bolaven plateau

There is not much to do in pakse itself but one of the main attractions is to explore the 230km circuit around the bolaven plateau. I took a tour from the hostel and we stopped at tea and coffee plantations, waterfalls, 'ethnic' villages and a local restaurant for lunch.

I learnt that laos people drink green tea and coffee and find it strange that we drink black tea, especially with milk. They are one of Vietnam's biggest suppliers of green tea and one of the biggest exporters of coffee in Asia, after Vietnam.

Our guide had good english so I took the opportunity to find out more about laos and its people. For example, the people in Laos earn on average only $6 a day and it costs $2 a day to eat. They live in big houses with the whole family.

The minority villages we saw were also interesting. One group make their coffins when they are middle-aged and store them underneath their houses to bring good luck and hopefully a few extra birthdays. Another group are all addicted to tobacco from the age of 5. When the guide told us this I was hoping he was lying but sadly we saw a child smoking a bamboo shisha pipe given to it by its mother. The villagers have a very simple existence but they do not want to move into the town because they will have to pay bills and taxes which  they avoid living on the plateau. 

It was a very interesting day!

Tea plantation

Small kids playing in the village

Ready made coffins!

Vang Vieng to Pakse

the bus journey to Vientiane was very easy and so was the night bus to Pakse. I managed to find a room and some breakfast noodle soup. The town is not particularly pretty but I enjoyed walking around and being stopped by at least 10 monks who asked me a lot of questions to practice their english. They were very good at asking questions like 'where are you from?', 'when did you arrive?' And 'what is your name?' However when I tried to ask them a question they found answering a little tricky. I spoke for quite a while with a monk who was studying IT and had been a monk for 5 years with two years to go. As he was showing me the temple I spotted some of his mates having a sneaky cigarette at the back, he also told me that if a Laos boy does not become a monk for a certain amount of time he is not considered 'ripe'.
I walked along the Mekong and found a huge local market. I have spent some time talking to a Belgian girl who lives and works near Pakse. She is a project manager at an eco school and has even learnt to speak some Laos. Apparently the Laos people are very direct but you aren't allowed to confront anyone in front of their peers because it makes them lose face.

Sunset in Vientiane

Everything is possibly in asia!

Monks chilling round the back

vang vieng

The journey from luang prabang wasn't too bad despite having to stop for a blocked road which was cleared surprisingly quickly and arriving 3 hours late. But that's south east asia!
We found a hostel quite quickly and the owner was from liverpool. We went out for food and disappointingly it took two hours to arrive and wasn't even that good. Obviously it is great to go out with a good group of people but sometimes it makes finding somehwere to eat tricky because everyone wants something different or isn't into the cheaper street food. We still had a fun time though!

The next day we all decided to go tubing, which is a big thing in vang vieng. You basically hire a big wheel inner tube for the day and get driven to the river where you start tubing. There are four bars along the river and as you float down Laos guys will throw a rope with a water bottle attached that you hold on to and they pull you in to the river bank. You then climb up to the bar, play volleyball, table tennis or table football and when you have had enough you get back on your tube and float down to the next one.
Once you have reached the last bar you have to start making your way down the rest of the river into the centre of town. It started to get quite cold as we were sat in our tubes so we got a tuk tuk back. We had to be back by 6pm to get the full deposit and it was funny seeing tubers running down the road at 5 to to make sure they got their $6 back.

It was a great fun day and I was annoyed I couldn't take my camera because the scenery was beautiful.

Yesterday we all got in a tuk tuk and went to the blue lagoon. It is a section of the river that has been cornered off for visitors to swim and hang out. There was also a cave which you were allowed to go into. You had to have a torch though so i was lucky I had one in my bag. It was quite spooky exploring a cave that had not been set up with lights. The cave was huge and we spent a good 40 mins walking through it.  
We made it back in time for the sunset which was stunning.

Avocado and banana shake, delicious!

The biggest siper I have ever seen!

Luang Prabang

The majority of my time spent in Luang Prabang has been relaxing and taking a breather from heading from place to place and only staying a few nights at each stop. I didn't think travelling around could be tiring. It's the whole process I guess; deciding where to go next, figuring out the best and most price effective way to get there, booking transport, making the journey however long, arriving, finding a cheap hostel, settling, finding something to eat, meeting and talking to people, figuring out what to explore for the few days spent there and starting the process all over again.

I can't knock it though. The freedom to be able to decide how long I would like to stay somewhere or where I would like to go next or what I want to see is great and well worth every minute being tired because there are so many more minutes spent being amazed.

Before I left Rostock, Christian and I joked that I would become a hippy traveller, the whole 'there is so much more to life than money and material things' thing, probably get some dreads and get all spiritual. luckily I haven't gone that far yet, but travelling does make you reevaluate yourself and what you have and also a great way to put things into perspect, and for me this has been very positive. Meeting new people, listening to their stories, getting to know new cultures and ways of life is very rewarding. 

My only slight 'hippy traveller' development has been practicing yoga. I try to practice in most places I stop and it has been a great experience so far. Not only does it stretch out my muscles after long bus journeys, but it has also given me a unique glimpse into local communities and the benefits of yoga being used all over the world. For example, in Da Lat, Vietnam, I went along to a local class full of energetic vietnamese women. It was a way for them to start their day, feel energised and even have a quick catch up with their friends. One women was an English teacher and started to ask me questions, one of them was 'how old do you think I am?' I didn't want to offend her but I still answered honestly. 'Late 40s?' I said and she and her friends laughed as she replied '66!' She looked great, was more flexible than me and seemed very happy. The only word she used to prove the point of her question was 'yoga'. 

I've also enjoyed having the time to read. I've been through three books which I have switched for new ones at hostels. 'Life of Pi' was a very good book and I have finished a book this week called 'men from the boys' by Tony Parsons which I can also recommend. I have managed to find a German novel set in Laos which I am looking forward to reading as I travel down through the south of Laos. 

 While I was ill I did feel very homesick, missing everyone and everything. I felt like I needed to just stay somewhere for a while and didn't want to travel anymore.  So I was thinking about sticking around in Luang Prabang for a little while to volunteer at an English school. However, once I felt better and myself again, I met some really nice people and I found my wanderlust again. I guess it also helped that when I went to the school for an hour to see what it was like, the children where far from underprivileged and it was simply an after-school lesson paid for by their parents, not exactly what the advertisement made it out to be.

The next leg of my journey will be travelling down to the south of Laos to the beautiful four thousand islands and then carrying on down into Cambodia before heading to Bangkok to meet Edward on the 20th December. 

off to laos!

I started writing this post two days ago but couldn't finish it because I managed to eat something bad and was in bed all day yesterday with food poisoning. Not a lot of fun so I am taking a few days to relax and recover. I was very lucky to have three lovely girls in my room who looked after me and made sure i had everything i needed.

So, post continued... I was actually a bit sad to leave vietnam because I had such a fun time travelling up north and I met some great people along the way. I was also excited about moving on to laos though and discovering a new country and its culture.
I flew from hanoi to luang prabang to avoid the dreaded 30 hour bus journey. The view of the countryside made the extra money spent worth it.

After sorting out my visa, the first thing that struck me was the lack of taxi and motorbike drivers hassling me outside the airport. They were all calmingly waiting until a customer came along, the laos people seem very relaxed and friendly.

I made it to the hostel and had an explore in the afternoon. The city is quaint and has a relaxed atmosphere. We went to the night market for some food and then had a mooch along the stalls. It was the first market I have been to where I actually wanted to buy anything! 

On tuesday I went to the waterfalls 25km outside of the city and they were stunning. we walked up to the top and went for a swim in the natural infinity pools.

a few days on cat ba island

During my trip to the north of vietnam, I met a number of people who suggested that I go to cat ba island instead of a tour of halong bay and I am very glad I took their advice.
On Wednesday I took the bus to the ferry port in halong city where all the halong bay tours start. I was not officially on a tour because I was just using the boat as a means of transport to get to cat ba but I'm glad I wasn't on a tour because everything seemed very unorganised, we were moved to three different boats, the crew and staff were very unfriendly and the boats were not in a good condition. Once we got off the boat we were driven to cat ba town and found a good cheap hostel.

The weather has been a little overcast and chilly so thursday was spent exploring the town, beaches and sussing out a good tour company to go kayaking and climbing with.

I booked a full day tour with asia outdoors and had the best day on friday! The sun finally came out and we had a great group on the boat. The instructors were all native english speakers which made such a difference and they were all very professional. We set off at 8.30 to a small harbour and cruised for fifteen minutes through the floating fishing villages and started to our 3 hour kayak. We went into lagoons and through the rocks and once we were back on the boat we had a delicious lunch. We didn't have a lot of time to relax before we were off climbing in the afternoon. We got a small boat to moody beach and the instructors set up six climbs on the rock face for us to try. They gave us a very good briefing and everyone managed most of the climbs except the overhang at the end!
We all went out for dinner once we got back and I slept like a log!

Floating villages

Kayaking team in the lagoon, we had to come through that small entrance in the background

Two of the instructors setting up

A beautiful way to finish off a great day