My Route in SE Asia

The End.....

I suppose I should give this blog a conclusion. Since the last update, I took an overnight bus to Vientiane, arrived at 4:30am, so I found a park and slept for a few hours. Found a guesthouse for cheap, but that evening I got a knock on my door, there was a Laos woman standing there in just a towel. She offered me a "massage", and wouldn't take no for an answer....I had to physically push her out of my room. That night I got attacked by bed bugs....obvioulsy I left the next morning.

Took another night bus to Bangkok, met up with some Swedish guys that I hung out with in Sapa-Vietnam. We shared a room for cheap. I got really sick, then got heatstroke....all while suffering with bedbug bites. When it rains it pours! Took a plane to Macau which is just a ferry ride away from Hong Kong. I flew Air Asia, but they're really strict with check in baggage. To reduce the excess baggage fee, I wore a pair of shorts, two pairs of jeans, heavey hiking boots, and two jackets....all in 40 degree weather! I felt ridiculous walking through the airport, I'm sure they all knew what I was doing. The flight attendants laughed when I went to the bathroom on the plane and came out wearing shorts, sandals, and a singlet....holding two bags of clothing :) Hung out in HK with some friends Michelle and Rex, then headed home the next day.

3 guys who shop too much in a small room....
I was sweating so much at this point...and I was deathly ill.

I was greeted at the airport by Kristen...and my parents, I had no idea they were coming! It's so nice to be home with friends and family....and of course Kristen!



Hike we did on Vancouver island.

I'll never forget or regret taking this trip to SE Asia. It taught me alot about other cultures...and myself.


THE END!!

Laos New Year - Luang Prabang

The water fight in Luang Prabang was crazy. We (me and the Swedes) had water guns, and matching electric salmon BeerLao t-shirts....which made us a team....and a target :) I got really good at shooting people directly in the eye-balls...but I got shot in the eye-balls as well...so it was even. I didn't dare take my camera out there, I was drenched within the first block. Imagine thousands of people walking down the same street, all spraying each other with waterguns, plus countless teams on the side of the road with huge bins of water dumping buckets on everyone that walked by. Oh yeah, and there were countless vehicles driving by with huge bins of water soaking everyone....it was out of control. So much fun, oh yeah, they kept wiping weird black crap on everyone's faces...and blue crap...and green crap. Oh, and flour, throwing an insane amount of flour. It was tons of fun.

That's it, split up with the Swedes, took another overnight bus (not even sure how many I've taken) to Vientiane...now I'm taking yet another overnight bus to Bangkok. Probably no more posts with pics as I've lost yet another camera cord.


This picture really doesn't do the waterfight justice. Taken from the safety of our guest house, it was just a random soaking, no where near the main street of the fight.


T.E.S. Team Electric Salmon getting ready for battle. Notice the modified water tank on my gun? Yeah ya did. I broke the original one due to excessive pumping (too much pressure, burst the container)...they gave me another one at the store...and I broke that too. The 2litre Pepsi bottle was awesome, held way more pressure...allowed for a fiercer (is that a word) stream for direct eye-ball shots. 12pts for shooting monks, 15pts if you shoot monks in the eyes :)


The "after" pic of the first day of fighting.



Random waterfall (in Luang Prabang) shots.

I love the backflips.

Nong Kiew

I went to a little town called Nong Kiew with the Swedes for a few days, it was awesome. SO beautiful, set right in the between mountains and right beside the Mekong River. It is a tiny town, no internet...I didn't even see a bank. The only thing to do at night is go see a movie at this little "cinema" (little business this guy made, just private little rooms with decent tvs, pick from hundreds of dvd's)...but the guy got too drunk two nights in a row and didn't passed out...so we had NOTHING to do at night. First day we tried to climb a mountain, but our efforts were quickly thwarted by dense impenetrable bush. So we went for lunch, then went swimming in the river. We hiked along a trail on the side of the river for a few km's, arriving at a little village. It was super cool, total village life. Some guys escorted us into a building where it seemed like just the men were partying...pretty much just getting drunk on some sort of liquor. They wanted us to try it, so we did....it was the harshest liquor I've ever tasted, it burned in my chest for about 5 minutes. They really wanted us to stay and keep drinking this stuff (I think it's called LaoLao, pretty much everything is named after their country), but we quickly got out of there as it was getting crazy. We hired a dude to give us a ride back on his boat, cool experience.

Next day we rented bikes (yes, with baskets and bells) and biked down to some caves that the Lao people lived in during the war in the 70's. We biked a bit farther just to see more landscape, then swam in the river again. It was SO hot, even at like 7pm I would still sweat profusely. Cool place.

Today we took a local "bus" (more like a tuk-tuk type pickup thing with two benches running the length of the truck bed and a roof) which was much cheaper. It got so packed on this thing, they even set up small plastic chairs in the middle, I had to (damn Canadian courtesy) give up my seat and stand on the step up part at the bottom of the tail-gate....for hours! We got SO SOAKED on that trip, it's the Laos New Year and they celebrate for what seems like weeks by splashing everyone with water. I just ziplocked my camera and mp3 player and I was good. I'm not even sure how many buckets of water hit me today, I lost count...I was wet all day. I love this country and the people here, always smiling and waving and saying hi. Super friendly people, super beautiful Country.



Boat ride home from village.


Local "bus"...BEFORE it got packed.

Laos

(exploring in Vang Vieng)

I took a bus from Hanoi (Vietnam) to Vientiane (Laos), taking about 20hrs. I've heard it referred to as the "bus from hell", but it really wasn't as bad as I expected. The only thing that was crazy was the amount of people they crammed on the bus, everytime we stopped to picked up passengers I was astonished. Most of the seats had 3 people jammed into two seats...and there were at least 20 people jammed sitting in the isle...it was crazy. BUT, we made it and it was cheap, that's all that matters.



Vientiane

Only stayed there for one day, didn't do much.

The crazy Swedes eating Swedish pizza at a Swedish pizzeria. This pizza has ham, banana, and curry....apparently it's a normal pizza in crazy Sweden (it was actually really good).



Vang Vieng

What a ridiculous place. It's super laid back, made for backpackers to come and hang out with eachother while pretty much doing nothing. MOST of the restaurants play re-runs of "friends".....ALL DAY! The tubing is kind of fun though, even though there really isn't much tubing to do. You start on the river, and about 50metres away is the first bar. There are about 8 bars along the way, each with ropeswings that are sketchy to say the least. This would never be allowed in North America...feed a bunch of backpackers buckets of alcohol, then encourage them to climb up a sketchy ladder to a sketchy platform and swing off a rope into a river that is only a few feet deep at times. Never-the-less, I had fun trying backflips on the ropeswings. No pictures from tubing as me+water+camera=bad, but Klara brought a camera one day so there is one vid that I put on facebook. Another day we (I've been hanging out with a couple from Sweden, we met on the "bus from hell") rented motorbikes and searched out the area finding some cool caves. Yeah, that's about it.

Hehehe, we found some AWESOME BeerLao shirts in an amazing color...I call it electric salmon. We rented bikes with baskets and bells and rode around feeling pretty special.

Exploring caves.

A mid-afternoon lagoon dip...




Luang Prabang

Cool city. I really like Laos, the people are much more friendly than Vietnam, and it's WAY more laid back. Today we (me, the Swedes, and Julian - from California) went for a walk around the city to see some sites. We found a trail that went down a hill, then crossed this sketchy bamboo bridge and swam in the river with the local kids...and a bunch of monks...strange. We searched farther on, I'm guessing no tourists get that far, we found a school and bought some pepsi in a bag with the kids at recess. It was awesome :) Oh yeah, it's coming up to the New Year here in Laos, which is celebrated in a water festival....basically it just means getting everyone wet. The New Year isn't for another week, but people were out in full force today, including a group of monks! Sssooo, we bought some really big waterguns and soaked the monks, that was also awesome :) Tomorrow we check out some cool waterfall, then head North somewhere.


Me coming out of an attempted front flip, swimming with monks and kids in the Mekong River in Luang Prabang.


A monk....possibly reflecting on monk things.


The Swedes, Julian, and me in Luang Prabang.

Sapa

I met some people on the Ha Long Bay trip (most I met on the boat, the two Swedes I met the next day) so we all decided to go to Sapa together. The train is pretty expensive there and back compared to the rest of Vietnam, so it's good I had some insentive to get to Sapa....it ended up being a memorable trip. First of all, it's cold in Sapa; my polar fleece jacket was constantly in use. We checked out different trekking tours and prices, ended up finding a cool looking two day tour with a homestay in a village, including our own private guide...and bargained a decent price. Sapa is breath-taking! The mountains are all cultivated into rice fields....it's crazy looking. The tradionally dressed mountain village women follow tours for many kilometres in hoping to sell a few trinkets, sometimes with babies attached to their backs. Sapa mountain villages sometimes don't even speak Vietnamese as they originally came from China....although they don't speak Chinese either....mountain language. Within the first hour of trekking I managed to lose my balance and step into a rice field thing, which is pretty deep with water...but even deeper with soft mud. I lost my balance even more and ended up putting both feet/legs in the mud water...then somehow smashed my knee on a rock trying to get out. I was soaked, completely muddy, and my knee was gushing blood....perfect start to the trip!! Hahaha, it was actually pretty funny, the village women were laughing at me.

I was a bit disappointed with the "homestay", the village was more developed than the rest of the little mountain tribes, and the family we stayed with didn't really want to be around us...we slept in a totally different area...fair enough. SO, we saw a bigger group at a "homestay" just down the road, so we crashed their party :)

The last day in Sapa I went hiking by myself (everyone else had left) to another village, it was a fun day. They built these rock stairs that go on for km's and km's, up and down the mountains. I imagine this is what the great wall of China is like....on a much larger scale of course. I'm back in Hanoi...and I'm bored....so I'm taking "the bus from hell" (this is what everyone refers to it as who has taken it) from Hanoi to Vientiane tomorrow; apparently it's like 24hrs. Then I need to catch another bus to Luang Probang...brutal. I won't be disappointed if I never take another bus again in my life.




Starting the hike with our guide....and the mountain village women taging along in hopes of making a sale.





Our group.


Ladies I bought a few trinkets from.


Stunning place.


I can't believe she made me pull her...with my injured knee and all.








Random pool table across from the place we ate lunch.


Rub-adub-dub. "hotsprings" (more like lukewarm) at the village we stayed at.


When we crashed our neighbours party, a shot of rice wine with the local guides.


No comment.


I'm a wee-bit nervous here.


Me and the Swedes eating Pho in the local market.


This has a long story to it, but these two chaps are eating a bowl of dog....I tried a piece (which was gross), but they ate the whole bowl!


My solo hike to Cat Cat village.

Ha Long Bay

I took an organized tour to Ha Long Bay, really it's the best way to do it. There is so much competition in regards to this tour, that the price is really low. For 3 days/2nights tour, includes everything (food, transportation everywhere, etc) I got it for $45. What I realized after is that everyone there paid different prices, and all through different companies....but it's the same tour...everyone gets on the same boat (but there are a crap load of boats....it's ridiculous!). Ha Long Bay is cool...but honestly not that impressive. The crazy islands are cool looking, and there are a billion of them. Everyone on the boat was complaining cuz it was kind of foggy...but I liked it, thought it added to the mystical affect :) Visited a huge cave, but it's kind of ridiculous inside, technicolor lights everywhere...but still impressive. Then we cruised throught some islands, and parked. That's it for that day, hahaha. It was ok cuz there were some pretty cool people on my boat, so we played cards and stuff, then slept on the boat...I liked that. In the morning we went kayaking, and I was lucky enough to go with a guy who wanted to explore the area (most people just paddled around the boat...I think that's what the tour wants, they only gave us an hour). Aitor (the guy I went with, he's from Spain) and I found a little cave to go through, then we found an island with a strange staircase and arch thing. We parked our kayak and ventured up the stairs....they went no where...just stopped. It was really weird, but super cool. Then we figured that we were lost....all the islands started looking the same, but we ended up getting back to the kayak dock...only a few minutes late :) Haha, then the dog on the dock bit Aitor right in the ass, truly funny for me because usually the dogs go after me. The dogs here are mental, and none are on leashes....I think they just go for foreigners.

I was dropped off on Cat Ba Island after that...only I was dropped off, the rest of the people were on a 2 day tour...seemed like the whole trip I just got added to other groups...but I didn't mind. Hiked a small mountain with a cool look-out spot (a rickety tower about 50ft up...I guarantee this thing is going to fall in the next few years), made some friends with that group.....then I got dropped off by myself again at a hotel.....so I rented motorbike and cruised around Cat Ba Island for a bit. After dinner a bunch of us went to a floating restaurant for a beer, then this rowdy group of Vietnamese kept bringing over shots of rice wine. After a while I told one guy I liked his shirt....he said he liked mine...so we traded right there and then!! Haha, so random but it was funny. I think I got the better deal, I'm pretty sure he traded away a real Burberry shirt (I know because I also bought a cheap fake one earlier)...those are like $60...sucker. I'm sure he just wanted to trade to make a good story...so did I :) That's it, I'm back in Hanoi. I'm off to Sapa with some cool people I met on the first night on the boat.

















Some random grave in Cat Ba Island....figured it was picture worthy.