A twenty hour bus journey - allaos that

This is a tale of two lovers in Laos,
A duo who's journeys linked up in a town.
She boarded the bus,
And with quite a fuss,
Squeezed in there for all twenty hours.

The boy oh he flirted and chattered away,
And right round his finger the girl was, his prey.
The journey was long,
Her eye on his dong,
The question was when would they lay?

The first night the pair oh they did play it cool,
Not rushing a thing, their hearts were so full.
They'd planted the seed;
What was meant to be,
Was surely inevitable.

The last night they knew that their time it was short;
Their journeys would soon separate: must cavort!
One first and last kiss,
He placed on her lips,
Farewell to the love fate had brought.

A tubious trip to Laos

Every year thousands of Brits travel to the small riverside town of Vang Vieng in Laos. Situated, well, in the middle of nowhere, where the cows are the size of dogs and the roads much worse than a rally track, it is an unlikely destination for most tourists. 

Why then, you might be thinking, do so many of us flock to such an unassuming, unlikely destination? There is one main reason: tubing. In case you don't know, tubing is floating down a river in a hired rubber ring, stopping at bars along the way, and doing jumps/slides if you feel the need to.

As is the case with many holiday destinations popular with Brits, the town had been transformed to suit our needs. Restaurants, all of which played Friends on repeat, offered very little Laos cuisine and instead advertised burgers and chips, chicken sandwiches and the like. Many of the restaurants simply used pictures from Macdonalds, removing the 'M' from any packaging beforehand. It was cheap and a bit tacky, but exactly what we expected. On our first evening, we ate in one of these identical restaurants before meeting some girls we'd met on the coach for drinks. Pete, who had been sharing what was essentially one and a half seats with one of them for twelve hours, neither able to sleep as they were squashed together by luggage, had already spilled the beans on me and Charlotte, so it felt like we knew them fairly well already. 

Tubing has gathered a reputation for being rather dangerous over the last few years, and we were slightly tubious about the next day when we awoke. Nevertheless we were excited, and by mid afternoon we were sipping away on the first of many whiskey buckets in the first bar of the riverside strip. We made our way to the second and third bars, boarding a 'whiskey train' on the way (choobe choobe!) and becoming covered in writing. Pete, apparently, loved Mexico, while the girls supposedly loved vagina. In the third bar it poured with rain, and a mass football game broke out on an improvised sandy football pitch. I'd found a broom somewhere and was trying out a football/quidditch hybrid game. It didn't work and Pete's coach buddy broke the broom when she attempted to fly. 

The bars along the river aren't evenly spaced apart, as I thought they would be. There are bars all along, but they seem to open interchangeably and when we were there there was a big gap between the first four bars and the rest. We left the first bunch of bars quite a while after the sun had disappeared behind the mountains which aligned the river; we'd massively underestimated how long it would take to tube back to town. Floating along in the pitch black, we decided eventually that we were completely lost and clambered out the river at a random accessible bank. After a brief argument with a tuk-tuk driver (and chants of 'drive, drive, drive') we made our way back to town to get ready for the night ahead. 

The nightlife of Vang Vieng has seemingly been monopolised by one bar. It has a similarly imaginative name to 'The Club' in Bangkok and is called 'Bucket Bar' where, unsurprisingly, you can buy buckets. It has an outside dancing area surrounded by open-sided shacks where people sit on cushions. A bucket of whiskey, lemonade and red bull (which, rumour has it, contains speed over here) costs 30,000 kip (£2.50) which is pretty damn good. We drank the night away before some much needed sleep.

Damaged but not broken from the night before, in the morning we needed some food. Despite having been in SE Asia for a couple of weeks, the thought of curry for breakfast still didn't appeal to us. We had some chicken sandwiches (for about the fifth time since we arrived) and regained some energy before returning to the river. We were less tubious this time, weathered by our experience the day before. Today we had a different plan: spend a bit less time at the first few bars then do the marathon all the way back down the river before dark. We got a few buckets in us, and I bumped into a friend from home (which rather took me by surprise) then did the long journey. 

Perhaps now is a good time to point out that Vang Vieng isn't just renowned because of tubing. True, tubing is its main attraction, but the steep mountains which surround the town really are quite impressive and the view from the tube on the way down the river was unlike anything I'd seen before. The view from our hostel room (Popular View Guesthouse) was nearly equally as stunning. At £3 a night we did have to put up with two pet lizards in our room, sandy sheets and a pooey bathroom (not helped by me and my nigh on uncontrollable bowels - though Pete wasn't much better), but the view was worth it.

We ate in a restaurant right next to our hostel. Charlotte and I had an Indian style curry (our red curry request had been lost in translation), having politely refused the obviously high waiter's offer of a 'special menu' (meals laced with narcotics). Pete had chicken with rice twice, finishing a friend's unwanted meal. Our nighttime drinking spot was once again Bucket Bar, where it poured with rain all night. We spent the whole time sitting with our buckets instead of on the exposed dancefloor, though we couldn't help but get wet on unavoidable dashes to the bar or to the toilet. 

Normally not much else happens in a night after the bars and clubs are done with. The same can't really be said when Pete is around - in Bangkok Charlotte and I found him dancing in the rain with a bunch of people we'd never met (see first blog). Here, his blossoming romance with his seat buddy from the coach took a turn for the worse when she became frustrated with his deep sleep and decided that a Thai massage style, 4am alarm clock was necessary. I awoke abruptly when the light was turned on, to shouts of 'Pete! Wake up!' and the constant noise of slapping. Unperturbed, Pete continued his sleep. When she left the room I locked the door only to be awoken five minutes later by incessant banging (on the front door, not from Pete's bed, unfortunately for him). Charlotte let her in and at last we all slept peacefully. Finally we could get some kip.

We'd been fairly used to being busy on our travels, but the next day was not one of those days. Two days of tubing had taken their toll, and we did very little but sort out our plans for the next few days and have something to eat. We'd survived the tubing experience *queue big sigh of relief from mum*. Next we'd be getting a bus to Udon Thani in Thailand, before flying to Phuket to begin our tour of Thailand's southern islands.

Elephantastic

Thailand's second major city, Chiang Mai, was our next destination. When we woke up on Friday we had a two-hour bus journey from Kanchanaburi to Bangkok and a 15-hour sleeper train to Chiang Mai to look forward to.

Our bus didn't leave 'til late afternoon, so we strolled down to the Death Railway Bridge in Kanchanaburi while we waited. It was extremely hot and were it not for the air-conditioned oasis that is 7-11 - Thailand's equivalent of Costcutter which is seemingly everywhere we go - we might have been the first victims of the Death Railway Bridge for about 70 years. The Bridge isn't much to look at; an iron monstrosity joining two pieces of land divided by a river. However, it was built by Allied prisoners of war when Japan was using Thailand as a base for its empirical ambitions in WW2, and some 100,000 people died building it, so we thought we'd better go have a look. Unfortunately I forgot to apply sun cream for the walk there and ended up with some attractive but very uneven 'beater 'tan lines'.

We then chilled by the hotel pool for a while, Charlotte making us laugh when she told us that a penguin dive was a pencil dive with your hands sticking out at right angles. When we informed her that in reality it is a normal dive with no arms, she understood why we found them scary. 

The bus journey was our first real taste of Thai driving. The driver between Bangkok and Kanchanaburi had been relatively calm in comparison with our driver here, who drove like Evil Knieval on speed, weaving in and out of traffic with no regard for the lanes or other slower drivers (who were actually going a normal pace). Needless to say I didn't get any sleep on this leg of the journey.

We hoped that the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai would be a little smoother so that we could get some sleep. This was optimistic at best. Whether in the bussling city of Bangkok, the passport lounge of Suvarnabhumi Airport or in the front of speeding minibuses, Thai people seem to have a knack of being able to sleep at any possible opportunity. The same could not be said for us. Sleep was made near impossible by the screaming kids, snoring Thai's and bumpy track. Charlotte and Pete somehow managed to overcome these disturbances but I was awake with nothing but a little light, a book and a bag of Cheetos for company well into the early hours of the morning. 

The train, which was supposed to arrive in Chiang Mai at 12:45, pulled in at around four; Thai people also like to be late, but I won't go into that (for fear of some time in the notoriously savage Thai prison system). We found our hostel (MD House) which was like a basic hotel before satisfying our hunger with a great meal at Lert Ross - a tiny rustic cafe/restaurant serving traditional Northern Thai food. Then we went to the Rooftop Bar (pretty self-explanatory, though not as swanky as it sounds) for a few Changs and made some Dutch and American friends. We followed them in a couple of tuk-tuks to what we thought was a club, but discovered that we'd been taken instead to some kind of strip club. After our ordeal in Patpong we didn't really fancy it so we took another tuk-tuk back to the hostel, managing to avoid the 50 baht fare to the club - the driver was helpless to protect himself from Pete's sweet-talk. 

Travelling around Thailand is quite different from travelling around Europe, where there is so much to see and do that a free day is hard to come by. Furthermore, it felt like we'd been doing a lot of travelling and not much relaxing, so we hadn't planned anything in particular for the next day. We slept in before exploring the old city by foot, eating a basic Thai lunch and dropping into a few temples. It was great to explore and soak up the city - Chiang Mai has a chilled out, hippie vibe.

All that walking made us quite hot and tired, so our room's air conditioning was greatly appreciated for a couple of hours before dinner. We went to a smart Thai place called Hot Chilli for dinner, which was really nice. When we emerged, full and satisfied, the city streets had been transformed by the buzzing Sunday night market which takes over the streets every week. I was unable to resist some of the cheap things on offer, such as a 'silk' tie with elephants on it, some almost luminous candy floss and some slimy edamame beans (which were later thrown away). Pete, desperate to try some Thai pineapple ('my mum said it's really nice') accidentally ended up ordering a pineapple iced drink, which he also had to throw in the bin. We really enjoyed the night market, despite disposing of many of our purchases.

By ten AM the next day we were at an elephant camp in Maewang, an hour or so north of Chiang Mai. We climbed up some steps onto a platform, which the elephants came and stood next to in order for us to climb on. Fortunately, each elephant had seats for two people sitting next to each other. I think otherwise we would have fallen off. I went with Charlotte and our elephant, who was a bit cheeky, needed a trainer on at all times (though he seemed to spend most of the time on the phone - another questionable Thai driver). Once our elephant climbed up the side of a small valley to get some plants to eat, which was petrifying, and later he decided that our trek was actually a race which he wanted to win, which was perhaps even scarier. Pete went ahead with a guy we met, who was similarly tall, on the biggest and oldest elephant in the camp. We all absolutely loved it, scary as it was.

We walked for an hour through the paddy fields with our group to a waterfall nearby where we did some jumping and swimming. Pete and I nearly lost our boxers, which the current was keen to keep for itself, having forgotten our swimming gear. The cold water was very welcome; I was drenched in sweat by the time we got there. We ate a very basic Thai lunch, where we were outnumbered by about ten to one by wasps, before going bamboo rafting down the river. One of the group, who decided to commandeer Pete's raft, crashed it into a wall, which caused a collision. I was left with minor injuries - war wounds, nothing but a souvenir of the trip.

Having had nothing but Thai food for over a week, we found a recommended Indian restaurant in which to have dinner with some of the people we met on the elephant trek. The portions were far more normal compared with Thai ones, which did little to satisfy our hunger (though lined the stomach adequately for a night of Chang). We then went to an area which had the most activity (by Zoe's Bar if you're interested) for a few drinks before heading back to the room for some sleep.

The next day we would travel to Vang Vieng in Laos to go tubing, but that wasn't until the evening. The night before, after a few Changs (and some encouragement from our new buddies) we'd booked ourselves on a half-day Thai cooking course nearby. It didn't seem like such a good idea when we woke up at 8:45 but turned out to be really fun. Our instructor, who looked about ten, was the most difficult subject of the Him or Her game we've ever come across, but she(?) (Ouiyy or something) was very sweet. We learnt how to cook four different courses: soup, curry, noodles and appetisers. We all plan to show off our skills back in England, so we'll have to stuff our suitcases with ingredients like kaffir lime leaves and palm sugar to ensure it's up to scratch. Sorry if you don't get a present.

Whiskey, waterfalls and wildlife

Our next stop was a town to the north-west of Bangkok called Kanchanaburi. We arrived there after a couple of hours in a minibus ready for a more relaxed vibe after the busy intensity of Bangkok. Fortunately, our hostel had a swimming pool, which was our first port of call when we checked in. 

Having not eaten all day, we headed out for an early dinner. Choosing where to go for dinner in Thailand is quite difficult because there is so much choice, a particularly challenging problem for the indecisive Charlotte. Furthermore, most of the restaurants serve pretty much the same dishes, just with a varying quality. When we finally decided we ordered beers and I had a chicken panang, my favourite curry. Pete had a small plate of noodles but resisted double dinner, perturbed by the slightly higher prices in Kanchanaburi. Charlotte eventually chose a lovely fragrant noodle soup type dish.  

A Jamaican bar, confusingly named Buddha Bar, would do to continue the drinking. The enthusiastic  wannabe Bob Marley Thai owner was great and he served cheap beers. The price of a bar was by this stage judged by the price of a large Chang beer. If it had Singha that was even better. His was 65 baht (~£1.30) so that was perfect.

It wasn't, however, as cheap as the next bar. We spent the rest of the night at a bar - a shack - which was simply called 'Get Drunk For 10 Baht'. 10 baht = 20p, so you can see what attracted us here. We drank whiskey and coke 'til we could have no more and stumbled back to the hostel. 

The main reason we visited Kanchanaburi was not, as you might think, for the great food or the cheap drinks. It was that the town of Kanchanaburi lives not too far from Erawan National Park. Here, after a rickety ride in an old Thai bus, we climbed five tiers of waterfalls, swimming in each along the way. It was perfect but for one thing - little nibbley fish, the type people pay to have their feet eaten by (for some reason) in the UK. Maybe these were a little bigger. While some were cashing in on what they saw as a free spa treatment, we didn't share their enthusiasm and just kept moving so they wouldn't get us. Pete was the worst, screaming like a girl every time one came near him. I'd had a bad experience with a nibbling fish in the past (it bit my nipple) so I wasn't too much better. 

Since the waterfalls were in a national park, there was plenty of other wildlife around. Particularly memorable were the monkeys, especially the baby ones. Charlotte fell in love with them immediately but we wouldn't let her bring any of them back to our hostel with us.

We nearly missed the last bus back to Kanchanaburi. However, we made it home in the pouring rain (it was monsoon season in Thailand) after a ride in the back of a vehicle which surely was at one point used only for transporting small animals. We decided to avoid the apparently average hostel restaurant and brave the rain, going to a restaurant run by a charming but bossy Thai woman called Apple. We shared three Thai dishes, having been told off for trying to order two of the same dish. Charlotte was told off once more for mixing the curry and rice wrong (served separately in Thailand), of which I have a brilliant photo. Pete looks petrified. The food was very very nice, however, and well worth the stern lesson in the dining etiquette of Thailand.  The rest of the night was quite quiet, me and Charlotte sharing a shisha pipe and Pete twice thrashing us at pool. We were tired from our day at the 'falls and it was still raining so we made our way back to the hostel by midnight for some well-earned shut eye.

Ping Pong and Pad Thai

As any good holiday does, our trip began with an early start to catch our plane. This was made even earlier thanks to Charlotte's insistence that she shower and wash her hair first; the faffing began at an early stage. Despite having had airline difficulties before the trip, the journey was fairly smooth with a quick stop off in Dubai along the way. Pete decided it would be a good idea to invite anyone visiting the toilet to join the mile high club at seat 43D - my seat. Fortunately, nobody came, in either sense of the word. 

We arrived in Bangkok exhausted and hungry baht excited. Pete was still complaining about the sandwiches we received for breakfast on the plane - 'the most horrendous and minging sandwiches I've ever had in my whole life' - so we were anxious to get to the hostel and settle in. Flummoxed by how to get there, we got in a 'tuk tuk' and ambitiously decided that we'd fit in, buried in our luggage. For those of you who don't know, a tuk tuk (pronounced 'took took') is an open-sided, small motorised vehicle capable of surprising speed - a 'death ride' in Charlotte's words. 

Our hostel (NapPark if you're wondering) was very good and had everything we needed. Satisfied with our choice, we had what would be our first of many Pad Thais, this time from a street vendor. We made our way to the Grand Palace and the temple next to it for some culture which wasn't too taxing for our thaired selves. The temple was impressive but it was stiflingly hot, especially for me and Pete who had to borrow trackies to adhere to the Buddhist dress code. 

 Planning a fairly quiet first night, we had a lovely dinner near our hostel before making our way to a couple of bars. We found out that Bangkok and quiet aren't a match made in heaven; we ended up, several bars later and having picked up an American friend along the way (Chip), searching for Pete, who thought he was in Singapore. It was pouring with rain and we finally found him dancing in a puddle in the street with some people we'd never met. Our miniature 'hangover' style problem had been resolved. 

Day 2 of Bangkok began with a massive lie in. We'd done the main sight (palace/temple) the day before and the only other thing we really wanted to see was Chinatown and its famous street markets. We underestimated the walk somewhat, it taking about an hour and a half. When we arrived it wasn't really what we were expecting - everything was completely different to anything any of us had seen before. The smells, the unidentifiable food, everything was different. It was great to see though and was worth the walk.

We taxi'd back to the hostel and chilled again before heading to a restaurant which was renowned for its authentic Pad Thai, cooked on the street then brought to some basic tables inside (Thip Samai). It was delicious and Pete's 'double dinner' tradition started here. Thai portions aren't as big as English ones, and given the cheap prices (40 baht for a main - 80p) double dinner was definitely an option. 

Next on our menu was a visit to Patpong, known as Bangkok's Red Light District. We'd heard there was a cheap market there and we bought some replica shirts and boxers to make the most of it. But we had mainly gone for something else - Bangkok's notorious Ping Pong shows. We felt such an activity was near impossible sober, so headed to the only bar without dancing girls for a few beers first. We befriended the enthusiastic waitress Pooky (who has, by the way, already added me and Pete on Facebook, but suspiciously not Charlotte) before accepting a salesman's invitation to one of the dozens of ping pong shows in the area. 

We followed the man, who had promised us 100 baht beer and no other charges, up some dodgy stairs. What we saw next was so, so funny. A woman laid down on the stage, which was in the middle of the room in a circle of benches with tables. She was butt naked. She lubed up some table tennis balls and fired them from her who-ha in our direction. Pete was handed a table tennis bat and was told to hit the balls as they were fired at him. He hit one of about ten, a poor ratio if you ask me. I think he was a bit distracted. Nevertheless we were in stitches. The girl then put a horn in there and started...erm...blowing(?!) on it. It was hilarious. 

100 baht - £2 - for all this? No way. An aggressive, large woman (though Pete swears it was a man) came to our table and placed a laminated bill on our table. It read:

Drinks - 900
Ping pong show - 1,000 
Dancing girl - 2,000
Total - 3,900 baht. 

3,900 baht = £80. There was no way we were paying that. That's a yearly wage in Thailand. It would last us a week. It was extremely awkward but we ran from the club having thrown just 300 baht on the table - the price we thought we'd have to pay for the beers. It was a lucky escape.

We returned to Khao San, Bangkok's closest thing to the Malia/Zante strip, for a 'tower' of beer. A tower of beer is about nine pints and is basically a tall thin tube of beer with a tap at the bottom which you serve yourself from. We then headed to the unoriginally named 'The Club' for a quick dance (free entry) and returned to the hostel.