Vang viang yet again!

Am i ever going to leave this place?

I said goodbye to Aussie and then when walking back to my guesthouse deciding how to go about finding Jeremy, i happened to look into a bar and there he was. getting into the Vang viang spirit he was already happily drunk when I found him and keen to go off tubing.

Jeremy...

I had to teach that day so i left them to it (they did a swing or two) and then met up again that night to plan the next day.

There I was yet again. This blog is getting very repetitive isn't it? 3 or so more days of drinking, tubing, relaxing and mushrooms ensued. Yet again. We also planned on going south (again) but failed to (again) and instead headed north (at least I moved this time!).

But the mushroom trip was different.

First time I had music and no talking really and it was lights. camera, action in my head. This time because it had taken like an hour to kick in last time we decided to get a massage while we waited. The parlour was directly across the road and was only $3 for an hour. Perfect. We also hadn't had a Laos massage yet.

We go over, wash our feet, get geared up and then climb onto the beds. About now my mind starts buzzing. I quickly inform Jeremy I think I'm going to be gonskies in about 5 minutes but him and Harry just tell me to chill. I'd done the mushrooms with another guy still over at the bar and Jeremy was drunk and Harry had tried weed, alcohol and opium so we were all in different states of a mind.

Sure enough i start dissapearing fast. Boy did it feel weird having this person rub me down while high as a kite that surely just might stop to check it out - only it couldn't. We could all see each other through out the massage too.

It all went pretty well except at one stage where they tried to get us to sit up to massage our backs but we were too gone and the effort it took to sit up just too great. Instead we just kept laughing and falling back on them. These poor Thai girls are like 40kilos and just got stuck under us laughing all the time too.

Afterwards we then headed to town where everything anyone said doubled in my head and their words formed bubbles in the air that i could pop. Mushrooms are crazy. And that's probably enough for a while now.

Also fell asleep on my last tubing down the river. That's a new one too. Got woken by these drunk Irish guys and we then had to mission it back through rice paddy fields for like 3kms to make town. Awesome laugh though.

Also just learnt from Jo he's not going to make it to India with me. Ah well. Life goes on.

Vang viang (II)

So after heading down to Vientienne with the two Poles, I have ended up saying goodbye to them, leaving them to head off South while I decided to go back and try to meet up with the Aussie again who I met in Dalat, Vietnam. Eventually I want to cross into Thailand from the North and so it seems counter productive to go so far South. Pity to say bye and I needn't have come back down to Vientienne but it was a spur of the moment decision and so now tomorrow I head back to Vang viang...

So back I went and actually found the poor bugger somewhere (can't even remember to be honest, haha). And back it was for another 4 days or so of tubing, drinking and living the easy life. Each night there is also free unlimited Lau Lau whiskey and so drinking gets a little crazy most nights! Awesome people though every time met on the river.

And after being here a week I have only bought one beer in a bar not on the river and that was for an Irish girl. All the rest were bought for me or i just shared (slash cheapied) other people's buckets. There are a lot of girls in this city.

Again, after another few days Aussie decided to head South and I was to join him and maybe even see the Poles again down there. Last minute change again and I decided to stick around and wait for another friend Jeremy to arrive. He'd been trying to catch me since Cambodia so it would be awesome to finally catch up!

42

Vang viang is also famous for its "happy" shakes and "happy" foods. In fact for drugs of all kinds really.

So after a couple of days of drunken frivolities on the river, it was time for a little detox and relaxation. How? Simply head off to "PIZZA ADVENTURES" dun dun dun! And lose your mind, money and cares all at once.

The "Happy menu"...

So picture if you will... Or first, if you go in to any of the bars or restaurants here, there are few with any actual chairs. Instead there are pyramid mats...

(pic)

These are uber comfyto lie on. It pretty much sums up what state most people are in 24/7 in this place.

When we reached our chosen special restaurant (we were advised to find the darkest one) we crawled in and climbed up onto our own personal platform and settled in. The waitor comes round all smiles as if he's in on the world's greatest secret (he is) and asks what's your poison.

We ordered between the 3 of us (me and 2 polands) one happy pizza. He assured us it would be strong enough for all. The happy pizza in this case is a mushroom pizza. Not normal mushrooms but the 'magic' kind if you know what i mean.

After about 10minutes Dan was lying prone next to us in his own little world, an hour later Maui just breaks into hysterical laughter and doesn't stop for the next 40mins and about 20mins after him i felt them take affect and my life changed for ever.

Wow is all I can say really. It was an amazing night. Absolutely amazing! Our minds are amazing things when we let go. We were each taken to another world and it yet the new worlds were so real. Incredible. Close your eyes and the lights were amazing. Everyone must be on mushrooms when they make movies and write books. Images so breathtaking. So many amazing sights that night and all in my head?! I really can't describe it all. But it was worth it. Everything once definitely fits in this case.

And i am dead serious when I say I learnt the meaning to life. I don't expect you to truly grasp or understand or even believe this but it is so. For real.

Mushrooms. Wow.

Tubing

Man I have some inspirational titles huh? Guess what this one's about...

Vang viang is tubing and tubing is vang viang. They're like smors and a camp fire. Neither one really stands out without the other.

You begin by hiring an inner tube for $4 and signing away all rights to your life while signing on for a million clauses meaning you'll pay if you break / lose / alter / eat or otherwise touch your inner tube / life jacket / friends etc in any way that might make them less fun for the next person.

You then jump in a 'tuk tuk' truck and get driven up the river a couple of k's to the drop off point. They drive off and you're left wondering what the hell you do next. Nothing much to it though. You simply sit in your tube, back slowly into the river and start floating aimlessly down half hoping that at some stage there'll be something going on and that you are indeed in the right tributary.

After maybe a hundred metres you suddenly find yourself being attacked by small brown animals flying through the sky over top. On closer inspection these reveal themselves to be little Thai people on swings inviting you to join them.

Up you climb and after a quick shot of Lau Lau Whiskey down ya throat (this stuff can make a car engine run), you're clamouring to have your turn on the swing.

All down the river are about 10 bars set up with swings and flying foxes. These are suspended out over the river to varying heights with the highest being maybe 10m all up. You grab hold, hope like hell the dodgy bamboo handle holds and swing out to perform dazzlng feats of aerial artistry when you let go.

If you let go. I watched some people hold on till the swing was pretty much stationary and then let go. On the other hand I also saw an impressive back flip and a couple of even more impressive back flops (cheers Harry!). I managed a couple of trapeze like leg swings but failed miserably with all my attempts at landing a flip.



At each bar, to build courage and increase comradship, you also down a couple of beers. So by the end of it you're happily tipsy and ready to try all sorts of double team, dumb idea, swinging manouvres.


Tubing usually gets busy around 2pm, you start around 1pm and you finish up anywhere between 5-9pm depending on who you meet up with and their desire to get to the bars.

So it pretty much consists of floating down a river for a couple of hours in the sun, getting drunk with a lot of awesome people at bars along the way, doing some swings to prove your manhood and then hitting town when it gets all dark and spooky.

Brilliant!

Vang viang (I)

It is a pity you start Laos in Vientienne as it is located in the country's centre and so you have to back track either way if you want to see both the north and south. We opted for the northern half first as the Polish guys were heading into Cambodia afterwards and so would end their travels southward.

We shot first to Vang viang on the local bus as this is where the famed tubing takes place. We arrived in time to find a room for the 3 of us for $3US that had A/C, T.V, two big king beds, hot shower, free water etc and the room itself was huge. Ah good old cheap Laos.

We did a couple of days tubing (see "tubing") and also went for a motorbike ride around the surrounding countryside and did a couple of night 'trips' too (see "42").

The motorbike ride was nice except when the heavens decided to let rip with all they had and forced us to take refuge in a little shop for an hour or so to avoid dying! It's really hard to see when it pours that hard and it hurts like buggery each time a drop hits you! But we weren't really fussed as we hadn't achieved anything all day really other than seeing some country side, going for a swim in the local river and Maui who drove into another motorbike (easy mistake to make, parked as it was!) and so gave himself a flatty and broke the other guys bike too.

We stayed in Vang viang for 5 days I think all up and then we all headed south to see the infamous 4000 islands down near Cambodia.

Vientienne

Port of arrival into Laos. This is like the Bangkok of Laos. Nothing much here except a city trying to become something.

Like a young man moving out of teenage-hood, the city has it's high points and you can see it will become something but as yet it still carries the scars of it's youth all too clearly. The dirt from days playing in the mud piles across the street is still around - dust still hovers over everything. Teeth have yet to come out of the braces - the streets are still undergoing the change to the straight and not so narrow (a good thing? i like the dirt roads to be honest) and the city still displays its youthful self consciousness - buildings sprout from nowhere and everywhere, peeking out from around one another as if ready to beat a hasty retreat back into vacancy at the first sign of interest. It also doesn’t really have that much to offer yet. With time perhaps but for now the city is just another guy sitting on the edge of the school hall trying to decide if he can handle the pace of the dance floor.

Needles to say, you start here but don't bother looking back (except maybe one last quick glance at those 7c filled rolls at the day market).

Entering Laos

Just a quick note on the scenery. Actually, just look at these images. Simply breath taking. Easily rivals the best in New Zealand. Wow.

30 hours of fun

With the Polish guys Maui and Dan, we booked a bus to Laos from Hanoi. Haggled our way down to $12 for a 22 hr ride in an air conditioned bus that in the pictures (we were assured it was the same bus we'd travel on) looked real nice.

The trip started well. We got picked up on time and taken to another hotel to get some more guests. We had free bananas to eat (we filled our bags) and then after a last glass of beer hoi, we piled into a minivan to set off to our bus.

When we approached the bus station there were a couple of local buses around and we all laughed about how they were going to be ours. oh, the laughter of innocence.

We ended up on a bus not much better. We refused to get on board at first and demanded the bus we'd paid for (some people had paid $20+ for the same bus as us but we kept quiet). In the end we had no choice and got on.

The trip was a disaster but at the same time I have never travelled so well. Honest.

It began shortly after we left. We broke down 5 minutes after we began. The bus was piled high with local rubbish too and so our travel bags were in with us and took up the back 3 rows of seats. Maui and I had moved some so that we had two seats to ourselves at the back and we slammed our seats back until we were pretty much lying flat. It is hard to explain but we felt justified getting comfy seats even if we broke them! Seeing as the air conditioning once again consisted of an open door, sitting next to an open window was also a must. I ended up being the only one with two seats in the end though (someone moved in next to Maui) and it was priceless.





First breakdown...

Once we were off again, sweating to where we could shower each other by standing up, we got a puncture. This was to be the first of four. We also broke down at least four more times while I was awake and I was told a couple more while I slept (while travelling, you learn to sleep anywhere, anytime and through anything). It was awesome the first time though. My whole chair lifted off (being directly above the wheel) and I'd honestly thought we'd hit a bomb!

‘In February 2003 an attack on a bus near Vang Vieng killed 13 people including two western cyclists. Two months later, another bus was attacked, killing 12 and injuring 31, confirming fears that government assurances over the security of the road were badly misplaced.’ (My Lonely planet, South East on a shoestring, 2004, kindly informed me).

One of the punctured tyres...

But no robber for us though it took an age to fix too as we had no spares and had to wait for another bus to go by to borrow one. Meantime we just sat on the road side being old nothing! We then drove for the last hour with a puncture too for the same reason and because everyone on board was making it quite clear we'd had enough.

When we finally hit the border we had to wait an hour before it opened. meanwhile I used the toilet while we waited and some lady sitting outside actually tried to charge me. I played ignorant and refused to understand her and then it was time to cross.

Here we all gave our passports over to the driver (an obnoxious man) and waited for our turn. All the locals used the "foreigner only" side and would just push past and into us to get there. Really made some people cross. You could see they wanted to hit these people. But thankfully patience won out.

Then we all learnt they were asking for a dollar for 'good service' and it was blatantly a bribe. Sadly everyone paid except me and the Polish guys as we were over Vietnam. The people can be nice but they have a real edge compared to the rest of Asia. We flatly refused to pay a bribe we say going into their pockets and you may be thinking "what cheapos, it's only a dollar!" but when you travel a dollar goes a long way and it is also the principle of the thing.

in the end our bus drove of without us and scared we'd be left behind we angrily (but smilingly) paid, grabbed our passports and walked the 3kms to the bus - where I gave the driver a huge telling off for what he'd done. we then paid for our new visa for Laos, jumped back on board and prayed for new things out of this new country.
Wealking to find our bus....



In the end I bet I'll remember this bus ride for much longer than all my others too. And we made it so that's what counts!

BLANK

Cat ba island adventure

Woke up in Hanoi with no real plans on my second day. I remembered though that the Polish and Catalonian guys from the night before were planning a trip to Cat ba Island. Join them? Why not. Quick question, they agreed and it was set.

Two of them had to go get China Visas but along with the other two (Dan and Maui) we headed off for the local bus station. These guys are true back packers....

Dan and Maui making baguette and polish ham (all the way from Poland) sandwiches...




So rather than take a tour, we took a local bus to Haiphong first (lots of walking) and then a ferry to the island. About half price and we got to stay in Haiphong and meet some locals and pretty much not be tourists so much.

For the ferry we paid the 'Vietnamese' price too as we pretended we had lost our money and needed to go to the Island to meet some friends to get more (o: --- There are two prices for the ferry, 30000 for Vietnamese and 70000 for Foreigners. fair enough but if we can get it cheaper, we will! --- we did miss one boat while pretending to be poor and then they let us on the next which was good as it was carrying a cargo of furniture and we travelled on the roof sitting on the furniture!

The 'poor man's' local transport....

I can't describe how good everything was. Sadly I'm not a story teller. But imagine if you will, being me for a moment. I am sitting, laid back, on a lazy boy on the roof of a ferry in Vietnam. I have the with warm sun on my back, a fresh breeze on my face and two Polish guys laughing along with me as we sit eating baguettes with corned beef, heading to a beautiful Island for the next few days. Life was, and still is, good!

The island too was a blast. Cheap rooms again ($2ea for A/C, t.v. etc) and meals were costing us around 7c for a baguette with more tinned polish meat and fresh tomatoes. Good.

First day was spent swimming on a beautiful beach. White sand, coolish water, sunny as. We also swam out to a nearby island, got cut up on the sharp rocks, swam back, played some soccer on the beach with some locals and then headed home to drink and go out on the town.

Cat Co II...

The pathway there (to Cat Co II)...

Next day we hired a Vietnamese's fishing boat (actually kicked the owner out of his home - nicely) and went for a paddle around the Island. This was a highlight.

'Hiring' a boat for the day (pretty much just commandered it)...

The boat was so rugged but so authentic.

Our first class ride (string, wire, spit - it was all 'holding' it together)...

We were going to hire kayaks but this was way cooler. They also gave us a free ride on a motor boat back (we were taking too long - about 6hrs for $5 for 5 of us! Cheap!).

Why'd it take so long? Well... the tide went out but our hired boat stayed still...

We also swam some more, met some Germans and played some poker that night with about 10 of us. Then back to town again to end the night.

Cat ba Island poker tournament...

Next day we headed back to Hanoi, this time taking the fast boat as it was cheaper from the island and we didn't think the same story would work twice (o:

Back in Hanoi, the first thing we did was get a Domar Kebab. OOOoooohhhh. Soooo ghooood! Drooling juist thinking about it! Ahhhhhh, mmmmmm. Kebabs. (or actually a quick email was first and then a Domar Kebab). And they're not even a Kiwi dollar each! And they're huge! Mmmm, i want one now - and will probably have one for breakfast (O; Hahaha, what a tourist!

The night was again spent driking beer with the Canadian and aussie again and a Phillipino (sp?) we met in the dorm along with 3 french, a kiwi and some english. Too many people in fact and so when we went to town we were actaully trying to lose people!

But yes. These Poles can drink. I think i am gaining weight... no, I KNOW i am gaining weight and in the wrong places right now. Every day they drink. Phew! But it is 6 beers for a kiwi dollar and so in a way it is cheaper than drinking water! And they don't just drink, like don't get the wrong impression. They're not alcoholic's or anything.

Dan with the usual Polish breakfast (yes those are 1.5L bottles of beer)...

So today we head off to Laos we hope. I am shortening my time in Nam as they want to change their plans from going to Cambodia to now coming to Laos with me. But they can't wait as their travels are not so long. It also means by mssing another week here that I can now go to Burma for a week as well and that is meant to be an awesome country! Nice (o:

And Jo is still living in Cambodia, teaching English, and loving it.

All right, time for a Kebab. Hope everyone is smiling.

Our hired boat quickly developed leaks (that's Catalonia's hand bailing and yes, more 1.5L bottles of beer next to it - it's just so much cheaper than water!)...