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

last day in sapa

Our last trek was not until after lunch so we had the morning to explore the town a bit more. I ended up doing a good two hour walk in the surrounding area and enjoyed the views despite the fog. After lunch, our guide came to collect us and we went for a two hour walk to a village and a waterfall. Our guide was 20 and already had two children. She had already walked 12km that morning and didn't even break a sweat on our trek.
I really enjoyed staying in sapa but I am hoping the weather will be a bit warmer in hanoi and on cat ba island.

day 2 in sapa

Dinner at the homestay

I finally have some time to write something a little more detailed about sapa, its people and the group I am trekking with.
The village called sapa is in the north of vietnam and boasts beautiful scenery and tribal villages dotted around the rice paddies. We learnt from our guide Mang, who is 20, already married and has a year old daughter, that each village has a different tradiational dress and language however they all speak vietnamese to be able to communicate with each other. The rice paddies and allotments provide enough food only for the families and the men have to work in sapa, often as builders to earn money for the family. Mang, however, is the only member of her family who has a job and supports them with what she earns. She takes tour guests on two tours a week which means walking 15-20km a day, up and down steep and muddy tracks. Today she even brought her baby with her and trekked with the baby on her back. She also explained to us that it is quite normal for people to get married young and have children, they even swap children in sapa. If a mother has had three boys for example it is quite normal for a family with three girls to trade a boy for a girl. The families land is only split between the sons so you don't want too many sons if the dad does not have a lot of land. The people here live in very basic buildings but all have a tv and wifi.
The trek today led us to a waterfall in a different village and it was typical for the women in this village to where a red headdress.
The group I was trekking with were very entertaining and we all got on very well. We spent the evening yesterday playing cards and laughing a lot. We ended up playing 'bullshit' which was a brilliant game to get to know everybody. We even watched a bit of Vietnam's got talent with the family we were staying with and it was just as bad as it is in England. We had curfew at 10:30pm last night and had to go to bed.
This morning we woke up to the smell of pancakes and had a good breakfast before setting off again. We had the best off the weather in the morning and as we got back to the hotel in sapa it started to drizzle.
I explored the village before it got too dark and discovered a great massage salon where I got a head, shoulder and neck massage for 2 euros. Not bad!!

 Our beds for the night

Our homestay

Apparently all of the good luck clovers are in Vietnam!

Mang and her daughter

Rehearsals for a local play I stumbled across in town

trekking in sapa

We arrived in sapa this morning and were greeted by the tribal women in their traditional dress which they actually wear all the time. We got to the hotel and had time for breakfast before our trekking guide Mang came to meet us. She took us for a 4 hour trek through the countryside and along rice paddies. Despite the weather being wet and the path being very slippy we all managed. We were accompanied by other local women which was good because they were very steady on their feet and helped down the tricky bits. We stopped for lunch and kept walking to our village homestay.
The group I am trekking with are great fun. Cat, Cheryl, ann and I are from the uk, judre is from Lithuania, mirko from italy and hannah and anna from Germany.  We were cooked dinner by the family which was delicious and we spent the night playing cards with local beer.

Anne, Judre and I on route!