Update July 2007

Hello Everyone, Chao, Bonjour and Sahbadee,

We're now in month 4 in Vietnam and still finding everything here fun (the drinks help a lot - Vietnam must be the only country in the world where being an alcoholic is a badge of honour rather than a vice as in so many countries).

We've just had our first major holiday (of more than a couple days) which we got back from last Sunday. We went over to Bangkok and then up through Laos and then back to Bangkok. We'll write about each of the major places (Vientiane, Vang Vien, Luong Prabang, Houayxay and then Bangkok) below. There is a map of where we are talking about attached as I'm sure you don't have a clue where most of those places are (I know we didn't). Oh, and so you know, we went with a mate of ours so if you se this random in many of the pictures, don't think it is a stalker - he stayed in Saigon ;-)

We flew out from Saigon on the evening of June 17th for Bangkok. Very short flight over, with us arriving in at around 9:00 and we'd checked into the hotel by 10:00. We stayed at Khaosan Road for the 5-odd hours that we were in Bangkok (which we later returned to) before catching the train up to Udon Thani (north-eastern Thailand) at 5:00 the next morning. The 5 hours that we were there we drunk a bit had a bit of the local food. Namely Greg enjoying (well not really) his first Big Mac in 5 months and Liz eating a fried cockroach (she said why not, where as Greg and Amy were both saying ‘why would you’). We were on the train most of Monday before catching a bus to Ngong Kai then a tuk-tuk to the border, a bus across the border and then a mini-bus to the Laos capital of Vientianne (pronounced Vien-chang). We stayed there one night and I think we probably did everything that they had to offer (dinner on the Mekong River and ummm oh, that was it). It was good having our first Beer Lao though, very nice beer found at supermarkets and beer outlets throughout Laos, Thailand and Cambodia (sorry, had to give it a plug, it was nice).

The next morning we caught a bus to our first major destination of Vang Vien. This was a place that we heard about from various people who have been to Laos was great; they were right. We arrived in at around 11:00 and went down to do the major day activity that most people partake in; namely tubing down the river. Now what this is basically a tractor inner tube that you hop into and float down the river. Along the way there are 9 bars all with some sort of activity. Each one of the bars feeds you with either beer, Lao Lao (very strong locally made whiskey) or buckets made to your taste. So as the stops progress, so do peoples various states of inebriation so what did the locals decide to do; well they put these big rope swings - that got bigger as the stops went on - that people used. The pictures attached show bits of it (take a close look and in a few of them we have just let go of the swing or about to hit the water - GREAT fun). Anywhoo... by the end, Greg got to the last bar and (OK, time for parents and other who may get upset or informed as to what their sons and daughters get up, if this is the case move to next paragraph, if not then keep reading) waited as Liz went off on one of her little tangents. Waiting, waiting, waiting then went looking before finally finding her back at the hotel; she was all upset as apparently she got lost and landed before she was meant to and then got chased by a guy with a gun. Sounds quite serious, until she let it slip the next morning that it was a kid with a BB Gun!! Well, maybe it was the sun that got to her, or the booze or maybe it was all the greenery around the river, who can tell, but as Bek (her sister said), only she could do something like that!!

Unfortunately we had to catch a mini bus the next morning - unfortunate because we later found out that there is quite a lot to do around the area that we didn't manage to get to, oh well maybe next time. We got to the bus station and thought that we were going to have a comfortable ride up the country. Started out with four of us in the bus and then a few more, and a few more until they managed to get 11 into the van and the drive still wanted to fit more in. We all said no to anymore people as we had paid more for comfort –wrong!! The bus ride eventually got under way and was definitely worth the trip. The countryside was wonderful, big mountains and hills untouched at all save for a couple small villages that looked like they hadn’t been touched much by the outside world for a few hundred years.

We eventually arrived in Luong Prabang (the second biggest city in Laos) which sounded like it was going to be a sleepy little town with not much to do. In the end there actually were heaps to do in and around the town, but it definitely was a small sleepy town. It was an interesting mix of both Buddhist temples and design and also the French influence in many of the houses which made the town a very nice place just to look around. While we were there we biked around town which gave us a good picture of the town outside the centre which was nice. We also did a tour to a few of the tourist ‘hot spots’ around the area. The let down was when Liz decided that she would take on a motorbike and of course came f second best. She fell on her bad knee which made the rest of the ride a bit painful. The first one was an old Buddhist cave around an hour from the town. The cave itself was set in the side of a cliff and was packed full of little Buddha’s, quite an amazing sight. The next stop were a couple stop offs in some villages where they sold numerous products like snake wine (with both a snake and scorpion in them – Liz tried it!!), paper products (lamp shades, envelopes, photo albums etc…) and silk of all descriptions. The villages were all very simple but the people there were so happy and didn’t really force the products onto us, but instead asked and then backed off which was a very nice change from Saigon. After lunch we went to a waterfall an hour out of Luan Prabang in the opposite direction. This place seemed to be a bit of a hot spot for the locals and tourists alike who all enjoyed swimming in the water below the waterfall. We had a great time up there, despite the water being cold as. We jumped off one of the smaller waterfalls which was scary but fun. On our walk back down we came across a few bears and bear cubs and also a tiger which was cool (they were in an enclosure). Gave us a good start to bears, which well talk about soon.

The next morning we went and had breakfast, already having booked our boat ticket to Houayxay (on the Thailand border in the north west of Laos). We decided to pull out the Lonely Planet to see if anything had been written about them. To our horror, we found “avoid all speedboat travel unless absolutely necessary,” “tend to be very cramped and uncomfortable” and “serious accidents, sometimes including fatalities, involving these speedboats seem to occur on an almost weekly basis.” Needless to say we were unimpressed by this but the Lonely Planet always exaggerates everything so we thought, why not. We made our way down to the boat dock and waited down there until the boat arrived. Luckily Liz had hurt her leg a couple days before as we got to sit in the front and have a bit of room to stretch out, it was still very cramped and uncomfortable. We had 2 breaks along the way which really helped break the trip and allowed us to stretch out a bit. The whole journey took us 6 hours up through the countryside along the Mekong River which was nice (scenery–wise). We got dropped an hour out of town at which point we needed to pay more for a tuk-tuk into what we thought was town but turned out to be the southern bus station and then another (again more money) tuk-tuk into town. Laos hasn’t exactly got the idea of how to treat travellers. But anyway, we got to the bustling village of Houayxay at around 4:00 where we checked into the hostel and signed all the forms for the Gibbon Experience which we left for the next morning.

We had to get up at 6:00 in the morning in order to get ready for the Gibbon Experience. We hopped onto the truck out to Bokeo National Park (the north-western tip of Laos) which was 3 hours out of town. The trip was quite exciting as most of it was along a brand new road that the Chinese and Thai’s are building. The truck dropped us off at the ‘base camp’ and we started our 1 hour hike up to the first of the tree houses. Just to summarise what the Gibbon Experience is; it is basically 5 tree houses that that these people built that are set in trees 50 metres up in the air. To get into the tree houses we needed to use zip lines from the ridges around into the trees. We arrived at the kitchen where we discovered an added bonus to the whole trip; a 3 month old baby bear which we named Boris. We got to play with him and he came over and started playing with us which was very nice. We got to the first tree house at around 1:00 and sat down to a cup of Laos coffee (very strong, absolutely fantastic stuff). We were amazed at how set up the tree houses actually were. They had full running water, bathroom and kitchen are features of all the tree houses. After Tree House 1 we went to our tree house (number 3) where the three of us plus a Dane which was good as we had heaps of room left to spare. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing on the zip lines and setting ourselves up for the two nights that we were there. Dinner (rice and hot Laos style food – very nice) got delivered to us by the guides in the early evening and after our travels we had an early night. The next morning the fog and rain rolled in so we were stuck in the tree hut until around 11:00. We had our breakfast (again delivered to us) and then went across the zip line to start our walk to tree house 5. The walk was an interesting one, through mud and leach infested tracks. Looking back it was quite good, but at the time it kind of sucked. We had to cross a few zip lines, some of them 500 metres long and up to 150 metres high which gave us some amazing views of the valleys and surrounding areas. We got back to our place at 3:00 and Liz and Greg spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the sun and relaxing while the other two went off and zipped round the area. That night we played cards and relaxed, ready in case we had to walk all the way out the next day (7 hours we were told and that is from base camp). The next morning it was spitting, but our guide said everything would be OK and that the truck would be there. We went down the hill before everyone else as we knew we were going to be slower because we didn’t have any shoes that were equipped for hiking through mud. The hike took us 3 hours until we met the truck coming the other way which made us very happy. The truck took us back to Houayxay where we quickly made it to the border and to the bus station half an hour after the last bus to Bangkok left. Because of that, we had to stay on the Thai side of things (Chiang Kong) for the night which was nice in itself after the busy day we had. They also had a 7 month old puppy which was nice because we got to play with him.

We got on the bus at 7:00 in the morning and arrived back to Bangkok after the 14 hour bus ride (plus 30 minutes in the cab to Khaosan Road). This was meant to be an 11 hour ride but after the monsoon rain and the Thai’s who could not manage to figure out what speed was and then appalling Bangkok traffic (worse than normal) it landed up being 3 hours longer. That was all OK though, I think we would have been tired anyway no matter how long the journey was. We eventually were all settled in by 10:00 and went to bed (at least I think we did, if we didn’t we got horribly drunk and can’t remember the night – I hope option A otherwise my ,memory is more like Nan that I would have liked at my age – see Laos etc… - again not for the parents or loved ones ;-). Two days were spent in Bangkok which was mostly spent around the MBK and Siam Square area (shopping Mecca’s). Obviously Greg did not spend too much time shopping as he likes ladies not men (for Dave, that may be cutting I know), so he spent his time around Khaosan Road or just sifting around the city. We did managed (previously organised for/by Amy) to go to the Christina Aguilera concert. This was something which we were both a little bit dubious about but during/after the concert we both realised that she is definitely a brilliant performer and the little outfits that she wears (Greg’s comments) were definitely worth it all.

We flew out on June 30th (a Saturday) and arrived back to a horribly rainy Saigon and didn’t get an air-bridge to the terminal. On top of that we had to wait at least an hour just to get our stamp out of Bangkok and then another 45 minutes to get back into Ho Chi Minh which kind of told us that maybe we should look outside of Saigon. Hmmm, maybe, after our year we should look elsewhere. That isn’t to say that we hate it here or are thinking about leaving soon, we just know that this is not our turangiwaewae (got some Maori in there, gosh darn it I’m awesome). Oh, for the people without ANY New Zealand culture in them (tut tut), turangiewaewae ‘means a place to stand’ or “home.”

Anyway, we arrived home and Greg had work at 8:00 the next morning (Sunday). That absolutely sucked but at the end of his session, he was given a very official looking envelope. He thought he was in trouble or done something wrong and was dreading opening it. He eventually opened it and to his surprise he had been given a pay rise (yes a pay rise without asking for it and after a two week hiatus, all we can say is – Vietnam; go figure). This obviously was a good start back which only got better as time went on. Despite teaching younger kids, the work actually got easier as the kids just wanted to play games and to forget about the books which he was VERY happy about.

Basically the holiday was very busy and action packed and we enjoyed ever minute of it. Laos was great to relax at and see some wonderful countryside. Bangkok was great to enable us to remember a little bit about what a modern almost western city is like after so much time in Saigon. Photos of the trip can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/greg.and.liz/WHatWeVeBenUpToLaosTHailand?authkey=kw_zemlphDQ. You may notice that the photo site that we use now has link ins with Google Earth so you can actually see where in the world we took the photos. We reckon its quite cool, brought to you by Google; FREE!!

Also, just to finish off, we have moved back into the hotel that we stayed at instead of moving into the apartment we were going to move into. The landlord of the place kept on moving the date to move in back and we decided to just say NO!! Our address now is Yellow House Hotel, 31 Bui Vien Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. W also have a “SkypeIn” number. What this enables people o do is ring a land line and then connect into our Sype (computer calling program). So text us to see if we are online (or just ring to check). The number is +61 2 90185490 from outside Australia or just 0290185490 from inside.

Bye for now,