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hey guys!! long time since my last entry i know but finding the time is hard because of the crap connections you get around asia :) anyway two weeks ago me and chick said our farewells to carl, sam and the rest of chiang mai and headed back off on the road. first we visited pai which is a small town in the middle of north Thailand's mountains. carl had told us so many times that pai was an amazing place to visit and for the most part he was right- amazing scenery and an unbelievable chilled out atmosphere makes pai the perfect chill out zone for any traveller. unfortunately the rain clouds soon moved in and pai quickly turned from a lush green paradise to a boggy hell which massively reduced our options for activities as most daytime entertainment involves going off into the surrounding mountains. two days of none stop rain and nothing to do but watch dvds later we decided to move out of the mountains and make our way towards laos.
Our trip to laos was a disaster! both me and chick got food poisoning on the thailand/laos border which resulted in chick having to stay an extra day in thailand as he didn't feel like the slow boat journey (a 2 day boat trip down the mekong). i on the other hand decided that i wanted to get to laos as soon as possible and would therefore take on the slow boat....big mistake. only took half an hour into the journey when i turned back to look at chiang kong and realised that this was probably the stupidest idea i had ever had! anyway i pushed though and finally made it to VANG VIENG!
Vang Vieng is amazing!!! for anyone who doesn't know, vang vieng is where travellers go in laos for all the outdoor activities like tubing, rock climbing, kayaking, and of course going far into the deep deep caves in the surrounding mountains. both me and chick had made many friends on our separate slow boat journeys and we had now gathered quite a group which all reunited for some tubing on our first day. tubing was amazing and probably the most fun I've had since aroons village. it involves jumping into a huge tracter tire and just cruising down the river stopping off at the many bars, swings and jumps along the way. swinging into the water was excellent and the surrounding scenery made it that much more enjoyable but what probably stands our the most from tubing is the massive jumps they had on offer. hovering over the river at about 12-15 meters high were these ladders which you could climb and jump off providing you had the bottle. turns out only two people had the bottle in our group to do it and no prizes for guessing who they were :) jumping off was scary but nothing compared to climbing these things, each step up made the ladder sway in a way the if chick hadnt have just jumped off i would have probably never went to the top. the landing did hurt a little but the feeling that your still alive made that sting go away quickly. the rest of the day involved more tubing, more drinking and alot more of the stuff that would never ever be aloud in england...but thats why we're here!!
Visiting the caves around vang vieng just showed us how far the locals will go to get money out of westeners. everytime we crossed a bridge, walked down a different pathway or climbed some steps there was a local wanting money for using 'his' route. this soon got very frustrating and we decided that we would only visit the main caves as we simply could not afford to keep paying to see something which is pitch black inside and therefore indistinguishable from one to the next. for the biggest cave we dicided that we didn't need a guide and just asked for a torch and for him to point us in the right direction. when the guy pointed up the mountain instead of infront of us we did for a second reconsider this decision of no guide however that soon passed and we set off up the mountain. finally reaching the cave we entered both excited and aware that the sun was unfortunately going down which meant we would not have long inside. not long after entering the cave my torch of couse broke and we ended up share one dull torch heading deeper into these pitch black and very narrow caves (was actually really funny). concious that the sun was going down we soon headed back out so that we could go down to the cave pools where friends from tubing were. these pools were amazaing as they went right into the caves and the water was bright blue the entire way (no pics though).
Our time in vang vienne and laos for that matter is now over and tomorrow we will be looking into getting the 24 hour bus into vietnam (not looking forward to that). chick has been wanting to hit the beaches for some time now and so we will probably be heading for somewhere along the central coast (maybe Nah Trang) and then north to check out some of the tourist attractions. I've added some more photos but as it is proving to often in asia the internet connection takes far too long which has resulted in random pics being posted. hope all is well back home, i hear newcastle are making progress in the transfer market however i also now hear that martins might be heading to arsenal- one step forward.... stevo did you get a season ticket? should do! anyway keep me informed of whats going on back home as its good entertainment for those rainy days. stu
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