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Hi everyone!
Have yet againa bit of back tracking to do. The four of us have been on our own for almost a week now. It has been great being on tours and have met some great people but good to be four of us.
We went to Halong Bay from Hanoi. It was the most breath taking stunning view I have ever seen. We took a bus through the Red River Delta and stopped at a handicrafts village run by disabled people. They had some of the most impressive forms of embroidary I have ever seen.
We boarded our own private boat, with a top deck, approached with cold Tiger beers. Then an hour later while sailing through the most impressive limestone karsts, we were presented with a huge lunch. It was all delicious and I tried some fish again ;-) The karsts were so beautiful rising so high from the emerald water! We explored one of the caves, which was also incredibly impressive. After that we stopped at a village on the water, crazy that people live there, they had dogs too! We rented kayaks from them and kayaked around some of the karsts. After kayaking we sailed to some clearer open waters where we jumped off the top deck of the boat into the water, and swam around for a while. We ended our boat trip, with another few cold beers watching the sunset through the karsts. We arrived in Cat Bay, all quite tired and went for a meal.
The next morning we got up quite earlier to go for a trek in the National Park. We went to cave before our trek where the Vietnemese and Chinese soldiers went for rehab during the war. this cave was so impressive. It had several rooms used as hospital and surgery rooms, a movie theatre, a swimming pool, and a place of rest for VIPs (corner in the cave where it's always cool). The ranger who was showing us around used to be in the army, and sang us some songs in the cave. very impressive powerful voice. after that we treked for a couple of hours, was quite difficult as it was so so hot. But we all made it, beautiful views from the top! We apprecitaed the cold well water when we got down! later we took a boat back to Hanoi, unfortunatly it was just local boat with hard benches and crowded with people. We had our farewell dinner, and the next day we flew to Vietenne in Laos.
We arrived in Laos after an hours flight, booked into our hotel, had a walk around. There is not much to see here. It's restaurants serve fried cockraches and grasshoppers (local snacks). Passed on them! They had a lot of beer gardens overlooking Mekong, so we sat admiring the sunset, and went to see a traditional Laos show! Also we found fantastic bakery (french influence, food is so good), we sat outside having sandwich and lots of children came up to us begging. Some started to cry , so we went inside and they started licking crumbs off our plates. Was so hard to see, so Nik bought them a slice of pizza and they were so grateful.
We were hanging around the next day as we had an overnight bus to Luang Prabang. The bus was a horrid experience. We arrived at the bus station and they put our bags on top of the bus and covered them with plastic. We took off and the driver was a manic, swerving and over taking dangerously. as soon as we got on this loud music started and the lights went off. was crazy! Not doing that again but sure was an experience.
We arrived in Luang Prabang the next morning at 5am, and had a hotel pre booked. We spent a lot of time in Luang Prabang trying to change dates on tickets. We went to the kuang si waterfalls, which were so impressive. But on the way the van we were travelling in broke down on a hill, we tried to push it but battery ran out. was funny! Nobody had advised me to wear hiking boots although I should have known, I was in my flip flops. We reached the top and it started to rain, so it like a huge slide, but luckily i had some help on the way down. Fell a couple of times but nothing serious, am impressed flip flops still intact!
We rented bikes and saw a few temples, went to the Royal Palace museum, and had walk though the night market. There were some beautiful things there. We ended the night by going for few beers with people we had met.
Now in Chiang Mai, we are not going to change tickets after all. TRekking tomorrow and going elephant riding, and walking through some hill tribe villages including long neck!
will catch up in Oz next I think, miss you all. speak soon xx
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