Foot-loose and fancy-free with Happy Diwali!

Why must all great things come to an end?

Well, since being home ,the first question most people ask us is “what was your favourite place?” And as crazy as it sounds, we can’t pick one. Every country had something different and amazing to offer, and I think the order in which we experienced them influenced our opinion as well. I’m grateful for every experience, whether big or small, pleasant or painful, that we had – all moments have added up to form the total sum of one of the best six months in my life.

We started off on the beautiful islands of New Zealand. I will never forget how amazing it was to have finally made it. This was it – I had accomplished my dream that had been living inside me for years. Picking up Happy Diwali and driving off into the sunset was the most liberating experience I think I’ve ever had (and maybe will ever have): we had six full months of excitement and adventure in front of us. New Zealand is such a startlingly gorgeous and amazing country condensed into such a tiny package. Highlights definitely include discovering the amazingness of Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula, witnessing the natural hot springs of Rotorura, living on daily adrenaline rushes in Queenstown and taking in the glory that is Milford Sound.

Sydney on New Year's Eve - 2010 - the best year yet!

Australia, as a whole, is definitely a top-pick for us. We saw so much of the country and had the most gorgeous weather pretty much all the time. Ozzies are some of the most hilarious and party-hard people we’ve ever met, and I think the country hurt our livers a bit, but we have nothing but good memories. What better place to ring in the New Year, but Sydney? That was amazing. Our Surfaris surf camp has definitely been one of the most amazing things we’ve done on this whole trip – surfing is an unbelievably complicated sport – but who can complain when they are out on the beach all day? Helping out with the turtle conservation project and touring the rum factory in Bundaberg was also amazing…but I think the biggest highlight for me was living on the Pro-Dive scuba boat and doing no less than 10 dives in three days, all un-supervised. Maybe it’s the Piscean in me, but I’m never happier than when I’m under the water, living like a fish.

Indonesia, I must admit, falls a bit low on our list. Bali was an interesting place due to both its Hindu and Buddhist roots, and the Gili Islands are truly stunning…but we both struggled a bit on Java. It was my first taste at being in a Muslim country (and the biggest Muslim country in the world, nonetheless) and although listening to the five Muslim prayers starting at 4 a.m was at first something exotic, it got a bit tiring after awhile. So did roasting in pants and a long-sleeved top, and generally not being

Paradise on the Gili Islands

viewed overly positive as a western woman who was “provocatively” dressed (please note: I did try really hard to cover up in the heat but found it challenging). That said, Gunung Bromo at sunrise was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen and Prambanan and Borobudur are two of the most amazing religious sights I’ve ever seen (second only to the magnificent Angkor Wat).

Our four days spent in Singapore were a blast – as one lady we met put it “Singapore is what a city would look like if Walt Disney had colonized a country.” From its hundreds of malls to the surrealy beautiful and fake Sentosa Island, there isn’t a shortage of things to see or food to eat. The place is sparkling clean and really just doesn’t feel real. Singapore is a place I could live in in a heartbeat. It is the Oasis of Southeast Asia’s desert – every time we got sick of being in the third world, we’d joke about catching a quick flight to Singapore to have some Western comforts again. Just a great place.

In the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia

Malaysia doesn’t rank overly high on my list, but we still appreciated many things about it. Kuala Lampur is a fascinating city and the Petronas Towers are truly a sight to appreciate. It was awesome having Leanne as our host (and so nice after three months on the road to actually talk to someone aside from “where are you from, what do you do, etc.). The Cameron Highlands are stunningly gorgeous and the food in Penang is out of this world. I often dream about the cool-cha indian pizza and roti chennai. My mouth is drooling as I write this….

And then there’s Thailand. We spent six entire weeks here and could easily double it. I don’t think another country will ever have such a close spot in my heart as Thailand does. If anyone can show me a more beautiful place on earth with crystal clear water and stunning limestone cliffs where you can stay on a hill overlooking it all for $20 a night – I will name my first born after you. The Thai people are lovely and the food is renound – any restaurant you go to, you will not be disappointed. I have a feeling we will be making many pilgrimages back to Thailand in our lifetime. The only downside to this country is the development – we’ve noticed a massive change since we were here in 2006 and it’s not for the best. There even seems to be a general almost-resentment in the people towards tourism. My advice is to get here fast before it gets any worse – I don’t think we will even recognize Thailand five years from now, which is a true shame.

The Most Beautiful Place on Earth...and where Scott proposed!

I’m grateful for having been to Cambodia, but I don’t think I could go back unless it would be to contribute to their community through volunteering. I ended up feeling quite helpless a lot of the time and went home most nights with tears in my eyes. The people are truly amazing considering the abuse they have suffered through, and most seem genuinely happy to see Westerners. It was amazing that they were able to tell their stories so openly and with a genuine hope that the future brings something better. I wish we had gotten more off the beaten path than we did, but due to time constraints, it just wasn’t possible. The temples of Angkor are breathtaking and Siem Reap is an adorable little city. Bamboo Island located off Sihanoukville is what Thailand was likely like about 10 years ago and is pure un-adultered paradise.

Ranking right after Thailand for us is Vietnam. If it wasn’t for Thailand’s better food and slightly more spectacular beaches, Vietnam would likely rank number one for us. The people here are AMAZING – they are sweet and kind and although maybe a bit forward for Western standards, we loved it. It was the only country we actually made “Vietnamese” friends to keep in touch with

Sun setting over Halong Bay, Vietnam

and where we actually seemed to travel, eat, and party in the same places as the locals. There wasn’t a hint of disdain for us (I am not even aware of a word to describe foreigners in Vietnamese, whereas in Lao and Thai, you hear the words “falang” and “farang” quite a bit – often while they would laugh at us for doing something seemingly wrong or embarrassing). The history is compelling and the sights are stunning – the Vietnamese coast line is simply gorgeous (specifically Halong Bay, Mui Ne and Nha Trang). Hoi An is a riot. We would come back to Vietnam again in a heart beat.

Little Laos is a very funny place. It seems to us it has undergone massive tourist development in the past few years and I am not sure it’s for the best. Places like Vang Vieng, which have developed solely to cater to drunk young “falang” trying to kill themselves down a river, while fun, are a bit sad. Luang Prabang is spectacular and has so much to offer – it is one of my favourite cities we have visited on this trip. The Lao people are so quiet and un-assuming, it was a large shift for us to have to go ask for things when we wanted them (like a tuk-tuk, or a menu, or anything, for that matter). Part of me wishes we could have come five years ago when tourism was just in its infancy and when hill tribes only saw tourists once a month or so. That said, it’s still a beautiful place and a country worth visiting.

The adorable Khamu children of Laos

Finally, Hong Kong is always a blast, with its crowded streets and consumerism begging you into the jewelry and electronic stores located everywhere you look. We had a blast shopping for my engagement ring, because every third store is a jewelry store and they treat you like absolutely royalty. “Oh sir, you need a diamond? Here is some Chinese tea, and let me show you this one, and that one”….all while wearing gloves and acting ever so formal. There are so many things to do here, like go up to the peak, visit the botannical gardens, take a tea appreciation class, head over to Stewart Beach or Repulse Bay…you could spend months in Hong Kong and never get bored!

So, I guess that all good things must come to an end so that more good things can happen. Although we were only gone six months, it feels like six years. I’ve learned so much about myself and the world that I feel like I’m almost a whole new person. I’m actually excited for the future and to get older, and now I realize that turning 30 is not the end of it all. Yes, we were usually the oldest people on a trip or a tour, but we saw plenty of people with little ones traveling all the same. I have a renewed excitement in my career, my relationship with Scott, and that there are so many more amazing things to come – as long as I’m willing and determined to make them happen.

So life, bring it on. I’m ready for the next great chapter in Scott and Kenna’s Excellent Adventure – whatever that may be!

]]> http://www.scottandkenna.com/final-assessment-the-end-of-the-excellent-adventure-for-now/feed 2 53.5501366 -113.4687119 http://www.scottandkenna.com/hello-china-and-canada http://www.scottandkenna.com/hello-china-and-canada#comments Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:16:25 +0000 Kenna http://www.scottandkenna.com/?p=1465 It feels weird to be writing this when we’ve been home for nearly two weeks, but the memories MUST be documented. So alas, here I go.

Coming home turned out to be a bit of a complicated affair, thanks to cheaptickets.com. I highly do not recommend buying anything from them after what happened to us!

Continue reading Hello China…and Canada!

It feels weird to be writing this when we’ve been home for nearly two weeks, but the memories MUST be documented. So alas, here I go.

Coming home turned out to be a bit of a complicated affair, thanks to cheaptickets.com. I highly do not recommend buying anything from them after what happened to us!

Leaving Hong Kong

It all started at 5:30 a.m. on June 4, when we tried to board the MRT to get to Central Station to catch the Aiport Express shuttle. Well, the MRT was all locked up and closed…which seemed very bizarre for a city as big as Hong Kong! Even Edmonton’s wimpy LRT starts at 5:30 am.  So, we totally did not have a contingency plan, and needed to make the first Airport Express train at 5:50 or we’d risk missing our flight. Panicked, we popped into a cab and experienced our first “reverse-culture shock” moment of the trip. We first asked how much it would cost to go to central station, since we were running low on HK dollars. The cab driver asked us how much we had. Oh no, mister, I am not that stupid! So then we proceeded to ensure that he was going to use his meter (this is a problem in most of SE Asia, but NOT Hong Kong) and he said of course. He then asked us “airport?” and we said “no” because we didn’t want to pay a $150 cab ride to get to the airport. We finally got in, and as we were approaching central station, we saw a sign for the airport express, so Scott said “airport!” and, annoyed, the guy made a WTF gesture with his hand.  At that moment, it dawned on us that we could have gone to a much closer station on the Kowloon side to take the airport train, but had totally forgotten. The cab driver wasn’t trying to rip us off – he was just trying to be helpful! The only reason we thought of central is because that was the only place you could get to easily from the MRT.  Stupid us.

We got to the train just in time to board it and were off to the airport. Upon arrival, there was a giant line to wait in for China Eastern Airlines (I missed self check-in so much while gone). When it was our turn, there seemed to be a problem. The lady kept making calls in Chinese and seemed quite flustered. Finally, she turns to us and says “your travel agent did not confirm your ticket on this flight, so you aren’t technically on it.” I started to freak out a bit and politely replied “oh my goodness, we had no idea. We have a flight from Shanghai to Vancouver and then another one from Vancouver to Edmonton and we NEED to be on this flight.” She simply nodded. (This wasn’t our first problem with cheaptickets.com.  Our first time around, they had simply forgotten to book us on the HK to Shanghai flight, and we spent hours on the phone clearing it up with a lady who had claimed to book us on the WHOLE flight – HK, Shanghai, Vancouver).

Forty-five minutes and help from five counter ladies later, we were told to put on a Business-class sticker to rush us through security – our flight was already boarding. They had managed to get us on the flight, but hadn’t been able to check us through to Vancouver. They told us we’d have gather our luggage in Shanghai, and go through customs, then re-check-in for our flight to Vancouver.  Wasn’t clearning Chinese customs going to be a problem because we didn’t have a Chinese visas, we asked? She replied, “Ah, no problem at all” and shooed us along.

A Less-than-smooth transfer in Shanghai

Well, a few hours later in Shanghai, we got off the plane to a man holding a “transfers” sign. I thought maybe he had been sent there to help us, by bringing us boarding and luggage tickets (this has happened to us before, and this was how it was handled). Oh no, when he found out we didn’t have a boarding pass, he sent us off down the hall all by ourselves. We made it to another “transfer” desk and asked the China Eastern Airlines lady if she could print us a boarding pass before passing through customs. She replied no, that we just had to go through customs and get our boarding pass on the other side. I asked “is it not a problem to pass through Chinese customs without a visa?” “Oh no,” she replies, “no problem at all.” So off we go to stand in the customs line.

When we got to the customs desk, we got in trouble for trying to go to the same booth together, and the scary Chinese guard made us go in opposite directions. I walked up to my customs lady, and handed her my passport. She proceeded to rifle through it, in search of my Chinese visa. I politely said “I am not staying in China. I am going to Vancouver today, but the airline could not print me a boarding pass.” She gave me a scowl and asked for my ticket number. I replied that Scott had it, and he was standing way over there. She motioned for me to go get it (keep in mind there is a giant line of people waiting to go through customs). Meanwhile, Scott’s going through a similar process, and trying to show his itinerary on his iPhone.  I rushed over to his desk, and finally produce the iPhone to my lady. She looks at it, makes some calls in Chinese and then tells me to go stand back in line. I can see that Scott is having as much success with his customs agent. Finally, someone comes to escort Scott to the police desk and I wave at him, and they motion me to follow. We go to the police desk and explain our story. They don’t seem impressed. Some lady comes and takes us and our passports to a small room. We’re wondering – are we in for bright lights and rubber gloves?! She told us to wait outside on a bench. We waited for a good 20 minutes. Finally, we were told it was ok, but no one gave us our passports back. So we went back to the police desk, who sent us to another man standing around, who for some reason had our passports (how this exchange happened, I have no idea). They told us all was well and we could go.  Phew.

Kenna with the little Expo mascot

The Maglev Experience

Relieved, we ran to the check-in desk, got our boarding tickets and checked our luggage. We still had 1.5 hours to spare until our boarding time, and since we were now allowed into China, we thought we should try to check things out. Well, some research on Scott’s iPhone had the disappointing news that the airport was 40 km outside of Shanghai, and that it would take over an hour in a cab to get anywhere. Furthermore, we had no Yuan. So, we went to take some pictures outside the airport. Scott kept researching on his iPhone, and discovered that Shanghai has a Maglev train that could get us into the city in 8 minutes – it goes 430 km/hour! Thinking about it, we could totally make it to Shanghai  - 8 minutes there, 15 minutes to walk around, 8 back – lots of time! So we ran over to the Maglev.  It was tight – by this time we only had forty-five minutes until our flight boarded… and it would take about 46 minutes to ride the train and back (with a 15 minute wait on either side for the next train). But we thought, what the heck? This is the very last instalment of the Excellent Adventure and we’ve gotta do something crazy to cap it off. So onto the train we went, complete with a bit of stomach acid.  If ANYTHING happened, and we had to wait longer than 15 minutes, we’d totally miss our flight!

The Maglev

Riding the train was awesome. Unfortunately, because we weren’t at a peak time, the train only went 300 km/hour, but it was still amazing. We whizzed by all the cars on the highway and it felt like an amusement park ride. Eight little minutes later, we were in Shanghai. It really sucked to be in Shanghai during Expo and not get to see anything, but we saw all the advertising and statues and hype. The city seemed electric. We bopped around the train station a bit, then went back to board the next train.

We made it back to the airport right on schedule, and RAN to catch our flight. We made it to the boarding gate just in time, and actually thought we were late because no one was there – turns out the gate had changed at the very last moment, and we had beat the crowd in finding the new gate. We proceeded to wait about an hour to board – our flight ended up being quite behind schedule!

The flight was fairly uneventful… the only funny part was that they put on a chair-stretching-exercise video about two hours out of Vancouver. It was under the guise of “you have been sitting still for quite some time, you must be sore!” So Scott and I followed along with the video (along with about half the plane) in rejuvenating our muscles. It was cute.

Arriving in Canada was a bit anti-climactic – the custom’s man was pretty mean to us. We got up to him, smiled and he glared back at us. He said “What were you doing in China?” We replied, “we weren’t in China. We just had a layover from Hong Kong.” He said “well, what were you doing in Hong Kong?” And we replied “we were just there for a few days. We have been travelling for over six months and we’re just returning home!” He got really rude and said, aghast: “six months! What for! Did you work? Where did you go?” So we replied. He then noticed we had shipped a box home and asked us to provide detailed receipts. We told him we didn’t have any, because people don’t give receipts in Asia. He told us we needed to provide a detailed list of cost and items. So we started to, when he told us to “hurry up, I have a big line now. What are you doing, I don’t need costs.” And then told us to go away. It was certainly a not very warm welcome.

Good ol' Timmy's!

We were pretty sure that after that treatment, we’d undergo a full search. We were wrong, though, and made it through customs unscathed. When we got into the main part of the airport, we found our first beacon: Tim Horton’s. Scott suffered through most of our trip (except for Vietnam) trying to find a decent cup of java for cheap. He really missed good ol’ Tim’s. The commercials really don’t lie – he ordered a double double and was happy as a clam.

We finally made it back to Edmonton to the Montgomeries picking us up, and a delicious Alberta Beef steak dinner at my mom’s. The red wine (we missed that too) flowed, and it was an excellent time. We finally crawled into bed around midnight.

Welcome home!

The next morning, without much of a hint of jetlag, we went to our condo to assess the damage of our tentants. We walked in, and it was filthy. Our socks were black from walking on the floor for five minutes, and washing with soap and water didn’t seem to fix it. We had to literally get down on our hands and knees and scrub the tiles with a toothbrush, bleach and baking soda to take the grime off. The place hadn’t been vacuumed in ages, so we had to steam clean the carpets…but the worst part was that the things that the renters HAD cleaned, had been cleaned with ARMORALL. Yes, you know, the stuff you use on your car’s wheels, grills and vinyl. It was everywhere – mirrors, my glass tables, my wood buffet, the granite, the cupboards. We spent hours washing everything to get it off, and it had even started to eat into some of the surfaces. It was seriously not a fun way to come home. On top of that, our leather couches were covered in sticky marks and spills, the kitchen was covered in splatters of food and grease (I kept finding tomato dribbles down cupboards and in drawers) and it was just bad. The sad thing is that the girls had cleaned…but clearly their standards were pretty low. They totally thought they had left it in pristine condition for us, as evidenced by this email from one of them:

“She has been a great roommate, the only thing is that she’s been working so hard (sometimes 20hours a day) she hasn’t had time to clean her bedroom. However, I hope the rest of the apartment was perfect (as we had such a great time I enjoyed cleaning it for you guys.)”

And that’s it, my friends. Not 24 hours after we came back from the most amazing journey and experiences of our lives were we cleaning a floor with a toothbrush and scrubbing armorall off of surfaces. Yes, this is real life. Scott and I looked at each other, and said “did the adventure ever really happen, or did we just imagine it?!” Thank god we have this blog and our pictures, or we might truly believe we dreamt it all up in an insane asylum.

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The beautiful trees down by the river in Chiang Mai

So, we ended up spending the day walking around, and I got a pedicure. Somehow the people seemed friendlier here – so many locals stopped to talk to us. They seem to be really missing their tourists and seemed genuinely elated that we were there. It was awesome.

We boarded our night bus at 7 p.m., and were ecstatic that our last bus ride of the trip only had eight people on it, when it could seat 40 – that meant that everyone got their own row to spread out and sleep. I can’t say enough how amazing travelling Thailand in a period of “civil unrest” is. Next trip – somewhere where nobody goes, like the Congo or Darfur…

The bus ride was great until about 4 a.m., when the bus got a flat tire. Our bus was pretty rickety, and the driver was hitting some pretty massive pot holes, so I wasn’t surprised when it happened. We were 90 km out of Bangkok, and essentially in the middle of nowhere, so I couldn’t figure out what they were going to do. Well, we drove very slowly for about five minutes, and, no joke, we pulled into a tire fixing place. Now, it was 4 in the morning, so I thought we’d definitely have to wait. Oh no. This was somebody’s house, so the bus driver went and woke the guy up and he fixed our tire. Can you believe that? There must be tire fixers every 10 kilometers on that highway for us to have found one so quickly. Just think if you had driven from Edmonton to Calgary and got a flat tire. You would have had to call a tow-truck, which would take you to the next town, and then you would have to wait for the store to open, and it would take the guy hours to fix it. We were done in 30 minutes flat. It was unbelievable.

Fire damage to Central World

Bangkok has started to feel like home, since this was our third time in the city…so arriving at 6:30 a.m created no problem for us. Back to Khao San road! Because of the lack of tourism, we found a couple of pretty good deals on hotels – again, we love travelling in ultra-low season.

After a quick nap, we caught a cab in the afternoon and went to check out the devastation near Central World, where the Red Shirts had been camped out for two months and vandalized when they were expunged. It was unbelievable how much damage had been done to Central World – imagine half of West Edmonton Mall burned down, with a gaping hole through its side, like a wrecking ball had gone through it. It was nasty. There were tons of locals and a few tourists taking pictures and putting flowers on a memorial.

Puppies for sale in the markets

We decided to take a train to the Chatuchak weekend market, which was incredible – spanning 35 sq. Km, that makes it one of the largest markets in the world, and there were literally NO westerners. All Thais. And this place sold EVERYTHING – from plates to vases to clothes – there was even a section selling tiny pure-bred puppies (although I really think people should take in strays here…there are too many dogs as it is!). And we watched a guy make Thai tea by throwing it around in jugs, then ordered some street meat and sat in the adjacent park to enjoy (we’ve actually started eating really sketchy food since our bellies seem to have taken on the characteristics of a local). It was lovely.

One Night in Bangkok

Our Thai lady friends, Lotus and Mae

That night, we decided it was time for one last hoorah – Bangkok style. We needed to exit Thailand with a Bang – and what better place than Bang-kok!?

After shopping our little hearts out, we sat down for one last bucket at a restaurant, and quickly met two British guys. One of the British guys was quite the lady’s man, and quickly attracted two Thai ladies who seemed to love ME (Landon – remind you of something?), and the group bonded very quickly. Unfortunately, our new friend Lotus decided to impress us by guzzling back bucket after bucket, and before long she couldn’t stand up, and Scott literally carried her to a cab. But, the night was still young, so the Brits and we carried on to the next bar.

Now, we were partying on a Saturday night, so that meant all the Thai ladies were out in full force…and quickly one glommed onto Scott. We decided to have a little fun and see where it took him. Not far apparently…these Thai ladies are INTUITIVE. She kept saying that Scott loved me (even though he made no indication that we were together) and she could tell by the way he looked at me. Our experiment was short-lived, but Scott discovered through conversation that she was a Red Shirt supporter from the poor Issan region (where most of the Red Shirts are from). This was cool, as she was the first one we’ve met (or at least who has admitted to it) in our travels. Scott tried to talk to her about why she supported the movement, but didn’t get very far as the loud music and language barrier combined to make things very difficult.

Kenna's "peace-au" Kaew

We’re not sure how, but at some point we headed to an after-hours trance club, where I met another friend named Kaew. She was adorable and kept calling me a “peace-au” which means “sister but not my real sister.” I thought it was cute and kind of shameful that English doesn’t have an equivalent. I think I realized that the reason all the girls liked me so much is that I was friendly to them – I don’t think many western women are warm or welcoming which is a shame. It’s always nice to make new friends, and now I have a few in Thailand!

Unfortunately, our last day in Bangkok was spent nursing a mighty bucket hangover and we didn’t do much besides wander down to the river. We did manage to find a really cool park that had a battle of the bands going on, which was neat. The most interesting part of being there was that, at 6 p.m., everyone stood up and they played the national anthem. Now, this wouldn’t have been odd, except it had happened the night before at the market too, but we hadn’t realized what was going on. It’s kind of strange – all of a sudden you look up and everyone is still and standing and you don’t really know what’s going on because the announcement is in Thai. So, we stood for the anthem. I later discovered from Kaew that this happens every day, and that it is for the country. I think Canada should do that.

A little 2-yr old girl doing aerobics in the park

After the anthem, an aerobics group formed right in front of us and started going. It was really random – just some guy coming out to teach and people show up and put donations in a box in front of him. It was so much fun to watch. I think this too should happen in Canada! We had a hoot watching a little girl, about 2, join in on the class and do all the movements with the Thai ladies. Finally, we went and finished up the last of our shopping and crawled into bed, having to be up at 3:30 a.m to catch our flight to Hong Kong.

Getting a cab to the airport in the morning was interesting, as we had one dude try to tell us it was 600 baht. We are now smarter to know better, and refused, and walked away to find a metered cab. The same guy claimed the meter cab would take us, but for 350 baht. I got mad, pulled our bags out of his car, and flagged down an honest cab and got in. In the end, the cab ride was actually 320 with the meter, so we did well.

Last days in Asia

Chungking mansions - notice all the Indian touts everywhere

Hong Kong is just as I remember it – crowded, chaotic and amazing. We had been told to stay at the Chung King Mansions – a crazy area, composed of six blocks of buildings (themselves inside a building) with over 80 guest houses inside. Upon arriving, it felt like we’d been dumped into Little India. A friend had told us to stay in block E, floor 6 – so we headed there. We got harassed by about 10 Indian men trying to tout us to their guest house – one even told us that the entire block E was closed. Hah. We managed to avoid them all until we were waiting for the elevator to the sixth floor. Some guy followed us in and tried to get a commission off us at the place we were already planning on staying, and then somehow managed to talk us into looking at two other places. Both were dumps. We tried to escape him and go back to the original, but ended up only making it a few flights down the nastiest staircase I’ve ever seen and dodged into a Chinese guest house. It was a bit more expensive, but much more spacious (even though the bed is barely bigger than a twin size – but all the rooms in every hotel were like this), so we’re happy.

The night we arrived, despite being exhausted from the early flight, we ended up meeting on of Scott’s contacts for dinner. This was quite random – his contact was from Sydney, and we were supposed to meet him in Sydney while we were there, but circumstances didn’t pan out. Coincidentally, he sent Scott an email a few days ago asking if we’d be in Hong Kong, and it turned out we’d arrive in Hong Kong on the same day. Talk about random.

We primarily came to Hong Kong to shop – every third store here is a jewellery store, so it’s a great place to get a proper ring, and the clothing is amazing. Aside from shopping, we spent some time visiting some of our favourite jaunts – the botanical gardens and Hong Kong park. Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t cooperated and the first couple days consisted of constant torrential rain… I guess it’s fitting – the trip begins with torrential rain, and ends with torrential rain…

Our tea appreciation class

Since there wasn’t much else to do in the rain, we decided to take part in a free tea appreciation class, which, surprisingly, was amazing. We learned all about the process of cultivating and processing tea, how to serve it, and all the etiquette surrounding it. For example, green tea should only be steeped for 15 seconds, while black tea should be steeped for 1-3 mins. You’re also supposed to have a second teapot for loose leaf tea, called a “delivery” pot, so that you can pour your tea after the optimal steep time, and then store it in the delivery pot to serve. Each type of tea also has an optimal water temperature – green tea is about 45°C, while black tea is 90°C. I had no idea that tea was such an art form! It was like a wine tasting… and the tea menu was just as extensive as a wine menu. These Chinese sure take their teas seriously!

Bye-bye Excellent Adventure! Our last beach...

Our last day of the trip (coincidentally, our 5 year anniversary as well) was pretty much the same as many other days on our trip – a beach day! Being rather excited/worried about coming home, we had horrendous sleeps the night before, but promised ourselves we would wake up early to ease the coming jet lag, and headed to the other side of Hong Kong Island for our last glimpse of beach for a while. We headed to Stanley Beach first (where Scott had been on our previous visit to Hong Kong while I was at my conference), which was mostly a market and tourist trap – the only Chinese were working in the shops. But the real beautiful beach came at Repulse Bay – a beach not even comparable to Thailand’s, but still very nice. Unfortunately, yet again, the weather didn’t cooperate, and we only had time for a quick nap before clouds rolled in and the temperate dropped to a frigid 26°C (Edmonton is going to be a real shock). We headed back into Stanley for a quick bite, then back into town. We had planned on heading up to the peak of the Island, but drizzle prevented that.

So, tomorrow we head home, and the adventure must come to an end. It’s been a blast, but we’re looking forward to the new exciting challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. See you all soon!

Little Pai in the sky – what a funny place. Pai offers 3.14 permutations and combinations of fun. Ok, I’ll stop with the pi/pie/pai jokes and get to what it was really like.

We landed in Pai after a really sketchy 3 hour minibus ride from Chiang Mai. Our tummies really didn’t appreciate the hair pin turns which our driver thought would be fun to take at approximately 80 kilometres an hour. But, we made it. And at first, we didn’t really know what to make of it. It seemed like a deadly tourist trap filled with nothing but restaurants and shops. But after walking around, it started to grow on us. We started off in an interesting guest house called Pavee’s which felt more like an apartment – we had the whole top floor of a little house complete with a balcony. We headed out for some food and discovered a few little places offering live music. All of the locals seemed really down to earth and relaxed, and it all it took was a few hours of this to rub off onto Scott and I, your typical ‘we get bored easily and need to be doing something 24/7′ kind of couple.

I wasn’t feeling all that well, but Scott really wanted to take advantage of the live music, so I went home to bed while Scott grabbed food, headed out to one of the local bars, and in typical solo-Scott fashion, sat down with a group of travellers and listened to the excellent live music all night long.

The Most Wonderfully Random Day of the Adventure

Sandy and Otto's Chai outfit

Our first whole day in Pai was when things definitely got amazing. We switched guest houses to a really cheap little bungalow at the adorable Unicorn Guesthouse. It was tiny and quaint, with a dirt-floor bathroom (with pebbles over top to make it a bit lest rustic) and a hammock for lounging out front. It also had a nice little pool which we enjoyed.

As we were walking to the new guesthouse, a lady in a shop (that I had been eying since the previous evening for it’s “Fresh Chai Tea” sign) called out a warm greeting, welcoming us to Pai. So, after putting down our luggage, we went straight over to get a cup of chai. Turns out the friendly lady is Sandy, an ex-pat Swede who is with Otto, a Thai fellow. Drinking the delicious chai (which Sandy and Otto made by grinding fresh herbs in a mortar) felt like being invited into their home – their little outfit was adorable and very homey feeling. And they were some of the friendliest people we’ve met on this trip. Turns out that Otto is an artist, and is known for making tanktops and t-shirts. Well, I couldn’t resist, and decided to commission a nice flower design top for myself, depicting my most favourite Thai flower.

We decided we would just rent a motorbike and take off for the rest of the day – for only $5, we rented a bike for 30 hours (cost of petrol was about $2 to fill the tank) and off we went into the countryside. We decided to make our way to the Mo Paeng waterfall. To get to the waterfall, you had to pass through a few hill tribe villages, where we were offered marijuana by all the local ladies who would yell at you and make the smoking joint signal with their fingers and mouths as you passed by on your bike. It was pretty funny.

View of the mountains from the top of Mo Paeng waterfall

The waterfall was very nice and quiet – travelling Thailand during low season and during a period of civil unrest is actually amazing. More to come on those benefits later. There were a few tourists, but mostly, there was a group of local Thai boys playing around. These guys were nuts – going down sections of the waterfall like a waterslide and doing flips off the rocks into the pools. It was quite scary because we’re only at the very beginning of the wet season, so water tables are low still.

On our way back from the waterfall, I saw some signs for piranha fishing. So, we followed the signs and came to a lovely little resort type place with a giant pond. The owner, a British fellow named Dave, got us all set up for fishing. We chose some Thai sausage as our bait – which, incidentally, turned out to be AWESOME, because the sausage jokes that we could make about it were endless. I’ll leave those to your imagination…

Fishin for Piranhas

We met a very interesting and chauvinist old Scottish doctor (complete with Thai girlfriend/mistress), who really thought he was the shiznat at fishing. I played along and pretended to be a clueless and helpless female, asking him tons of questions about how to fish (even though I fished quite a bit as a child and totally know what I’m doing). I managed to catch myself three fish in about two hours, which pissed the doctor off to no end – he seemed very distraught that I, as a woman, was “beating” him. He kept calling the tally “estrogen 1, testosterone, 0.” In the end, I had caught two pirhanas and a tom tim, Scott caught nothing, and he had caught one carp. He just couldn’t get over it and kept making a big deal out of the situation…it was pretty funny.

Anyway, after our random visit to the piranha fishing place, we got back on our bike, in search of the next adventure. Our next stop led us to “Mama’s” – a yoga studio run by a very crazy 63-year-old who claims that she “looks so good” (her words) because she does yoga every day and eats vegetarian food. She told us that if we spend a week with her, that we too, can have the same wonderful fate. We signed up for her morning class to give it a try and went on our merry way. We ate dinner at a delicious food stall and then bopped over to a club called “Bebop” for some live tunes.

Jammin’ with the Thais

Scott jammin' with the Thais

When we arrived at Bebop, we quickly discovered we were the only people there. A band was set to play, but hadn’t been playing (since the place was empty), and so they started talking to us before their set. Scott looked up at the stage and said “is that a keyboard?” and the guy replied “yeah, you play? It’s someone else’s, but I can ask if you can use it.” And so, Scott ended up playing an entire set with the band, and I was pretty much the only person in the audience besides the bar maid. It was awesome.

The next act was an old Swedish guy named Norbert and a Thai girl named Ohm – we had seen them the night before at a different club. Norbert is an awesome classical guitarist and really funky hippy man, and Ohm has a gorgeous voice. They mostly played Joni Mitchell and Chantal Kreviazuk (woo hoo on the Canadian women!) and so I requested some Sarah McLaughlin to add to the mix. When their set ended, Norbert thanked us for being the audience and singing along with the tunes.

The last act of the night was a very terrible Thai band, with one of the singers being absolutely tone deaf. Literally. We couldn’t recognize any of their songs until the chorus came…it began to become a really funny game. But with this band came droves of Thai tourists…all VERY drunk and out of control. The girls were dancing seductively with anything that resembled a pole, and one woman (picture a hunch-backed, short haired, tattoo’d lady), obviously homosexual, started trying to hit on me and make me dance with her. It became a bit uncomfortable and it was 1 a.m anyway, so we took off. We needed to get some sleep before Mama’s yoga class the next morning.

The Strangest Random Day of the Adventure

The next day, beginning with Mama’s yoga, was equally as random as its predecessor, but in a very different way than the first had been.

We arrived at Mama’s house at 10 a.m., after a VERY rough night of sleeping on the most slanted bed I have ever witnessed. It was like trying to sleep on a hill, rolling towards the ground. NOT fun. Upon arrival at Mama’s, we were sent upstairs, past a bedroom filled with giant overstuffed teddy bears, and into the general area of the house which consisted of a tin roof, wooden floors, and straw mats lined everywhere. The walls were strewn with Mama in her heyday – as a young beautiful woman winning many awards in what it appeared were beauty pageants.

So after five minutes, Mama comes in and says “meditate for 30 minutes.” There were two other people in the class with us. We must have given her a funny look, because she said “you no mediate before?” We clarify that yes, we have never meditated before. She says “ok. Sit still. 30 minutes. Clear your mind. Do not think of yesterday or tomorrow. If you have a thought, pull it out. Make mind still.” And that was it. No tips on how to sit, no nice little mantras to start off with…nothing. Well, I’ve read plenty about meditating, and it’s definitely easier said than done. After about 10 minutes my feet started to fall asleep and Scott started moving around on the wooden floor which created a ruckus. I think Mama got fed up with us because she called the meditation to a stop and we got right into yoga.

Now, this was the worst yoga I’ve ever experienced in my life. She gave no direction and didn’t create a nice environment at all. She kept grunting – left, right, left right, and often we wouldn’t do the same amount of repetitions on each side. She would also say “go as far as you can” and that would be it. No direction on proper technique. The highlight of the class was when she tried teaching us headstands by using the tin roof as a place to put our feet. After helping us once, she went back to her mat and proceeded to sit on her head for at least 10 minutes while we all stared at her. Another highlight was when a millipede suddenly appeared on my mat, under where my bottom had been just moments before. Awesome. But I think my favourite was how she kept giving us ridiculously long savasanas (rest periods) and would go tinker in her house – I heard her sweep the floor, wash some dishes, put something in the microwave, etc. – it was hilarious.

Once class was “finished” we all got to sit and enjoy some fruit from Mama’s yard. She basically force-fed us 10 pieces of fruit each saying “Like to give more than receive. And this is the best fruit you will ever have. I picked it from garden moments ago.” She then introduced us to her “sons” – two dogs who had remained silent the whole class, but who started barking when Mama ordered them to. The one dog, a golden retriever, went crazy and ran circles around us for a solid 15 minutes. Then she brought out another “son” – this massive cat with the longest hair I’ve ever seen. It looked like a bear. She told us that some farangs gave it to her because they were leaving Thailand….and she has to be very careful with it because it scares the Thai people. They don’t believe her that it’s a cat and they’ve tried to kill it before. After about 20 minutes of eating and listening to Mama lecture us on what it means to be a good person, Scott and I politely excused ourselves and got the heck outta there. All in all, it was a very odd and strange experience. We had also injured our backs from improper yoga technique.

The free hot springs - and they were hot. At 80°C, you couldn't even touch them.

After “yoga,” we got back on our motorbike and cruised out to the hot springs. We passed by a few elephant camps on the way, where they apparently “save” injured elephants and train them to play with tourists. We had almost planned on doing an elephant ride again here, but after some research, decided it is not a positive tourist activity. We read that although these places claim that they rescue the elephants from tough circumstances and that they treat them properly, they really don’t. We figured we’d already had the poor experience in Laos with the elephants (and I rode the one in Phnom Pehn), so we opted out.

We arrived at the hot springs, and found that they were something like what we saw in Rotorura in New Zealand, but they wanted an exorbitant $7/person just to enter and see them. We opted for the free version outside the gates and then mosey-d on.

The rocks in the Pai Canyon made a very slim rock face - barely wide enough to walk down

Our next stop was a canyon, which was pretty interesting. We hiked around for a bit, but the path was pretty scary and it looked like it was going to rain. We would have been dead meat out on the ledge if it started pouring, so we kept our exploration minimal. It was pretty amazing though – it was so quiet and our surroundings so serene, we felt like the only people on earth.

After that, we rode to find another waterfall, and found a “land crack” instead. It is a place where the land has separated, and apparently the Thai people can’t figure out why. We figure that it is a result of very wet land (it seems to keep cracking further around October/November, at the end of the wet season) sliding into the adjoining ravine. Finally, we made it to the waterfall, but it was very disappointing. Someone has been using it as a garbage dump, so there were cans and garbage everywhere…and it was so tiny and not pretty at all. We hiked around a bit, but left in a bit of disappointment.

The "land crack"

We capped off the night with a few drinks and some of the most amazing vegetarian food I have ever tasted at a live jazz club called “Edible Jazz.” Here, we ran into Sandy and Otto and a few other of their local friends which was cool. On the way home, we found an adorable little dog with a hurt paw who followed us quite far down the road. When I stopped to pet her, she laid down in the middle of the street, put her belly in the air, and begged for me to rub her belly. It was very cute, but it was kind of weird rubbing a dog’s belly full of nipples. I wasn’t quite sure what to do about that. I will miss all the random stray dogs and cats and puppies and kitties in Asia though – they have definitely provided endless moments of entertainment for me.

We spent our last day in Pai lounging around and hanging out with an artiste named Poh at his studio and got a few more works of art commissioned. We boarded the last minibus to Chiang Mai at 4 p.m. (which was empty aside from us – LOVE travelling Thailand right now with no one around!), and waved goodbye to the wonderful little place that Pai is.

After our “adventure” with the Gibbons experience, there was only one thing we wanted to do – chill out. But, the small town which was the jumping-off spot for the Gibbons Experience, Huay Xi, was just a little too chilled out for us (i.e., extremely boring and nowhere and nothing to do to relax), and we really didn’t feel like wasting another day there. So, despite the turmoil in Thailand, we opted to cross the Mekong and head into Thailand.

Leaving Laos

We’ve spoken at length before about the laid-back nature of the Lao people, but here we experienced the ultimate example of what it is like to travel Laos. Thinking that the ferry crossing into Thailand would disembark from the same pier that we arrived from Luang Prabang, we walked about two kilometres down to that pier in the sweltering heat, only to be dumbfounded by the lack of signs. There was a customs office and a ticket booth, but nobody seemed to want to help us. We headed into the customs office, where we found a customs officer sleeping, and he really didn’t want to be woken up as he ignored our polite attempts to get his attention. Finally we found someone to ask, and they informed us that we were in the wrong place. The real pier turned out to be about 20m away from our hotel, we discovered after grudgingly paying for a tuk-tuk to take us back that way (it took us 20 minutes just to FIND a tuk-tuk – Kenna finally had to play the damsel in distress card for a dude to notice, and he offered to take us in his VAN – he wasn’t even a tuk-tuk driver!). Now, in every country we’ve been in besides Laos, the front desk is almost nosy about what you are doing and where you are going. Literally, every place we’ve stayed in in Asia has asked us where we are headed everytime we leave the hotel. It isn’t to be nosy – most of the time they want to be the ones to sell you a boat ticket or a tuk-tuk and every so often they just want to be as helpful as possible. Not in Laos. They didn’t even ask us where we were headed when we checked out…and Scott even asked if the ferry crossing to Thailand was at the pier, to which we simply received a barely noticeable nod. In all our time in Laos, we really couldn’t figure out if this continual indifference we received was a dis-interest in the tourism industry, a disdain for tourists in general, a language barrier, or just the un-assuming personality of the Lao people.

Anyway, we took a 45-second ferry across the Mekong and entered into Thailand, and immediately noticed a difference. You could almost call it culture shock. “Hello, mister, you need visa? Come here!” Well thank you! Well, now, how do we get to the bus station to get to Chiang Rai? “Sah wah dee khrap, bus station?? I take you!” Wow, yeah I did need to go there. We arrive, and see a fruit stand and start buying some mangosteens, when a woman comes up and asks, “Hello, Chiang Rai? You take this bus over there – it leaves in 15 minutes.” Wow, these people are mind readers! That, or every farang takes the same route… in any case, and we’ve said it before, we love Thailand. Coming here from Laos was almost like entering a first world country. Ugly but effective marketing signs, efficient transportation, people always asking you if you need a tuk-tuk, we almost missed this. And the friendly and ubiquitous logo for 7/11, always there to help you buy water or food for local prices without having to barter – I never thought I’d be so happy to see a multinational logo.

Chiang Rai

The Thai market in Chiang Rai

After a fairly pleasant and cheap local bus ride to Chiang Rai, we found a lovely and cheap hotel to check into and do nothing. A/C, TV, free coffee, all for $11/night, what else could you need? So we did nothing. We laid in the hotel room, took care of some business, watched some TV, and finally headed down to the local night market for some food.

The night market was interesting – there were actually two eating venues, one, a touristy restaurant, and the other, a place with many stalls all selling different types of food, most without English signs. Feeling adventurous, we headed to the local market and sampled a bunch of food by pointing.

Trouble in Bangkok

The following morning, expecting another lazy day, we flipped on the TV to see what was happening in Bangkok, which was not good news. The Thai government had started taking out the red shirt protesters in Bangkok, and there was a lot of bloodshed. We have been anxiously watching the news on Thailand for the better part of two months, making sure that it would be safe for us to re-enter the country, and as luck would have it, the day after we enter into Thailand, the government says enough is enough and starts shooting… The timing could not have been more perfect! Not only that, but, fearing rioting, the government has placed a curfew on all the northern provinces, including us. Great!

Condoms and Hill Tribes

We tried to forget about it, telling ourselves that it was highly unlikely that anything would actually happen in this sleepy town. We headed out for lunch to a place called “Cabbages and Condoms,” a pretty unique restaurant that supports family planning. The description said that “condoms appeared in many unique places,” so we were expecting to find them in our cutlery, our bill, maybe even our food… “Mmmm that calamari is really chewy. Hey, wait a second….” It was actually fairly disappointing though, there were only condoms on the walls and the food was mediocre.

Cabbages and Condoms

However, they did give us a couple of free passes to the hill tribe museum next door, which we thought we’d check out. Pretty much the only interesting thing to do in Chiang Rai is to go visit hill tribes, and we were considering doing a tour, so why not learn about them first? We’re glad we did, because we really wanted to go see the Karen Long Neck hill tribes, but apparently they’re actually just a serious tourist trap. These poor people are actually imported from their war-torn home of Burma, and are forced to work in contrived villages built exclusively for tourists. If they don’t wear their neck rings, they don’t get paid, and since only the women wear the rings, only the women get paid. They aren’t official Thai citizens, so they aren’t allowed to travel anywhere, and have no benefits of being in Thai society, so they are effectively in prisons of tourism. Not only that, but in the villages, all they do is sell paraphernalia that isn’t even produced in the villages themselves, there is no seeing the culture or the indigenous environment. Further, the hill tribe museum only touted one visiting one Lisu village with which they were working in partnership with – it is the only village that is undergoing a sustainable eco-tourism project whereby they actually see some of the money that is being paid by the tourists, and is only being visited about once per week. Reading up on all this information pretty much convinced us that we’d be better off not doing a hill tribe tour, and reinforced how important it is to do serious research before booking ANY trip to ensure you aren’t backing some horrible inhumane operation.

On the way home, Kenna decided she’d like a foot massage. She headed to a few of the places by our hotel (of which there were probably about half a dozen lined in a row), but oddly, they didn’t seem interested in her. She went to one parlour and knocked on the door, only to be greeted by a fat Thai man, half naked, doing up his pants and telling her to go away. Clearly these weren’t your average massage parlours. I, on the other hand, was seemingly irresistible – every time I passed them without Kenna, they would literally grab my arm and try to pull me into their massage parlour. Nice, to be wanted, but that’s a bit extreme. I guess in Muslim countries, women need a male escort; in Thailand, single males need a female escort. It took a little while, but we began to realize hat these places were not massage parlours at all… especially since they seemed to be all but dead during the day, but flowing with provocatively dressed women at night…

A few hours later, we headed into the night market again, looking for deals and food. We found a great restaurant with two really excellent guitar players playing in the center of the market, and sat and enjoyed the food. Here, we randomly ran into a couple who had been going on the Gibbon’s Experience the day we were leaving. Kenna approached the girl and asked if she had just come back from the Gibbon’s. The girl said yes in a suspicious way…and then exclaimed “oh, you were the girl that was in really rough shape with the blood everywhere! You really scared us for our trip!” I guess they had a better time than us – it didn’t rain at all so the leeches were minimal and they weren’t afraid of their tree house plummeting to the ground. We shared some stories of our experiences and sat down to eat. However, a few minutes into our meal, at about 9:00, the guitarists started packing up hurriedly and a very nervous Thai woman came on the mic, saying essentially “I hope you’ve heard of the curfew in all the northern provinces, that includes us, and I’m sorry but you all have to head back to your homes within 30 minutes.” Oh…. not good….

This pretty much sums up our time in Chiang Rai - keeping up with the news in Bangkok with NewsAsia and online

So, we headed back to our hotel and sat on the tube wondering what was happening. Obviously, we were a little worried… our state was under curfew, so what did that mean? Were there soldiers or police squads that were waiting to be deployed all around town? Would we have to leave Thailand? We were planning on going to Chiang Mai the next day, but would that be safe? Sleep didn’t come easily that night, as we were worried about all these things. Compounding it, there was a motorbike that constantly drove up and down the street outside our hotel – was this the army moving in? Or was this just some idiot disobeying the curfew to pop wheelies in the deserted street? In the end it turned out to be the latter, but it worried us nonetheless.

The next day, we had planned on going to Chiang Mai, but opted against it due to safety concerns. So again, we did nothing. Again, Kenna wanted a foot massage. We had seem some fairly legit places in our wanderings of the town, so we headed for one of those, and she finally got what she was looking for, with no happy ending. Again, we retired early to deal with the curfew.

Finally, the next morning, we decided to brave it and head to Chiang Mai. Though there were reports of bombings and grenades in Chiang Mai, we decided that it was probably isolated and wouldn’t continue, and if it was really bad we’d leave immediately and head to Pai. The bus ride was probably the nicest bus we’ve ever had – for $5, it was comfortable, with A/C, and lots of snacks and bathroom breaks. Oh it’s so nice to be back in Thailand.

Given all the craziness going on in the North, we were really close to grabbing a flight back to Phuket in the south. It would be really nice to leave Thailand with its beaches on our minds, and a great way to end the trip. But then we’d miss lots of cool things in the north… so we opted to stay in Chiang Mai.

Our pool in Chiang Mai

The hotel we ended up staying at had a pool – not quite the ocean, but nice for lounging around at anyway. Plus, it seemed that things had really cooled down with the Red Shirts – the news had nothing new to report and all the Thai people we talked to seemed very happy and convinced that the trouble was over.

The Cooking Course

The following day, we spent the day lounging at the pool, walking around, and in the evening, we finally managed to accomplish one of our most highly-anticipated goals of the trip – a Thai cooking course. Thai is pretty much our favourite food, and we really missed it while in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. And the cooking course we did delivered! First, we chose our meals, and headed to the local market to actually buy our produce and ingredients for the meal (in previous courses, we visited the market but just window-shopped). Another indication of how advanced Thailand is – the market was clean and didn’t smell disgusting! Though there was still meat laying everywhere, there were motorized fly swatters. And our teacher was awesome – she told us how to pick out the produce and named everything for us. This again was way better than ever before.

Kenna whipping up some good Thai home cookin'

We arrived at our instructor’s home, in an obviously affluent area of Chiang Mai. It had a very professional kitchen built in the back yard, where every student could have their own wok. Unlike some of our other courses, the instructor actually watched us cook and helped us along the way – none of this demonstration crap where you glaze over and remember nothing. And most of our meals turned out really well – some of them were actually the best of the dishes we’d ever tasted. We’re stoked to try our hand at cooking these dishes when we get back home!

And now, we’re again lounging at the pool, waiting for a bus to take us to Pai. Pai is a really small town and supposedly teeming with hippies, but many people we’ve talked to said it was their favourite place in Thailand. After the islands and Koh Phi Phi, I can’t see how, but hey, we’ll see!

Hour 1: We check-in at the Gibbon’s office and watch a short video about zip-lining safety. We immediately discover that we would be spending the next few days with a VERY young group of six young males. We were slightly perturbed about this until we discovered they were Canadian. I didn’t pay much attention to the video since I have zip-lined many times and felt sure that our guides would keep us in check whilst on the course. I actually missed half the video because Aysha, our other Canadian friend that we had travelled with since our hill-tribe trek, popped by to say goodbye.

Hour 3: We arrive at the base village after a very arduous ride in a 4×4 over some pretty sketchy terrain. Laos has decided it is very practical to pave 50 meter sections of road, alternated by 50 meters of gravel road, which makes for an interesting sensation while packed into the back of a jeep with nine other people (namely, large sweaty boys).

Hour 4: The hike begins. The people just coming off the Experience, when asked what it was like, grumpily warned us about leeches and bees. They were bleeding everywhere and several had been stung. We assumed they were weaklings and embarked on our hike.

Crossing a very unstable bamboo bridge

Hour 6: After a fairly challenging hike, mostly uphill, we arrive at the waterfall. (aside: the Gibbon’s Experience offers two experiences: the Classic, which involves only a small one-hour hike to one treehouse, where you reside for the full two days. The Waterfall version, takes you to a waterfall and swimming hole for the first night, and then you switch treehouses on the second day. We randomly ended up on the waterfall version because of the day we were leaving – they depart on alternate tours every other day.) We had experienced minimal leech attacks at this point – most had been averted by watching them before they crawled onto the sole of your shoe and into your sock to suck blood. The eight of us Canadians went for a swim and got to know each other a little better – our roommates for the next few days were 21-year old guys from the Toronto area who had all just graduated University from Western. We were getting along like peas in a pod. The swim was wonderful after the up-hill trek in 42 degree heat…we welcomed the cool feeling and resting our sore limbs.

Filling up our water from a pipe, filtered through a dirty coffee filter. Who can spell Giardia?

Hour 8: After collecting water from a very questionable source which involved putting a strainer over a tap outside (Giardia, here we come!), we embarked on another hike up to our first zip-line. Strangely enough, the company had only provided us with six harnesses for eight people – so we had to take turns getting the group across the canyon. The first zip-line was unreal: you basically strapped onto the rope (pretty much unassisted by any guide, since our guide, who hilariously resembled the little Chinese man from Ocean’s 11, barely spoke any English) and it appeared as though you were heading straight into the trees. Really though, you were going across a large valley into the side of a mountain, where you disembarked, walked a few meters, and went on another very short line which led you into our home for the night: a wicked tree house, perched 50 meters above the ground. The zip-line landed into the base of the house, where a toilet was also located. After climbing a short set of stairs, you were on the main floor, complete with beds and a small eating area. This was awesome, every dad’s dream for their back yard.

On of the tree houses (not the one we stayed in)

Hour 10: Only one person had suffered some leech damage and we were all feeling pretty good from the trek in – especially after the swim. Scott and a few other guys decided to go for a some zips across the canyon and back while the rest of us lounged and enjoyed some hot chocolate (bizarre to drink in 42 degree heat, I know, but it was delicious!). We hunkered down for our first canister dinner – a really interesting canister that consisted of four different compartments with various Lao dishes cooked inside and a bag of rice. Our guide left us for the night, which was a bit of a surprise – you mean, we were going to stay here without supervision for the night?! We are just Canadian man-children! We need a tough Lao guide to help us! Anyway, once we calmed down and began to enjoy our freedom, we cleaned up after ourselves just in time for the sunset. In a sign of things to come, we were bothered by a few bees, but with only one of getting stung.

Hour 12: We started playing a wicked game the Canadian boys taught us called “Rombus.” The tree house we were in for the night was pretty small, and without any electricity or running water – it was pretty rustic. Using headlamps and flashlights, we tried to play our game, but kept getting rudely interrupted by large bugs landing all over us every second or so. It got so bothersome that we quickly gave up our game and sought refuge in our “tents” – basically mats covered with a sheet hanging from a piece of rope. While we were getting ready to get in, “Spider Cove” (we all named our tents) discovered its namesake: a giant arachnid the size of my own hand. It had quickly scurried away, but left everyone in a small state of panic and fairly disturbed. We managed to get past it, and everyone headed inside their tents for the night.

A really grainy photo of the eggs on Kenna's shorts

Hour 13: Not quite tired, as it was only 8 p.m., I discovered what it must have been like to be at a boy’s slumber party. We talked between the tents and embarked on a jazzed-up version of the name-game which involved naming each of our tents (we were called Rexall Place) and telling some funny stories about ourselves. One of the guys was in the middle of a story, when Rexall Place had an emergency – I discovered a strange sensation in my shorts. We managed to get a flashlight on, and found that I had a really strange patch of what looked like – get this: EGGS, in my shorts. They glowed green in the light, and were formed in an almost rectangular shape. Possibly spider eggs? (author’s note: a thorough google search some days later has led us to believe they were moth eggs). But I had been wearing my shorts for several hours! How did something lay eggs in them?!?! All of the boys wanted to see what had transpired and it started a mass panic in the tree house. We all decided to head back to the table in the darkness and tell funny stories to ease our minds.

Hour 14: Our story telling kept getting interrupted by large bugs flying into us every few minutes. At one point, Mitch, one of the boys, felt something like a bird pooping on him. Upon turning on the light, he had been splattered with some sort of white substance. Shining our flashlights upward, we discovered the giant arachnid that had infiltrated “Spider Cove’s” tent. A slight move of the flashlight yielded yet another one…and another one…and in total, we found about 20 large spiders the size of my hand, the biggest spiders I’ve ever seen. Mitch had been shat on by a giant spider. This sent us all into another frenzy and we all retreated back into our tents where we thought we were safe. And we seemed to be – most of us fell asleep quite quickly.

All dressed up and ready for an evac! Look at the fear in those eyes...

Hour 17: It’s 1:30 a.m. After a few hours of sleep, we were all rudely awoken by some very large thunder. Now, this isn’t wussy Canadian thunder I am talking about – this is full fledged, the earth is shaking and there is daytime at night thunder and lightening, so much lightening that there must have been a flash every half second. It started POURING, drenching our tents and our gear and the tree house started to shake…deep, terrifying rumbles. Now, I’ve felt like I was about to die many times this trip (jumping out of planes, off of cliffs, diving into the sea at night with sharks, riding on motorcycles without a helmet with a 15-year-old driver, simply crossing the street in Hanoi…etc…etc…), but at this moment, I legitimately felt like I might leave this earth. We were a very long zip across a giant canyon with an additional 20 minute hike from the nearest village (if you can call a single dwelling with one family living in it a village), perched up in a tree in a jungle storm. Still not convinced? Get this: remember that we only had six harnesses for eight people. If our tree house shook loose, or was struck by lightening, not all of us would be able to get out of there unscathed. The panic amongst our group (and keep in mind I was the only female) got so bad that the boys lined up all the harnesses, put their shoes on and got dressed, packed up all their gear, and waited to see how bad it got and if we would be rescued. The Toronto boys had met someone who, a few days ago, had had to be evacuated from the tree house, so this was a very real possibility. But how would we do that with only six harnesses?!?

Bob Marley dance party at 3 a.m. How else do you celebrate surviving a hellish night?

After about an hour of me shaking like a little leaf in Scott’s arms, the storm seemed to pass through the worst of it. One of our new friends exclaimed that he felt like he had been on a “roller coaster of emotions and that [he was] a shell of a man.” Somewhat relieved and euphoric, we decided the best way to celebrate living another day was to play some Bob Marley and have a little dance party.

Hour 20: It’s 4:00 a.m. We finally wound down enough to catch a few winks.

Day 2 / Hour 24: Wake up time. We had survived our first full-day in the jungle – bring it on. Our guide zips over at 8:00 a.m to wake us up. We ask him “Did you hear that storm last night?!” He replies “What storm? I was so tired, I was out at 6:30 and just woke up!” So if we should have been evacuated, he would have never come and got us. Real comforting. He hands us breakfast and leaves us, and tells us to meet him at the village in an hour or so.

Hour 25: Time to leave the tree-house. My first zip-line out of the day (and without any sight of a guide or experienced person around), I crashed into the landing zone and almost chopped my legs off below the knee – I hadn’t braked enough and was sent crashing into the VERY low landing platform. No one was there to help me, and so I had to pull myself up, crying, to stand up. I called for Scott to zip over from the tree-house to come inspect my damage – I was scraped on my shin and had two goose eggs, on each leg, the size of a grapefruit. I had done some serious damage to myself.

Hour 26: We eat a pretty gross breakfast that felt more like dinner (Pad Lao, rice, roast potatoes) down by the waterfall – this created some issues in that many of us required the use of a toilet without one being readily available. Many of us decided to go in the bush. Remember that the bush is leech infested.

Blood from one of Kenna's five leech wounds that wouldn't stop bleeding

Hour 28: After another two-hour hike, and for me, on semi-broken legs, we arrive at the base-camp of our second tree-house for the night. At first, I noticed a very fat, blood-filled leech on the ground. I wasn’t sure where it came from. I then looked down at my pant leg, near my crotch, and noticed some blood. Again, I thought, “oh, I must have rubbed myself a bit with the zip-line harness. No biggie.” About five minutes later, I patted the bloody area, and felt a large glob of something – oh shit, I think it’s a leech. I proceeded to take off my pants in front of the boys and the Lao guides (thank god I had my bikini bottoms underneath, in anticipation of perhaps another swim in a stream) and discovered that I was infiltrated. I had not one, not two, but FIVE leeches stuck to my legs at various points, two of which were located in my underpants. Likely from my little escapade in the bush. They had been on me for over two hours, which means they had taken a lot of blood. The worst part about leeches is that they insert an anti-coagulant into you before they start sucking, so your blood runs like a hemophiliac for about an hour after you pull the thing off. My legs looked the worse for wear with blood streaming everywhere (not to mention the large tennis sized swellings on both of my shins)….and I was pretty traumatized at seeing so much of my own blood running down me. But time was not to waste – we had to strap back into our harnesses and get to our second tree-house for the night. So, back into my pants I went (after ensuring they were leech-free) and zipped into our second abris, this one 62 meters off the ground. This one was niiiicceee – we had full electricity, plumbing, and even a second storey which the boys named the “honeymoon suite” and gave to Scott and I. We had really traded up for the night.

Zipping

Hour 30: After some rest and relaxation, all of the boys decide it is time to do some zipping. My legs were in no condition to take me anywhere, so I decided to stay behind and have a shower and chill. Unfortunately, this second house was INFESTED with bees. I don’t just mean that there were a few here or there, there were hundreds of them. And I was the only warm-blooded, sweet smelling (ok, maybe not sweet by this point) creature in the tree-house. Not only this, but the boys had taken all the shoes and harnesses away – for some reason, these items were the favourite play-toys of the bees and kept them away from me. I decided to have a shower, but the bees were everywhere and I couldn’t get much accomplished. Not only that, but after about two minutes in the shower I heard the most massive crashing sound, accompanied by an intense vibration – it felt like the tree house was tumbling below me. I ran from the shower and looked over the balcony – two huge trees across from me were biffing it and crashing to the ground. I started to freak – it looked like a zip-line was attached to them and I got really worried about Scott and the rest of the guys. I managed to get dressed and sat down in the middle of the tree house, while every bee in the place seemed to try to land on me.

A kitchen in a tree house - so cool

Now, if you know me very well at all, you will know that bees are pretty much the only thing in the world that I am deathly afraid of. When I was four years old, I watched my baby brother get stung by an entire swarm of bees and I cried with him while he writhed in pain on our kitchen table and my mother applied calamine lotion to him. Many of you will know that I will run inside screaming at the sight of a bee, and I’ve been known to spend entire dinners eating inside the house by myself while everyone eats leisurely on the patio. Not only this, but most of you will also know that I am allergic to almost everything on the planet (grass, pollen, cats, dogs, etc…) and that I’ve never been stung by a bee. Because I haven’t been stung, I don’t know if I’m allergic.

The treehouse had become my own personal hell. It was definitely NOT the aversion therapy I clearly need. I was certain I was going to get stung and that the gang was going to zip back, only to find me in serious anaphylactic shock on the floor. Fortunately, my lovely Scott was a bit worried about me and came back early. I was so unbelievably relieved. We tried to take a nap, but were so disturbed by the bees that we had to submerse ourselves in our full “tent” just to get away from them.

View of the tree house

Hour 33: The rest of the boys finally come back after getting thoroughly lost in the forest and we all hung out. The bees got so bad that I had to go back to my tent. We decided it would be a bad move to eat with the bees as bad as they were, so we waited for sunset.

Hour 35: We finally eat another canister meal that had been zipped over to us, watched the sunset, and enjoyed our bee-free environment. After playing another round of “Rombus” we decided it was time for sleep. However, some serious lightening was rolling in and we figured we should be more prepared than the previous night. At least this time, we had eight harnesses (our little guide had brought us some more earlier in the day) and we knew what to expect. Watching the lightening come over the hills was like nothing I’ve ever seen – it was like watching a strobe-light illuminate the sky. There was no beginning or end to the light. The wind picked up, and it started to thunder and pour – drenching us under our thatch-roof. We packed up all our gear and lined up the harnesses, ready for an evacuation if it became necessary. Panic surged through the group as we became fearful again when the treehouse started to shake uncontrollably…but it passed only after a few shorts hours.

Hour 39: We all go to bed. The worst of the storm had passed. It was kind of surreal to go to sleep with the lightening illuminating the sky above our heads.

Zipping

Day 3 / Hour 48: After a truly wonderful sleep due to our exhaustion from the day before, our wake up call comes in the form of one of our guides zipping into our tree-house, delivering us breakfast. We knew the bees would be bad, but nothing could prepare us for how bad they actually became. Not long after we awoke, another group of people, from the Classic Gibbon’s Experience, traipsed through our tree-house. This seemed to disturb the bees (I am wondering if it was the new scent?) which created a frenzy. Not only this, but these wonderful guests of ours (Europeans…Uggghhh…) left us a number of leeches from their clothes (and they did this purposefully, might I add, as one of them made a comment something to the effect of “haha, I am leaving you leeches!”) for us to contend this. We tried to eat our breakfast, but after two of the guys got stung and living in complete misery, we had had enough. It was time for an evac. I was freaking out like a small child and was sent to a “tent” to harness up while Scott quickly packed up our stuff, and all the boys and I got out of that tree-house as fast as possible. The exit of this tree-house was pretty crazy – it was essentially a free-fall onto the zip-line. I was so eager to get out of the bee hell that I almost jumped out of the tree without my gear on properly. Scott had to yell at me and tell me that a few bee stings were better than plummeting to my death from a tree house. I admittedly had to agree and let the boys do a buddy check on me before I literally went sailing out across the valley. I didn’t even hesitate to jump – I just needed to get out of the hell hole honey comb that our abris had become.

Hour 50: It was time to hike again. As our guide put it, we would be spending the rest of the morning “walking, zipping, walking walking, zipping, zipping, walking.” At this point, I was beginning to become VERY ready to get back to civilization. We did a few amazing zips, one 400m long and some more intense vertical trekking. I really wish I had had the mental capacity to enjoy zipping around more than I did.

Hour 53: We finally made it back to our starting point, at the local Laos village. Unfortunately, I had been attacked by several more leeches up my pants and at this point was starting to look like quite the scene. Blood stained pants, blood stained socks, blood running down my legs, sweat EVERYWHERE, I embraced the orange soft-drink that awaited me at the finish. I think I scared the new-comers embarking on the trip a bit (most were wondering – what the hell happened to that girl?) and another one of our boys got stung by a bee. It was time to leave.

The chicken on the bus. He left a present for Kenna in her shoe.

Hour 54: Our ride finally arrived. We had a 2.5 hour ride back to Huay Xai to endure. But get this. Who came into the jeep with us? A man with a live chicken. Which he stowed by my shoes, and which I now have the chicken poop stain to prove it with. A perfect end to a perfect trip. A ride in Asia is not complete without some form of foul riding next to you. No wonder avian flu was such a problem here. We parted adieu with our new Canadian friends and went for a shower.

Epilogue

Before I conclude with my thoughts on today’s saga on the Excellent Adventure, I want to thank the Canadian boys for being such awesome companions on this escapade. We truly couldn’t have asked for nicer, funner, or more awesome people to hang out with, and it truly speaks to what an amazing country Canada is to live in. So, to Team Hotel, Team Spider Cove, and Team Travel or Die (for some reason guys, I don’t think that is the right name, but I really can’t remember) – Team Rexall Place wishes you the most awesome of awesome time in Vang Vieng and we are hoping for a 100% success rate on your endeavours!

So, you’re now probably wondering, did I enjoy the Gibbon’s Experience (even though I did not see a Gibbon, let alone any other type of wild animal besides leeches and bees)? As I lay in my hotel bedroom, freshly showered and the litres of blood washed from my clothes (which really stunk, by the way. I can’t even put into words how horribly dirty and stinky we had become – we smelled like rotting cabbage), I will say yes. I think they could improve the experience by getting rid of the bee hives that clearly exist in the tree houses, and by providing “anti-leech” sticks. It really feels amazing to live in a gorgeous jungle, amidst the most incredible symphony of noises you have ever heard. I don’t think you’ve truly lived until you look a jungle storm in the eye 62 meters above ground and realize it could kill you in an instant with one swift gust of wind.

If you are planning on doing the Gibbon’s Experience, do not do it if you are the faint of heart. Or if you feel like an experience like mine, with a hefty price tag of 190 Euros, is not going to leave with you a sense of accomplishment for the wonderful lives that we truly do live. Do not go if you are allergic to bees, or if the sight of your own blood gushing down your legs will make you faint. Also do not go if you can’t hike on extremely swollen legs. Only go if you are tough, are ready for an experience that will move your world, and will give you an amazing story to tell at the end of it. If this describes you, then rock it out. Gibbon’s style.

Scott and I weren’t really sure what to expect from the two-day tour we had signed up for in Laos; the itinerary was a two-day adventure beginning with a trek to a remote village north of Luang Prabang where we would spend the night, followed by some kayaking and a ride on an elephant. With open minds, we embarked on our next chapter in the Excellent Adventure saga.

Hiking through the mountainous terrain on the way to the remote hill tribes

Our trek started off with a bang: after a two hour drive north of Luang Prabang, we started a very vertical hike up in the mountains. The hike was HARD. It was steep, and the temperature was about 42 degrees. Sweat poured down us and we were panting like dogs even though our guide, Sakone, gave us a break every half kilometre or so. We were worried we didn’t have enough water – we each had three litres and we were consuming it pretty rapidly. The worst part about the hike was our bag situation…not really thinking it would be a difficult trek, we hadn’t chosen our gear carefully and poor Scott was lugging his full 15 kilo travel pack around and I was yanking a 3 kilo purse (very uncomfortable) up the hill, instead of our smaller day bags. To make it worse, Scott was carrying all the water, making the pack weigh in at probably about 20 kilos. Things weren’t looking up.

After about three hours of hiking, we made it to the village. The hike was quite lovely even though we were melting – we wound through Laos’ gorgeous mountains and valleys and saw lots of sticky rice cultivation along the way.

The Khmu village - all houses are built on stilts, as opposed to Hmong villages which are all built on land.

Upon arriving to the village, which consisted of small shacks built on stilts, we were told to take a seat at a picnic table and have lunch (fried rice brought all the way from Luang Prabang). As we were eating, the local children of the village began to surround us and stare. Most of them appeared to be under 14 years of age, and a few of the older girls were carrying tiny babies in a sling. We kept smiling and saying “Sabaidee” but only received cold glares back. We weren’t quite sure if we were welcome here or not.

After eating, Sakone told us to go explore the village. We were not warmly received by the people at all – although the children were curious about us, the adults regarded us with near disdain. It proved quite awkward, and after admiring the chickens, pigs and turkeys running around, we weren’t quite sure what to do with ourselves. Our group of 7 all found various picnic tables and benches and just laid down for a bit of a snooze. It was a very strange place, and we weren’t sure what to make of it.

After several hours of this, Sakone finally re-appeared. He apparently lives in the village now, as he has taken one of the local ladies as his girlfriend. I asked him how many tourists the village sees. He replied that groups like ours come about every other day. Well, no wonder they aren’t too fond of us. We are intruding on their life far too often. I wasn’t impressed that the company we had booked through appeared not to be involved in a sustainable tourism project.

Scott playing Takraw with the local kids

Sakone took us on a tour of the village, which started up the hill to the school house. Everything was very reminiscent of Canada in the 1800s – the school house consisted of a wooden shack with a few wooden benches and a black board. Outside, there was a court for playing Takraw – a game very similar to volleyball, but played with the legs like soccer. The boys joined the locals for a game which proved quite entertaining…although again, the locals didn’t seem too enthused to share their court with us “falang.” After the game, Scott tried to shake hands with his team mates, but they didn’t seem too interested. We trekked to the other side of the hill, where the Hmong people live – the Hmong are a bit more rustic than the Khmu, and abide by more of the traditional dress and housing of their kind.

I will describe what we saw since we didn’t take pictures – we didn’t want to appear rude and already we weren’t warmly welcomed. Our first image was of a little boy, maybe about four, wearing only a small top and no pants (with his willy hanging out) holding a chicken. It was unbelievable. Then, an old woman of 90 years came sauntering by, completely topless. She shyly covered up and ran into her house to grab a top – that made us feel even worse and voyeuristic. Her husband is 80 years old and they are the oldest people in the village – it appeared that most people only lived to be about 50 or 60, so their old age was quite something. We then got to tour the old woman’s house – a giant bamboo shack with a dirt floor. It was quite unreal to see how these people live: there was a giant pot of rice for their food (swarming with flies), eaten corn on the cobs lying everywhere, things strewn about, and a giant mat where the whole family (about 15 of them) sleeps.

The path to the stream, where seemingly every member of the village visited at some point during the day, carrying a heavy load of water back.

Next, we were taken to the local “stream” where we were told to wash up. This is where things got even more interesting, because the people were actually naked and bathing when we arrived. They pretty much ignored us, and Sakone told us we could just get right in there and bathe ourselves. Coming from quite a private western culture, this shocked us a bit. We wanted to give them some privacy. So, we patiently waited our turn, which never arrived. Queueing is not at all adhered to in Asia, and it seemed the norm was no different up here in the hills. So, we all took off our tops (leaving our bras and pants on) and got right in there…with the naked women and men surrounding us. The stream was quite interesting, as it apparently came from underground and consisted of a PVC pipe leaking a constant trickle. To clean oneself, you had to wait for a bucket to fill up and then dump it over you. It felt amazing to wash away some of the grime and sweat from the day. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of this as I wanted to give the hill tribe people as much privacy as possible.

Some adorable Khmu children

After our authentic cleanse, I went to brush my hair. I decided to do it outside instead of shedding my long hair strands everywhere, and soon, I ended up with a large crowd of children oogling me. They were very curious about what I was doing. So, I showed them how to brush my hair and braid it. I then offered to brush their hair. No one wanted to. One brave girl of about 14, I think the daughter of our homestay hosts, finally motioned that she would try. She brushed her hair and all the little kids started giggling. She then tried braiding her hair, but then motioned for me to do it. So, I braided her hair, and another little girl fetched an elastic for her. She seemed very pleased. Hopefully Evelina, our new Dutch friend, will send some photos of this event as she managed to snap quite a few. Most of the kids then dispersed, but a few really little guys stayed on and we played a little game of hide-and-seek with the picnic table which seemed to go on for hours. Kids everywhere seem to be entertained by the same games.

Kenna sucking on our "small" jar of Lao Lao rice whiskey

We then ate a very authentic dinner which was cooked over a fire (the village does not have electricity), essentially in the dark. We lent Sakone a headlamp so he could better see what he was doing, but normally he doesn’t operate with such luxuries. We ate bamboo shoots, a pork soup, and some sort of cabbage dish. And of course, sticky rice – one of my new favourites…and something we’ve only encountered in Laos. Sakone then convinced us to buy a jar of lao lao – a fermented rice wine drink. For 30,000 kip (about $4) we could purchase a small jar for our group of 7. We thought that would be sufficient for each of us to try. We imagined it would be something like a small jam jar. Well, Sakone came back with a HUGE vase type thing filled with rice. He then proceeded to add stream water (which we were very nervous about) and then started sticking in bamboo straws. He added a few siphon straws and told us we had to finish the lao lao before the end of the night…it wouldn’t be good the next day. So, we started sucking…and sucking…and the jar seemed endless. We invited some of the locals to join us, and one fellow just stuck the straw in his mouth and didn’t remove it the whole time. Those Lao people sure know how to consume the lao lao. We petered out and went to bed and left a few local men to finish off our jar.

Sleeping that night proved very interesting. We had been giving seven mats with a few bug nets to sleep on right out side the “bedroom” (basically a few plank pieces of wood and and sheet) of our hosts. We weren’t sure how many of them were sleeping in there, but it was at least five. They were pretty noisy, and I think about ten other people were sleeping right below us on the main level. In total, I will guesstimate that there were approximately 21 people sleeping in a dwelling the size of Scott and I’s condo. You could hear EVERYTHING. I kept getting woken up and had to trek out to the toilet, located about 50 meters outside the house. A storm rolled in in the middle of the night and woke us all up – our dwelling started leaking in several places and a mist started blowing all over us. One of the local women even started squealing when some water landed on her.

The kids were fascinated by our teeth brushing

The next morning, we had a simple breakfast of eggs and baguettes. While we were brushing our teeth, some of the really small kids became very enchanted with what we were doing, and we quickly found ourselves with a large audience. We said our goodbyes, and trekked out of the village at about 10 a.m. After an hour or so hike at a very fast pace down the mountain, we were picked up and taken to the Nam Ou river for some kayaking.

Kayaking the Nam Ou was quite lovely. The Lao countryside is stunning, and it was nice to paddle downstream and admire the karst cliffs. We stopped at the Pak Ou caves, located on the intersection of where the Nam Ou and the Mekong rivers meet, and which consists of a Buddhist temple built into one of the karsts, and had lunch. After, we continued paddling to the Elephant riding place.

Elephant trekking

The elephant riding was quite a disappointment. They only had two elephants for six people, so two people had to ride on the elephant’s head, while the others sat in the wooden seat. Poor Scott ended up riding on the head and had quite the time balancing. The elephants did not seemed bonded to their Mahouts and went a bit rogue on us to eat leaves. I don’t think they were fed properly either. The mahouts seemed to give up and just started dragging them by the rope attached to their ears. After an hour of riding, we were pretty ready to get off and get out of this place. On our way back, we stopped for some lao lao tasting at a whisky village which was fun. Overall, our two-day excursion was fun, but I don’t think I would recommend the company (Manifa Tours) that we booked through. They were one of the cheapest, and it is clear why: they don’t seem to be interested in sustainable tourism, and are putting too much pressure on the hill tribes and not treating their elephants well. I would recommend booking with a more expensive tour company to hopefully avoid this.

Last Days in Luang Prabang

Kenna dressed up in a sarong in preparation for the Alms-giving ceremony, which, as evidenced by the empty streets, we missed

We spent one last day in Luang Prabang – one of my favourite cities from this trip due to its beauty, serenity and peacefulness. We got up early at 6 a.m to try to watch the Alms Giving – where monks collect offerings of food from the locals. Luang Prabang has over 20 monasteries with nearly a thousand monks – I think one of the largest concentrations of monks in the world. Almost every man in Laos becomes a monk for a period of time, as it is the best way to get an education. Monks are only allowed to eat once per day in the morning, and they aren’t allowed to handle currency, so they rely on the people to feed them. I had mixed feelings about watching this very cultural and beautiful event, as it has apparently been ruined by tourism a bit. Apparently, quite a few vendors have cropped up selling food for “falang” to give to the monks. Unfortunately, it usually isn’t of good quality and ends up making the monks sick. Because of this, the monasteries wanted to stop having tourists allowed at the procession and threatened shutting it down; the government wouldn’t allow this and have forced the monks into continuing their ceremony and even threatened hiring non-monks to dress in saffron robes and pretend to do it. We decided we’d get up and try to watch from a distance. So, up we got, and into a sarong I went (women should wear very long skirts and cover their shoulders), and down the street we walked. But, it looked like we had missed the procession – everyone was clearing up and it seemed to be over. We were confused because all the websites said that it happened at 6 a.m every morning – we are not sure that maybe it is earlier when we are nearing the solstice because the sun rises early. Anyway, I wasn’t too sad we missed it because I wasn’t keen on participating in something that has lost its cultural meaning and has become a virtual tourist attraction.

We spent the rest of the day lounging and decided to soothe our sore bodies with a traditional Lao massage and a herbal steam bath. We went to one of the spas, and were told to strip down and wear a towel. This seemed odd to me, because usually we are fully clothed when we get massages. Anyway, we did what we were told. Scott went to lay down and his masseuse (a man) started working on him…but quickly he was told that he was “too hot” (i.e., sweaty and stinky) and that he needed to have a shower. A bit embarrassing! I decided I’d have a shower too and avoid the same fate.

Our masseuses started working on us (I had a girl) and it all seemed ok at the start. Very similar to a Thai massage (same-same), but better! They used a bit more of our Western massaging as well, so it wasn’t as painful. However, they started contorting our bodies into some of the same positions as Thai massage (what I like to call assisted yoga), and it quickly became apparent that we should have worn underpants. Both Scott and I began blushing and giggling because we are pretty sure our masseuses got a pretty good show. They didn’t say anything or seem to mind, so we weren’t sure what the norm was. Anyway, if any of you ever go for a Lao massage, I recommend wearing underwear. Aside from our embarrassment, it turned out to be one of the best massages we’ve ever had. Afterwards, we were put into a very hot steam sauna, which was scented with some wonderful smelling herbs and just steamed away. It was kind of strange to steam oneself in 42 degree heat, but it felt good nonetheless.

We crossed the river beside Luang Prabang on this rickety bamboo bridge

That night, we had dinner at a lovely restaurant across the Nam Ou river. You had to cross a really sketchy foot bridge to get there, but it was fun. Afterwards, we finally found some Durian – a super nasty smelling fruit that we’ve seen around since arriving in Indonesia. Many hotels here forbid it (they will put up “no durian” signs) because it is so smelly. We’ve never bought it because they are massive and we have nothing to cut it with – but we found a fruit stall that sold pre-cut pieces. It tasted pretty nasty (like rotten cooked onions), so we ended up giving it to a guy that was kind of sketched out and was trying to sell us opium. He ate it right up.

We capped off our time in Luang Prabang with a visit to the night market. Luang Prabang has the best market I have ever seen – it is filled with the most gorgeous fabrics and artwork and handicrafts. I wanted to be the first customer of the night (because the Lao are also like the Vietnamese in that their first customer will either be lucky or unlucky). I started purchasing things I had been eyeing for days…and I witnessed the most amazing superstitious ritual. I was given amazing prices as the first customer, and when I gave the ladies my money, they took it and blessed their entire array of merchandise with it by saying a little mantra and waving the money over it. It was amazing. I started buying more and more things because I wanted to make the little ladies lucky and witness their ritual. Scott finally had to tell me to stop and we left. My bag is now crazy full with tons of purchases!!

Cruising up the Mekong

The boat in which we traveled for 20 hours

The next morning, we boarded our 10-hour boat to Pakbeng with two of our friends, Thalie and Aysha from our hill tribe trek. We decided to take a boat up the Mekong instead of a bus – we are right sick of buses and 20 hours over two days on a boat seemed more desirable then a very bumpy 15-hour overnight bus ride. It was a bit more expensive, but worth it. We got to see some amazing scenery: in addition to seeing many riverside villages and kids swimming and playing in the river, we delivered some goods to a few of them. One of our loads consisted of a few food staples and lots of Beerlao – they seem to really enjoy their alcohol here!

The boat ride was quite pleasant in that we could stretch out on the floor or benches if the space allowed. Much more comfortable than a bus. Our stop-over in Pakbeng was quite uneventful. We had heard some terror stories of people’s bags being stolen and other such atrocities: Pakbeng exists solely to house people travelling to and from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang and so the people don’t benefit much from tourism, and therefore aren’t the nicest or most honest folks around. Almost everyone tries to sell drugs (and most of them are high themselves) and we got offered quite a bit. Our guest house manager offered Scott something and told us we could get happy pancakes and fruit shakes to make our boat ride the next day more interesting. We of course, declined: there is also a scam here that if you buy drugs, the seller will call their friend who will pretend to be a police offer (complete with a badge) and will demand $500 from you or will take you to jail, and presumably hand you over to the real cops. Not fun.

Our very uncomfortable boat for 10 hours, with the Monks traveling beside us.

The highlight of the boat ride for me was riding with three old and wise monks. They were quite regal and seemed to be enjoying themselves fully, taking pictures (they had a cellphone and camera!) and really appreciating their surroundings. Women are not allowed to talk to them and are supposed to bow when they walk by them, so I found it a bit disconcerting when one of them sat in my seat while I had gone to the washroom and was examining my Pol Pot book – I didn’t quite know what to do about it. I just smiled and he smiled back at me and then returned to his seat. I felt a bit bad, but didn’t really know what to do.

We arrived in Huay Xai that evening, and quickly got ready for our trip into the jungle with the Gibbon’s Experience. We had managed to get in a day early due to some cancellations, so we prepared ourselves with small bags (we now knew what to expect from a trek here!) and went to sleep, anxious for what the next few days would bring.

Anyway, I digress. Laos is a lovely place, and the people are wonderful. For Southeast Asia’s poorest country, it sure doesn’t feel like it. Whereas in Cambodia, we were constantly encountering gaunt-looking mothers begging for food or kids missing limbs selling books, in Laos, we haven’t encountered anything of the sort. Having been in Laos for a few weeks, we’re going to make an assumption that the people in the cities we’ve visited are fairly well off, and that the poverty is only a measure of economic output – the people in the ancient rural villages really don’t contribute economically, but they seem to be happy. More on the rural villages in the next blog.

Vientiane – This is Laos?

Vientiane's Arc de Triomphe

As mentioned in the previous post, we got off the plane and were greeted with the smoothest airport entry in existence. And the lack of excitement pretty much continued with the rest of our time in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. While we stayed two nights in Vientiane, we really don’t have a lot to show for it.

On our only full day in Vientiane, we took a walk around the city and took in the sights, of which there were few. We visited an ancient Buddhist temple, which was, to use Southeast Asian lingo, “same same but different.” By now we’ve seen dozens of similar temples, and though beautiful, this one wasn’t much different from the rest.

The highlight of Vientiane, believe it or not, is a relic from it’s time as a French colony – Vientiane was once the capital of Indochina, and the French constructed an imitation of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees. The architecture of this Arc de Triomphe was really beautiful at a distance, as it definitely was reminiscent of Paris’, with a quintessential Asian architectural touch. Up close, however, it was a mess. Because of Laos’ turbulent past (they achieved independence from the French in 1948 and really haven’t had much of a stable government since then), the Arc was never finished. Thus, in the underside, half of the pillars have really ornate stone carving work, and half is bare, unfinished concrete. When climbing to the top, the inside is an ugly shop selling tacky Lao souvenirs, and the top of the Arc looks like a bomb went off. Some of the rebar in the concrete is pointing out and bent, and there’s old construction materials and old signs sitting everywhere. For the major tourist attraction in your biggest city, I’d expect a little bit better show.

The last thing we were going to see and kind of regret not doing is going to see the Buddha Park. Laos is deeply religious, and apparently in the 50’s, one of them went on a tyrade and created an entire park of interesting Buddhas. Unfortunately, it was also 30 km out of town, and our patience for seeing more tourist attractions in the ridiculous heat and humidity had waned. Not only that, but the tuk-tuk drivers wanted $25 to go there and back, not to mention the entrance fee, and we were feeling a bit too run down to attempt the cheap public bus. So, we went and drank $1 Beer Lao instead.

The Town of Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng used to be a small, sleepy town where people travelling between Luang Prabang and Vientiane would stop to break up the ridiculously long and uncomfortable journey. However, while it’s still a stop, it has been invaded by 18-year-old Brits looking for a cheap alternative to Ibiza. Ok maybe not Ibiza, but close. There are basically two main things to do in Vang Vieng – hang out at one of the many restaurants or bars showing reruns of Friends, Simpsons, or Family Guy, or go tubing down the river. I have to say, this place really was enjoyable. To be able to just chill out at a bar and watch mindless TV for a while really was nice and relaxing, given the torrential pace of our trip. And the amount of TV watching you could do was really limited to about two or three episodes, so you really didn’t waste that much time.

The Quest for the Blue Lagoon

Biking through a rice paddy

On our first full day in Vang Vieng, we decided to opt out of tubing and save it for the next day, and exhaust ourselves instead. Waking up at 7 a.m. to beat the heat, we rented a couple of cheap cruiser bikes and headed off in search of the fabled “Blue Lagoon,” supposedly a beautiful water hole with crystal clear water and a beautiful, giant cave behind it. We headed off down the road, and after a few hot kilometres, we saw a sign directing us off the road towards the Blue Lagoon. Great!  That wasn’t so hard! After biking another kilometre or so down a windy path, we ended up in a rice paddy, at which point my pedal broke going over the big lumps separating the paddies. Great. We were greeted by a local guy who said he’d guide us over to the cave and take us to the Blue Lagoon to swim, but not before relieving us of 40,000 Kip (about $5).

The first fake "Blue Lagoon"

Well, we saw the “lagoon” before entering the cave, and it wasn’t all that inviting. It was more of a puddle with rocks for the bottom. We entered the cave and went for a bit of spelunking, but this cave wasn’t anything magical… something was up. Upon exiting the cave, Kenna went for a swim, but myself and the French couple we met along the way stayed out. After getting back to our bikes, the guide helpfully pointed us in the direction of the real Blue Lagoon.

So off we went over more rice paddies and down more small paths. Eventually we got back to the main road, and it wasn’t too long before we came upon another sign saying “Blue Lagoon.” This one looked like the real deal – first of all, it had an authentic tollbooth demanding 10,000 Kip each, and it had a rope swing, but it wasn’t all that blue. We ended up having lunch here and going for a quick dip. While we were eating, a mentally challenged Lao boy came up to us, and all he could say was “Buh.”  “Buh Buhhhhh Buh…..”  He pointed to my sandwich (which we had purchased earlier in that day in the town), and which wasn’t all that appealing anyway, so I gave it to him. Eventually, he left us alone.

After lunch, we saw a sign for the cave that accompanied the fabled Blue Lagoon. We started hiking up the path, which required us to hike up the side of a mountain to get there, and the next thing we know, “Buh” and two little 8-year-old boys are hiking with us. Oh good – guides. We were fairly uncomfortable with this, as we knew they would expect a hefty payday at the end, and we tried to hard to get rid of them, but only one of the little boys got the hint. “Buh” and his little brother stayed with us. “Buh” was bit of a disaster himself – he kept tripping over things and actually fell through one of the rickety ladders and cut himself. Eventually, we headed into the cave, and were actually pretty happy to have them as guides, as we would have never gone as far as we did without them. This cave was slightly better than the other one, but still nothing to write home about (even though we seem to be doing just that right now…). The kids forced us into some fairly small tunnels to get around, which really freaked us out to be in these cramped tunnels guided by a slow kid and an 8-year-old. We got out of there, and paid them off.

Disappointed with how things turned out, that this fabled “Blue Lagoon” was really a waste of our time, we headed home. But no sooner had we passed the tollbooth for the previous lagoon, did a Lao girl point us the other way down a fork in the road. Dammit we were had again! So we continued down that road for another few kilometres, and finally arrived at another tollbooth. This one, as it turns out, was the real deal, as the parking lot was filled with tuk tuks and bikes and people jumping off the many rope swings. We had finally arrived at 3 p.m. Quite terrible, considering we had left so early in the morning.

The real "Blue Lagoon"

This Blue Lagoon really was beautiful. The water was crystal clear, with a beautiful blue hue, and really cold and refreshing. Unfortunately, moments after we arrived, the afternoon post-tubing drunk crowd also arrived, and turned the place into a giant party. Having biked all over the countryside overheated, dehydrated, and exhausted, we weren’t in the mood for that. We even missed the real cave, which was supposed to be amazing, as we were just too tired to climb up to it. Tired and disappointed, we napped for a bit, and headed home in the sunset.

“In the Tubing – Vang Vieng”

Kenna jumping off the trapeze

Next, it was time for the reason everyone comes to this sleepy town – the tubing. We meant to have an early start, but as often happens in this town, breakfast (along with the requisite Friends reruns) took quite a while, and we didn’t end up hitting the tubes until noon. We thought that was ample time…

Tubing basically consists of showing up at the tubing shop, hoping in a tuk-tuk, which drives you up the river a few kilometres, at which point you are dropped off, and the normally quiet Lao countryside is transformed into a daylight nightclub. The first bars aren’t shy about what they want you to do – they hand you free shots of Lao Lao (terrible Lao whisky – ‘Lao’ actually means ‘alcohol’), and encourage you to jump on the trapezes and have a great time. We’re not really accustomed to drinking at noon, so we started off slow and had a beer. But as often happens, we joined in with the trapeze action and pretty soon were doing free shots of Lao Lao.

I have to say that this is one of the funnest things I’ve ever done. I imagine if you had all your friends here, it would be unreal. We met up with a friendly British couple and spent the day with them, tubing, stopping at bars, grabbing a bucket, swinging off trapezes or waterslides, or shooting slingshots for drinks, rinse and repeat all day long. The tubes had to be back at 6 p.m. – we thought 6 hours was plenty of time to tube 3 km, but apparently we were wrong – we ended up bailing out of the river early and grabbing a tuk tuk back to the shop. This place was like a giant waterpark for adults, complete with booze. You’d think that tubing down a river hammered while jumping off adult-sized waterslides and rope swings would be stupid – and you’d be right. But damned if it isn’t a really, really good time.

Luang Prabang

Our first minibus on the way to Luang Prabang

The next day, we boarded a bus to Luang Prabang – the only city (if you can call 30,000 people a city) in Laos that the majority of tourists visit. The ride there was uncomfortable to say the least and involved a very confusing start. At first, we were boarded into our own private mini-bus that was run-down and clunky. We were confused why we were put in this van, as many other tourists were being put into nice new vans with a/c. We took off, and started picking up locals along the way. Grrreeeeaaat…..we were in the special bus. After five minutes of this, we made another stop – but instead of picking up human cargo, we were apparently picking up three large sewage pipes. This created a large scene between our driver and the people wanting these pipes transported – our driver clearly didn’t want the pipes IN his vehicle, and didn’t feel they would be stable on top of the roof. Thirty minutes of haggling later, we were told to get into ANOTHER van, and were taken back to the bus stop. Here, we were the last to enter a very packed minibus complete with mountain bikes strapped to the roof – awesome. It was not a pleasant ride – the minibus was crammed with too many people, the roads had hairpin curves for a full 8 hours, and almost everyone felt carsick, it wasn’t fun.

Upon arriving in Luang Prabang, we let one of the touts that met us at the bus station guide us to his guest house. It wasn’t the greatest, but we thought it was fairly cheap at $15. It turns out it was more expensive and in a bad part of town, but we stayed there for 3 days anyway -  ignorant. We immediately noticed an advertisement of a drop-in English-language school that ran every day from 9-11 a.m., and foreigners were welcome any time. We’ve always wanted to do some volunteering, so this was perfect!

The next morning we got up early and prepared to head out to teach, when our guest house asked us what we were up to – did we want to go the waterfall (every tuk tuk in the city asks you this)?  No, we’re going to go teach English. Oh, it’s closed. What?  The sign says Monday-Saturday, and it’s Saturday. We decided that we’d go check it out anyway, just in case he was lying. As it turns out, he was lying.

Teaching English

Kenna and her student

Teaching English was a frustrating but rewarding experience. It was fairly unorganized and chaotic – we showed up at the centre and there was no direction on how to proceed, so we just kind of picked a kid and went with it. We felt kind of bad, as there were more kids than teachers, and we didn’t really know how to proceed besides doing one-on-one teaching. Apparently, the kids are there to hear foreigners speak, as they really have no idea how to pronounce the words (their reading skills are actually pretty good). I spent all morning going through a book of words with my student. Kenna started off with a fairly lazy student who didn’t seem too interested in doing much, so they ended up playing hangman (which I guess sort of teaches words), and then she moved onto another student. They were very grateful for us to come out, and we gave them our emails in case they had any questions, but so far haven’t heard from them.

Scott setting down an offering at the Buddhist temple on the hilltop in Luang Prabang

Next on the list was hiking up to Luang Prabang’s hilltop temple. Not much to say about this – it was yet another Buddhist temple. The best part about this temple was the panoramic views of the city from the hilltop– it was gorgeous.

In the evening, I took a Lao cooking class. This one was fairly disappointing compared to the other cooking classes we’ve taken – it was really expensive at $25 a person (compared to $12 in Cambodia and Vietnam), so only I did it. The teacher basically gave a demonstration of about seven dishes, and then we chose three to make. Off we went to make our separate dishes, but what was disappointing was the teacher didn’t help us at all – I ended up screwing up my Laap really badly, but I have no idea why I screwed up. He tried to tell me I added too much lime, but the problem was much more than too much lime. No, I really screwed it up and now I have no idea why. So hopefully all of you at home are willing guinea pigs!

The beautiful waterfall in Luang Prabang

The next day, we finally relented to the tuk tuks (these were the only exception to the laid-back rule of Laos), and headed to their beloved waterfall. This waterfall really was fantastic, one of the better ones I’ve ever seen. It was multi-tiered and really long, and really beautiful. Unfortunately, the moment we arrived, the skies opened up and wet season began. We spent a full 90 minutes hunkered under a shelter playing cards. A couple of really nice locals handed us a couple of free beers saying “Welcome to Laos,” which was awesome. But by the time the rain let up, we only had half an hour to explore the falls. We didn’t get to swim in them, and I really wanted to hike to the top, as this was supposedly the big attraction, but it was much too muddy and we didn’t have the time. Unfortunate, to say the least.

The next day, after a delicious Lao BBQ feast, we headed off trekking into the jungle to visit some local indigenous hill tribes. Stay tuned for the next post!

Yay! I'm important!

Hanoi is a smoggy, dirty, chaotic city, but we didn’t take much note of it upon arrival. We actually got picked up at the airport by a driver from our hotel, complete with a “Welcome Scott Montgomerie” sign – only the third time in my life that I’ve had one of those! Perhaps all the cheddar we blew in Hoi An had gone to our heads and actually made us think we were rich…

We stayed at a place called Hanoi Guesthouse – it is rated as the #1 hotel on tripadvisor…and boy, it deserves it. They put us in a massive room (the family room) on our first night – we had a couch, two beds and a hair dryer! We had to move into a more reasonable room the second night, but it was still lovely. I cannot say enough good things about the wonderful staff who took care of us there – they are amazing. Please stay there if you ever get the chance!

Exploring Hanoi
We took off the next morning after agonizing whether to do a Halong Bay trip, a Sapa trip, both, or neither. One decision was made for us – we couldn’t do Sapa because April 30th is the biggest Vietnamese holiday, the day when the South was liberated from American Imperialism and was reunified with its communist sister of the North. This means that the Vietnamese get a giant holiday and many travel around, a very popular destination being Sapa. All buses, trains, and accommodations were booked, so that only left Halong Bay. In the end, we decided to do it. It was only $45 per person, which included all transportation, meals and sleeping on the boat. Peanuts compared to our very comparable Whitsunday Islands tour for $300.

We took off by foot to explore Hanoi – what a crazy city it is. All the sidewalks are blocked by either people sitting on small plastic chairs eating, parked motorbikes, or shops that have spilled out of their store. This means you have to walk on the road, and dodge the buses, cars, motorcycles, bicycles and other pedestrians. Not for the faint of heart.

Turtle anyone?

Our first stop was a restaurant near Ho Chi Minh’s embalmed body. We decided to eat before visiting Mr. Minh, but the pickings were slim. We ended up at this strange restaurant that served mostly seafood (of which Scott cannot eat after getting food poisoned on Ko Panyi), including whole turtle. The menu even included a photo of what eating a whole turtle would look like. Appetizing.

Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum

After eating, we got to Ho Chi Minh’s resting place, and discovered that you can only visit his embalmed body in the morning. Apparently he tires easily. So instead, we visited his old palatial grounds which were quite modest and only really consisted of a few cars, a simple house, and an even simpler house on stilts that he lived in during his older age. The highlight of this tour were the loads of Chinese tourists, many of whom kept trying to not-so-covertly take our photos. They must come from areas who don’t often see white people, because apparently, we were quite the spectacle. On our way back, we visited another father of communism – Mr. Lenin. The Vietnamese have erected a very large statue of him close to Ho Chi Minh’s residence. I guess they are friends. The rest of our day in Hanoi passed uneventfully as we dodged a bit of a downpour (we are now getting into wet season here in Asia, so any future stories of rain CANNOT be blamed on the Montgomerie curse, unfortunately) and attempted to find a non-dog-meat place to eat for dinner. Eating Fido is a delicacy in Hanoi, of one we weren’t too fond of partaking…although I’m not sure we avoided it completely. Scott’s meal included a spring roll which tasted alarmingly similar to dog food and smelled like wet dog. We even found a small hair in it which resembled that of a dog. Needless to say, we didn’t eat the whole thing.

The fishing village

The Beautiful Halong Bay
After a four-hour bus ride out from Hanoi, we finally boarded our boat in Halong Bay. We had a good group of just 12 (the boat could hold 20, but it is low-season) and we all got along quite well. The harbour at Halong Bay reminded me of the Whitsunday Islands in the 1950s – the boats were absolutely darling, albeit somewhat dated.

Our boat was very nice: it was made of dark wood and it had three levels, with some bedrooms in the bottom, an eating area in the middle, and a beautiful patio/seating area up top. Our room was wicked and we even had our own bathroom! Sure blew our Whitsundays experience out of the water for us in terms of value for money paid. We enjoyed a fine lunch before chilling on the roof and taking in our beautiful surroundings. We stopped for a brief tour of some caves, which actually proved disappointing. The Vietnamese somehow figured we would be better entertained if they jazzed up the caves with some coloured lights, fake fountains and dolphin garbage cans every few meters. It looked like something straight out of Universal Studios. Our guide, a very funny little fellow named Kenny kept pointing out stalagmite formations that resembled things like cabbages, lions and horses – but I can’t even be certain if they are actually natural…or carved out by the Vietnamese to enhance our viewing pleasure.

Our boat

Later in the afternoon, we stopped at a small fishing village (Scott’s tummy started turning at the bad memories of the fishing village we visited in Phang-Nga….) and saw a fish we had never seen before – a Vietnamese dog fish. As our guide Kenny put it “they don’t bark, but they might bite” – he repeated this many times, obviously thinking he was hilarious. We got into some kayaks and started paddling out. We had super authentic paddles made of wood, which made us REALLY tired REALLY fast since they were so heavy…but we had a wonderful time. It was amazing to be out on the water with such beautiful scenery at sunset. It was definitely a treat. The night finished off with dinner and a 1996 bottle of Bordeaux – which actually sounds better than it was – while our group chatted and enjoyed each other’s company. Very civilized.

The bus ride back to Hanoi was preceded by a lunch at a restaurant, some pearl shopping (I now know how to identify real pearls – just take a lighter to them – they won’t melt or anything!), and chatting with Minh, the local Vietnamese lady we met in our group who was on holiday. She is a computer programmer for a large bank in Saigon, and only works 9 months of the year. She seemed very well off, and had ridden her motorcycle all the way up the coast (which she would NOT recommend anyone do), before heading into China. She travels every year for three months and has been all over SE Asia, to France, and to Australia. I told Scott that I think we should move to Vietnam and have a life like hers! I’m glad she was on our bus though…unfortunately I had forgotten all about the bus ride and consumed two cups of coffee prior to the ride. Bad idea. She managed to talk the driver into pulling over onto the side of the road so I could take care of my problem. I’m pretty sure if I had tried to convey what was going on in English, I would have had an issue. The she-wee comes to the rescue again…although attempting to use it on the side of a Vietnamese highway with cars and buses honking constantly created some killer stage-fright for me and I ended up having to ride another hour in agony before our pit stop at a proper toilet. Ah well. Good times.

Last Days in Hanoi
When we returned to Hanoi Guesthouse, they informed us that they were full (even though we had pre-booked and paid), but told us they had saved a room in their more expensive partner hotel next door called Stars Hotel. This place was super lush and equally friendly – we even had a computer in our room! We were thrilled with the hotel and would also highly recommend this one as well.

We met up with Laura, Layla and Danny, a few folks from Scotland and England from our Halong Bay boat, for some dinner and a visit to the water puppet show. We ended up eating at Thai Express – a delicious restaurant that I am pretty sure originated in Singapore (and which was so good we returned another two times before leaving Hanoi). The water puppet show was thoroughly enjoyable – a live band played traditional Vietnamese music and we got to see 17 different short stories acted out on the water. It was amazing the ways they could get the puppets to move. If you do ever attend the show (which I highly recommend, especially because it is only $2!) – just be prepared for tiny seats. I am only 5′6 and was too big. I had my bum flush to the back, but my knees were wedged into the seat in front of me and any movement I made sent the tiny woman in front of me rocking.

The crowds in Hanoi on April 30th, the 35th anniversary of Vietnamese Reunification

As we were leaving the water puppet theatre, a bunch of fireworks started going off. The celebrations for April 30th were underway, and there were people and motorbikes EVERYWHERE. As soon as the fireworks stopped, people hopped onto their motorbikes and started going. It was chaos. We tried to get back to our hotel but ended up getting stuck in a sea of Hanoians…so we ducked into a restaurant for a juice and waited out the tide of little black heads and petrol fumes.

The next morning, we tried to pay old Ho Chi Minh a final visit – I really wanted to see his embalmed body in person. Because of the holiday, however, we were unsuccessful – every single Vietnamese person in the city was trying to visit him and the line-up wound several times around the block. People were trying to bud into the line on their motorbikes, which made some guards very mad and they started barricading areas off – not caring who or what they trampled, and my foot took the brunt of a gate being pulled closed. We decided to just leave and spend the day in our hotel. The city was chaotic, noisy and very stressful and we had pretty much seen all we had wanted to anyway.

Clay

On our last day in Hanoi, while randomly roaming the streets, we ran into an Aussie named Clay that we had met all the way back in Nha Trang at the train station. We had also seen him several times in Hoi An – he had incidentally ended up at the same hotel as us. It was crazy to run into him in Hanoi though – it’s a massive city of 8 million people and the tourist area alone is a giant maze of streets. We stopped and chatted, then went our separate ways. I was remorseful that we hadn’t exchanged contact information or gotten a picture of him since we had run into him so many times. Fifteen minutes later, who do we see, after we had gotten lost down a few random roads and had made a few wrong turns? Clay. I thought it was a sign to snap a pic and give him our email addresses, and we had a good giggle about how strange the universe can be.

We left for the airport to board our last plane until we start making our journey home. Most of the people we have run into have flown from Laos to Vietnam due to total insanity at the boarder and the crazy roads in Loas. The flight was pretty pricey, but we figured keeping our sanity was important to maintain…and a 26 hour bus ride probably wasn’t going to aid that much. Only an hour later and a tummy full of the cutest plane meal I have had, we arrived to little Laos. It was likely the smoothest airport landing I have ever experienced in a third world country – there was literally no one around! No one harassing us to drive us to our hotel…nothing. We had to walk out to the road and walk about 100 meters before anyone paid us any attention. A complete 180 change from Vietnam! Laos is very small with a population of only 7 million – it should prove to be interesting, having just come from a city with a bigger population than that!

Dear Mr Scott Montgomerie,

I am Miss Hang at Hanoi Guesthouse. On behalf of our hotel members, I would love to send our Sincere Thanks for your staying at our hotel. We wish that you would have a great trip in Viet Nam and a safe journey back home. All of Hanoi Guesthouse staff miss both of you so much already. Both of You are very kind, friendly, easy-going and polite. We are so lucky to have your stay. We shall never forget both of you. We are looking forward to seeing both of you in the near future for your honey moon or wedding anniversary with a your kids- a football team.
Did you have a nice stay in our friend hotel? Did they treat you well? During your time with us, if something still made you unhappy, please, sympathy with us.

We hope that you did enjoyed your stay with us at Hanoi Guesthouse. Wished to see you the next time whenever you come back Hanoi.

Many thanks once again for your great help !

Expecting your next visit and Have a next great trip !

Sincerely yours,
Miss Hang & Team.