay which were spectacular. I've been caving before, but these were like nothing I've ever seen.

1) because they're enormous
2) because of the droves of tourists, literally swarming like ants through them.

The authenticity was spoiled a little bit because of that and because of the disco lights that were everywhere. They made it look cool but it was less au naturale and more Ibiza chic.

Monday, 30 May 2011

Family Outing in Hanoi

From Laos to Nam has won the prize for the worst bus journey EVER! Our VIP sleeper bus turned out to be a not so VIP local bus. This would be fine for a couple of hours, but when posed with the threat of 24 hours in this steamy hot little tin can we weren't particularly impressed!

The anger got worse as 24 hours turned into 30. 30 hours of gail force winds as the guy infront insisted on having the window open and filling our faces with dust, constant breaks to wee at the side of the road, people sitting on the floor, the most annoying ringtones in the world left unanswered until the last second when they would shout 'HALO' at the tops of their voices and then proceed to have a Dom Jolly style conversation for the whole world, let alone the whole bus to hear. Phew rant over.The one good thing to happen amongst this mayhem was that we met our family that would accompany us on our day trips around Hanoi. Bonded over the horrors of the local bus and free beer not much can break it now.

Touch down in Hanoi, Vietnam, the home of the most ridiculous moped filled roads I have ever seen. There is only one way to approach them and that is to shut you eyes and walk at the traffic head on, allowing the countless mopeds and bicycles to swerve round you. On one occassion our road crossing skills were admired by on lookers and followed up with a round of applause. That was a proud travelling moment right there. Eventually, when I'm brave enough to plug my camera into one of Asia's fine computers I have an amazing video of us attempting to cross which is the only way I can accurately show the manic nature of this city.

The moment that we achieved our clap for crossing was just before we spent a joyous hour watching the water puppets, a traditional Vietnamese recreation and a pretty big mistake to go and see. I felt pretty sorry for Toby and Thijs who we dragged with us to watch an hour of crazy puppets splashing about to the tuneful tones of Vietnamese singing. It was interesting to see but I think any longer than an hour may have resulted in me cutting my wrists to end the pain. Thankfully we'd had a couple of beers while waiting for the show which probably helped to numb the blow.

Having being donned 'the organised type' a mirical description for the pair of us as we normally wait for other people to tell us what we should be seeing, the boys also joined us for a family outing to the prison. This was before the water puppet catastrophe, so they still had a bit of faith in us.

Anyway the prison is worth a visit. It's where they kept the American P.O.W after their planes went down near the city and also where hundreds of Vietnamese accused of war crimes had been held before that. There was a stark contrast made between the treatment of the Americans and that of the Vietnamese before them. According to the videos (I'm not sure how accurate they really are) the Americans lived in relative luxury, (being allowed to celebrate Christmas etc.) in a place where Vietnamese had been savagely tortured and murdered - we even saw the guilloteen. While I don't doubt the horrors of the prison before it was used for the American P.O.W, I do think that there may have been a fair amount of propaganda involved when reporting on the Americans situation.

So that side of the family outing was pretty good, followed up with some street food, free beer (courtesy of central backpackers) and Mickey Finn (can you believe we found Mickey Finn in Vietnam!?) it turned out to be a good day, ending in a drunken game of two truths and a lie (aka Tobys confessions)which was very amusing!

Unfortunately, the boys decided to wuss out of the last nights festivities and chose sleep over Lighthouse, the only club in Hanoi open past 1ish. It's in the middle of nowhere but is where you need to go if your on a hunt for backpackers, or creepy footballers. Unfortunately we found the latter and ended up getting mobbed by Vietnams football league. In fairness we got some free drinks but quickly realised that they were a little bit scary, sooo our ravey night out turned into a sandwhich and hasty retreat back to the hostel!

So go to Hanoi! It wins the prize for best place to visit in Vietnam, particularly as it acts as a spring board to the beautiful Halong Bay which gets a blog all of it's own...

Sunday, 29 May 2011

48 hours of silence, honest

Over 3 days I managed to spend 48 hours in silence. This is coming from the girl that use to find an hours sponsored silence at Brownies too much of a struggle.

And it wasn't just being quiet, it was meditated silence which means you can't even carry around a pad of paper, use sign language or make stupid faces without receiving a disappointed glance from the monks.

Day 1 was tricky, day 2 eased up but by day 3 I had thought about anything stressing me and moved on from it and was left with a blank canvas which drove me mad. Apparently I may have dosed off in the morning session but it was at 5am when you are supposed to be asleep! Not sitting in a dark silent room with your eyes shut but not asleep! Anyway I don't believe Hannah that I was asleep, I think she is just jealous of how calm and concentrated my mind is.

In fairness this meditation malarky was pretty good. It's not something that I would ever chose to do for three days straight again, but as a practice of thought it makes sense. The best way to describe the idea behind it is to take your thoughts that are generally in a confused storm. You spend your time flitting from one idea to the next. You should take the tome to stop that and focus on each thought individually until it is resolved or you come to a point where you can put it to the side and not let it bother you.

It's a frustrating process bit it works. Hannah and I did leave feeling like we had achieved something, even if we did sneak out and get pot noodles and eat them past lunchtime which we weren't supposed to do. Oh and break the solitary confinement rules by sharing a room no matter how small because we are now joined at the hip and too scared to sleep alone. I won't tell the monks if you don't!

Despite all this I would recommend it as a challenge to anyone. Come on if I can shut up and do it surely anyone can and I promise you will see the benefits. Wow u sound like I've gone all hippy.

Do it. I dare you.

Certificate City... Chang Mai

Hannah and I are officially massively skilled peeps....

We have certificates in Thai massage, Thai cooking, trekking, elephant riding, xorbing, meditating, bamboo rafting.

So finally I have something cultural to say rather than wittering on about drinking pretty much ALL the time. Instead now, you could pretty much call us Thai after all the skills that we have acquired. Whether I should really be admitting the completion of massage and cooking courses I'm not sure as I'm worried that the fam may take advantage of these when I get back. Maybe that can be allowed on birthdays and other special occassions... but don't get any ideas!!

Chang Mai is the place where you can learn everything Thai but theres not a lot else going down. We also managed to go watch some Thai Boxing (Han wasn't up for learning that one... I'd sooo win) which was pretty cool but at the same time quite sad. The boys that were fighting were really really young to start with and it did seem a little bit like they had been forced up there. I didn't feel quite so guilty watching by the end however, as we later saw their big
brothers get up and do the same... the boxing matches turned into a bit of a family occassion
as well as a spectator sport and opportunity for some gambling.

The trek was awesome. We did it over a couple of days, starting off with elephant riding, trekking throughout the next couple of days to some waterfalls and tribal villages, and finishing it all off with some bamboo rafting. The rafting was probably the highlight (as well as cracking out a few games of shit head with our group), largely because we got attacked by a group of local kids and ended up having a massive water fight mid journey. Hannah ended up being thrown off the raft completely and another member of our group sported a great big gash on his knee... war wounds to be proud of.

The guides definitely made our time in the jungle highly entertaining. Chang (aptly named after the local Thai beer) was hillarious. That man knew how to party big time. Within minutes of arriving at camp he would always be the first to crack open a beer and whack out a spliff.

On the first night he was literally crazy, I don't know how many times it is possible to say "excellent but not perfect" or "lovely jubbly" but he should win the prize. He also boast a wonderful singing voice and extensive repetoire, particularly with his repetitive renditions of Lady GaGa's 'Bad Romance', yes she has reached the remote tribes of Chang Mai that were particularly tuneful, especially whilst accompanied by another guide Neo (after the Matrix) on the guitar. The pair put together made for a lot of entertainment throughout as they not only taught us how to smoke out a squirrel from its hide away in the tree and eat bark that apparently whitens your teeth.

After all that trekking it was pretty important to get our massage skills sorted. So off to Janes for two days of intensive back cracking and shoulder rubbing lessons. Personally it was just a great excuse to get massages all day because obviously we have to 'practice'. Talking of which I think Han hasn't been utilising her new found skills enough...

Monday, 16 May 2011

The Real Wedding McCoy

As Hannah has had to pay the trip done by so many to the hospital following tubing (don't worry she's just had some weird allergic reaction making her look like Lilo) I thought I should probably catch up on some blogging!



So apart from last nights blog which is in real time there are a lot of gaps that need filling in. So annnoyingly chronology is going to get a bit lost, but it means I'll be back up to date and you'll all know why the blogs got a bit behind! We've been VERY busy!

Obviously the royal wedding has probably been the highlight of the year so far in England so I feel it's important to let everyone know that we managed to do the Brits proud and spread the wedding love throughout Chang Mai.

At about 1pm our time so 6am your time the hunt for wedding footage began. We searched around many different streets and were getting pretty angsty. We asked soooo many people who just told us to owatch it in our guest house which we didn't think would really match up to the street partys that we had heard about at home. Besides, they were only showing it on American Fox TV which was not going to be up to standard - we needed BBC. So we trapsed around in the boiling sun when all of a sudden an oasis of Britishness appeared... The Old British Pub.

We went in and were thrilled to see wedding invitations, bunting, heart balloons, teapots, cucumber sandwhiches, scones, pimms and even a recent Daily Telegraph with Kate on the front looking lovely as ever.

So after our customary scones and pot of TETLEY tea was finished, the wedding began and the Brits started rolling in. Pimms was obviously being drunk by all and we even had champagne at the balcony kiss.

Obviously after the real footage was over the endless stream of highlights began - good old BBC News 24- which meant that the drinking started to get serious. By this point we had bonded with a little English crew. We were all sitting round playing cards when one of the Thai waitresses decided to up the stakes and start attempting drinking games.

Lesson to be learnt. Never take on the Brits at our favourite pastime. She ended up losing by a mile and after owing us all several shots of tequila and being covered in illuminous paint we thought we better leave before she got sacked.

Hannah, Jan, Kelvin and I then carried on up the street spreading illuminous paint and rose petals where ever we went (Jan decided it would be a good idea to buy a bunch of flowers for the occassion- he proceeded to eat half of them later but that's another story).

The carnage ended at Spiceys where we managed to paint half the people there in our body paint and definitely make sure everyone knew about the wedding!

At 6am the marathon was over. 18 hours of drinking is clearly the only way to celebrate a wedding properly. We should've had an invite to Harrys survivors breakfast.

Sunday, 15 May 2011

Travellers getting drunk by a river... best idea ever.

So having arrived at Vang Vieng and seeing hoards of backpackers dressed head to toe in illuminous 'Laos' branded clothing, body paint and bandages we decided that it would be a really idea to join the droves of whiskey intoxicated revellers down at the river.

Tubing is a pretty strange concept really. A ridiculously dirty river combined with wasted travellers and zip wires seems like the most stupid idea in the world. Stupid and sooooo much fun.

Hannah and I were originally going to go tubing just for a couple of days as we're now on a race against time through the rest of south east Asia. But 7 days later we have only just arrived in Luang Prabang having destroyed our bodies and our souls.

We thought that Full Moon was pretty messy but its been decided that Tubing reaches new heights. Having literally drunk from 1pm until 5am everyday for the last week we decided that the time had come to leave. The problem is that Vang Vieng is one of those places that you just get stuck in. I want to say in a similar way to what happened in Buenos Aires but this took a whole new extreme. There are only 2 buses each day and the chances of you being up for either of them and not feeling more than a little bit sick is pretty low. We tried to leave three days ago but it just never happened. There are people that have actually been trapped there for 14 months, so our 7 days seems like nothing really.

On the bus on the way down we made friends with a group of about 10 Brits that then took over the hostel that we were staying at. We found that the best way to test whether they should be worthy of our friendship was to

1) Assess their drinking capabilities... they were necking vodka whilst still on the bus. Pass.

2) Request a rapping performance.
Pass. (kind of... Bradley managed to utter the words 55 several times to some weird beat, but its the effort that counts)

3) Perform a handstand
Pass. (kind of... it did end in a fall)

4) Celebrity claims to fame
Pass. (We were with both Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Radcliffe VI and the sporn child of Leona Lewis and Rio Ferdinand).

Alongside out Stats list we also have a dare list. This has to be regularly updated and the competition has got pretty intense. I am now successfully ahead having held a snake the other day, but where the comp really hotted up was in the Lying Competition.

Originally we were just supposed to attempt to swap names and to lie about our nationalities... anyone that has been travelling before will understand how boring the 'getting to know you' questions are so we thought we would spice it up a bit.

The lies reached whole new heights. We spent our time passing ourselves off as mother and daughter, claiming that I was 14 and Hannah 32. We managed to meet my step father and birth father and introduce them to each other, whilst also maintaining that we were South African. This is only the half of it really... the more red bull that we drank the worse it got until we basically became ridiculously annoying. But the girls managed to roll with it and it made way for A LOT of giggles and very VERY confused boys which obviously we enjoyed.

So now we're basically looking forward to a bit of a detox now. It will be weird to sit eating breakfast looking out on people that don't look in horrendous amounts of pain with crutches and hangover combined.