Vietnam Photos

I wrote a lengthy post about my trip to Halong Bay a few bus rides ago but after the computer died and I lost everything, I decided I’d get around to it a couple days later. It’s been a while now and much has happened since, so I’ll try describing my time in Halong Bay briefly now.

Situated 4 hours or so north of Hanoi, Halong Bay is likely to become one of the world’s ‘new’ seven wonders. It really is amazing, whilst at the same time confusing, but regardless, it acts as host to countless tour groups, from small families to older couples, from Vietnamese tourists to 18-30 year-old backpackers. I opted for the more ‘youth-orientated’ cruise- a 3-day, 2-night boat trip put on by Hanoi Backpacker’s Hostel, or in other words, a booze cruise. However you actually do participate in quite a few activities and of course get a chance to see the real beauty of Halong Bay.

We left early for the cruise and started the trip up north. After the 26-hour Vientiane to Hanoi bus, 4 hours was actually quite enjoy enjoyable and went past quickly. Due to so many people signing up for the cruise on that specific day, we were put onto a 2nd smaller boat that at night joined up with a 3rd smaller boat. We boarded the boat just in time for lunch as we made our way into the heart of Halong Bay. Afterwards we joined up with the other boat, jumped over to theirs and began drinking and diving off into the bay, which was actually a pretty massive jump even though it doesn’t look like it. Kayaking was next on the agenda, with a small trip taking us to a famous cave. Beer, darkness and cave exploring never goes well together.

I’ll skip to later that night when we again left our boat to be on the other one, where it was basically a night of drinking games and socializing with everyone else on the boat. We separated into 2 tables to play one game, and somehow the other table ended up pretty much naked. I’m not sure if I was better off as I had to swap clothes with a Swedish girl, resulting in me wearing a slim black dress for the evening. It turned out that my legs looked unbearably sexy in it so I wasn’t complaining. As the night winded up we went to bed with a 7am wake-up the next day in time for a 7.30 boat check-out.

We spent the better half of the morning taking several boats to the ‘Castaway Island’, a small piece of beach claimed by the hostel, featuring luxurious open bamboo huts where you’re given a thin mattress to sleep on, next to another 5-10 people, and even a mosquito net! I felt like a King. The island had plenty of activities organized for us to do, such as wake-boarding, rock-climbing, kayaking, tubing and volleyball, but, regardless of the fact that I’m travelling and in South East Asia, I spent most of the day relaxing with the other lazy people.

I did however get convinced by a Dutch guy I’d met a few days before to come kayaking as he had a bag of beers and just seemed so happy that I couldn’t say no. We finally made our way across the water to another island but soon realized that it didn’t actually have a beach of sand, but rather a beach of slippery rocks that we figured we’d be able to walk through. We were wrong. As the waves got stronger, we tried to pull the kayak out from the rocks but kept getting pushed back and falling into the rocks. It ended with a few bruises and several cuts but at least I can say I did some form of physical activity.

Later that night we continued with the drinking games after a big dinner, again going to bed early due to an early wake-up the next day. By 5pm the next day we were all back in Hanoi, tired but as it was my last night in the city I felt the need to go out still.

A few friends I’d met all the way back in Chiang Mai and had seen since then in Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng came to the hostel and surprised me. They’d brought along with them a really cool Israeli guy who didn’t make me feel bad for my awful Hebrew, and we spoke throughout the night, leaving me feeling pretty awesome that only we could understand the conservation. After 3 days having to listen to Swedish without a clue what was being said, it felt nice to be on the other side of the table. We ended up at a small random bar where they gave us our own room and Nagilla, and I eventually convinced the Vietnamese waiters to start dancing with us, which is always a game changer.

There isn’t much else to say about Hanoi. Backpackers tend to hate it. The people there tend to be colder, the food and alcohol is more expensive and there is a limited amount of stuff to actually do there. There are numerous stories you here of people getting mugged, pickpocketed, ripped off, and in general just taken advantage of. When you come to a city with the intention of trying to learn about it, meet its people, see what it has to offer and really, give your money and improve their economy, you don’t expect to be taken for a ride, but in Hanoi we as travellers tend to feel as if we’re just seen as money-bags.

Anyway, I left Hanoi the next day to head south, but I’ll talk about that in the next post.

Tomorrow I head to Cambodia for the next week with a few Swedish guys I met a few days ago, before returning to Bangkok to catch my flight to Myanmar, and I’m really looking forward to getting away from the big cities and back to an atmosphere similar to that of Laos.

Vietnam Photos

I know I’ve been really bad with updating, but I’ve been on a 3-day cruise in Halong Bay and only arrived back yesterday, so it’s been hard to keep the posts current. Fortunately, the internet is extremely quick here in Vietnam (in comparison to Laos), so I can upload all of my photos finally.

After Vang Vieng, I kayaked down to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, with a couple of American girls I met the day before. It’s a 4-hour trip down 2 different rivers, but the irony of it all is that you take about 3-4 hours in bus-rides to/from the river, whilst the bus ride from Vang Vieng is 3.5 hours. Obviously I’m not a very athletic individual so you’d probably wonder how I made it down the river. Well, here’s the thing. I had the guide in my kayak, and we got along very nicely, regardless of the fact that the only English word he knew was ‘jump’. On the bus-ride to the river, my cigarettes must have fallen out of my pocket and out of the tuktuk, so he felt sorry for me and shared his Lao ones with me throughout the day. We stopped by the side of the river for a makeshift barbecue and I thought I’d show off and have a handful (more like pinch but still) of chilies, leading to me being in agony for half an hour, tears pouring down my face, me wiping the tears with the chili still in my hand, me being blind, me being sick, me being awesome. Photos from the day will have to wait as the American girls have them but for now here’s a picture of the guide I was with (on the left) and another Lao guy:

After getting to Vientiane we finally got to the bus station and got on board the 24-hour sleeping bus to Hanoi, Vietnam. It turned out that there was a group of probably 15 foreigners on the bus and I’d met most of them a few days before in Vang Vieng, so we ended up having an okay time, suffering through it together. However, and I mean this in all honestly, I really didn’t mind it. After boarding the bus I got comfortable, talked about Justin Bieber with 3 Vietnamese guys in front of me, took a couple magic pills and went to sleep.

10 hours later and we’re at the Laos-Vietnam border, with Vietnamese trance music being pumped throughout the bus in a very successful attempt to wake us all up. It was border crossing time.

My tips- have food/drink, a jumper, cigarettes and be comfortable enough to walk for a couple kilometers, because after crossing the Laos border, that’s exactly what you have to do in order to get to Vietnam. Oh, thank you bus for only taking the Vietnamese passengers across.

After finally getting into Vietnam, we saw them opening the luggage-area of the bus. Confused why, we hurried over to find out. Before we got a chance to look there was an awful smell that pushed us back and away from the bus. We then saw 4 dirty little pigs running around our bags. Welcome to the VIP Sleeper Bus. They’d broken free from their cage (secured by a couple English girls’ backpacks) and had spent the past few hours shitting and pissing over every one’s bags. Fortunately they spared mine, but others were not so lucky.

For the next leg of the journey I was awake, which got a little boring but the frequent food/drink/pee/smoking breaks made it tolerable. At the first food stop I became friends with a couple of the girls working there who kept laughing at me. There was one who spoke enough English to translate for all of us. They were surprisingly fixated on my wristbands from tubing (they’re very colorful), and one of the girls asked for one (and then another- they never know when to stop). I got a free can of coke out of it though and I feel as if a couple of them were heartbroken as the bus drove away. I told them I’ll be back. I probably won’t but I feel bad about it. Finally at 7.30pm we arrived in Hanoi after a total trip time from Vang Vieng of 36 hours. Tired I found Hanoi Backpackers Hostel and got a bed.

At this point I was starving and alone so taking a recommendation from a guy in my room, I walked down the street and sat one of the many BBQ restaurants. You pretty much just choose beef or chicken, maybe get rice, choose your size, and then they bring over a small hotplate, some olive oil, raw marinated beef and some sauces. Then you have to cook it. Fortunately I was informed of this beforehand (as they don’t speak any English), but still, if I’m going to cook anything I want to do it in privacy, not on a packed street in Vietnam in between a Vietnamese couple and 2 Vietnamese girls. As the smoke from my mess flooded the neighboring tables, the 2 girls helped me cook it and I managed to finish my meal and run away back to the hostel.

The next day I went with a couple people from the hostel for a walk up to the nearby lake, checked out the local skate park, had some KFC and went out for the BBQ again with a big group this time (yes, Bryce made friends).

It was an early night though as the next morning I went to Halong Bay. More on that in the next post.

As usual I’ll let you know where I am as I write this: Hanoi, Vietnam.

*Just with photos, I really fucked up my waterproof/’durable’ camera and I can still see the photos from tubing on the camera but I can’t import them onto a computer, so I’ll have to post them at a later date. Hope this is still an enjoyable post.*

It’s been a while since my last post, but Vang Vieng can take it out of you. There just didn’t seem to much time to get on a computer and do an update, so I figured I’d leave it and do it all in Vietnam. Additionally, the internet there is pathetically slow and uploading photos is practically impossible.

Where to begin with Vang Vieng…

It’s a small town that is even smaller than it feels. It’s a town built on tourism, where the only activities seem to be tubing, drinking, watching Friends in TV Bars, drinking, relaxing and drinking. There are actually a couple of attractions besides the aforementioned such as the Blue Lagoon and the caves you can explore, but when you’re there for a short time, you tend to focus your attention on the party side of the town.

It’s a town that sees hundreds of fresh faces on a daily basis, run by extremely friendly and truly laid-back Lao people, along with numerous foreigners and expats that came for a few days but stayed for months, and at times even years. It’s like a school; where the students arrive on a consistent basis, some attending just for a few days and leaving, with others growing up to be teachers, leading the masses as they flock to a town with a reputation in South East Asia as great as Thailand’s Full Moon Party.

The days begin surprisingly early, with most waking up around 11 in order to eat and prepare in time to go tubing on the Nam Kon River before 1pm. Some go to the tubing station and pay the 55,000 KIP ($7 USD) to rent a tube for the day, with others heading straight to the river on a tuktuk for 10,000 KIP. I ended up never renting a tube along with many others, ‘borrowing’ other people’s instead to get across the river to the other bars. I did however float down the river with a couple American girls I met, sharing their two tubes the entire way. We made the huge mistake of leaving the bars and tubing down the river at around 6pm though, and as darkness, rain and thunder approached, we were abandoned in a shallow river filled with rocks and massive tree trunks. After a while we gave up and got out with the help of some Lao people, eventually taking a tuktuk back into town.

I’ll talk a little bit about the actual river. It begins with a collection of 5 or 6 bars closely positioned together, and then there are a few scattered throughout the next few kilometers until it’s nothing but slow currents and mountain scenery. Many never see this side of the river as it becomes a little hard as it gets too dark and honestly, you’re just too drunk.

As you walk into a bar you’re given a colorful wristband and a free shot of Tiger Whiskey. Why give every one a free shot of Tiger Whiskey? A bottle of it is cheaper than a bottle of Coke or Sprite. At the bars on the river and particularly at a bar in town I fell in love with called Sakura, drinking games are extremely common. In the day on the river we’d play Beer Pong with the magical Beer Lao, and at night the beer cups were replaced with buckets as we played many many games of Bucket Pong at Sakura, along with life-size Jenga and flip-cup.

I’m still trying to figure out what the Bucket Factory in China or wherever was thinking when they received an order for the 1000′s upon 1000′s of buckets that drown Vang Vieng. Like Thailand’s South Islands, they’re everywhere, and cheap too, at only 25,000 KIP for a Tiger Whiskey bucket and 50,000 KIP for a Smirnoff bucket. They’re also quite nice, depending on how drunk your bartender is.

When you have it in you to venture out after a day of drinking, most people end up at QBar (unlike the one in Melbourne in a couple years ago, this one is quite successful), and after that head more into a bar/club in the jungle for an even later night. However, this often results in one waking up post-appropriate-tubing-time and left with few things to do for the day. Fortunately, there are glorious TV Bars, where Friends and Family Guy play nonstop from morning to night. They literally line the streets, complete with plasmas, surround sound and comfortable custom couches with many pillows. There you can have lunch or even just buy a fruit shake and sit there for as long as you please. My record was 4 hours straight but I’m sure it’s nothing compared to some people.

What I loved most about Vang Vieng though, and Laos in general, were the people. The travelers, the foreigners who have practically migrated there, and especially the Lao people. I loved them all so much that I plan on going back to Vang Vieng for a week in early January after the NYE Full Moon Party, ideally promoting/helping my favourite Lao guy in the world, Keo (picture below of him, another amazing girl and me), get people drunk all day. Keo and I wore those Sakura vests on my last night, leading to numerous nods from the Lao guys on the street.

So after 5 or 6 days there I had to leave, as all flights to Vietnam were booked for the next week, leaving me with no other option but to take the infamous 24-hour bus from Vientiane to Hanoi. More on that in the next post.

I’m currently in Vang Vieng, the infamous town of tubing and TV bars in Laos, after leaving Luang Prabang late afternoon yesterday.

After the group I’d met on the slowboat left Luang Prabang, I was pretty bored and didn’t really know any one there. However the next day my boy Ping who originally got our group to stay at Sok Dee GH found another big group fresh of the slowboat and brought them to the guest house. After chatting with them for a bit I became their Mr. Laos as one of them referred to me as, basically taking them around to all the places I went to with the last group.

After dinner I took them to the bar Utopia, at which two significant events took place. Firstly as we were setting up our table town near the area overlooking the river, I fell down the non-River side into a ditch about 10 feet, and then down ANOTHER 10 feet. At first I was pretty angry but after realising I was unhurt and hadn’t lost anything, they helped me back up and we continued drinking.

Now the second part: Probably 45 minutes later I heard someone calling my name from the shadows. After determining that it wasn’t a tuktuk driver saying ‘psst psst smoke smoke’, I realised it was a group of Americans I’d met back in Chiang Mai right before I left! So we caught up and then all of us went bowling, again. After 2 100+ games we all called it a night.

The next day was pretty insignificant. I spent most it eating and watching the South East Asia games and a movie with the guys that work at the guest house.

Yesterday though was a great day. After months of planning I finally got to go along with Big Brother Mouse, the charity in Laos that goes out to rural schools and villages and gives every child their first book, after running activities, setting up a library and playing games with them. It was incredible to see them actually interact with the kids and the look on their faces as they each were given a book. I did get in trouble though for making the kids misbehave but I guess I’ve always been a bad influence, sending young children off on bad paths.

I should mention that the money for this book party came from a Canadian man and his 2 young children who raised the money in their school, whilst the party I sponsored will be out at a rural village in the near future.

- Photos from Big Brother Mouse Book Party -

Later that day I caught the bus to Vang Vieng. I’m tempted make a joke about how it was the worst rocky road [chocolate] I’ve ever had but that’ll just be corny and stupid so I won’t. What I will say is that the road is notoriously bad, with us bouncing and hitting the ceiling of the mini van on several occasions, multiple people crying and several accounts of vomiting. I however actually enjoyed it after taking a magical pill for my ‘headache’, that also happened to knock me to sleep.

At 11.15pm we arrived and a few of us got rooms, and then went across the road to a bar for a much needed drink. I ordered my first ‘bucket’, an actual bucket filled with ice, vodka/whisky/, a soft drink, some lemons and like 10 straws. The bar had a deal where after getting one you got a roll a die, with a 5 giving you a half price bucket and a 6 giving you a free one. Obviously I roll a 6 and we also got a few free tiger bombs (tiger whisky and concentrated energy drink), basically South East Asia’s Jagger bomb. The bartender asked me to roll again just for kicks and after roling a 6, a 5 and another 6, he asked us to leave.

We then went to QBar, where I found the guys from the slowboat and we proceeded to get more buckets. I really like this place. Tubing tomorrow and another update in a few days!

Laos Photos – plenty of new ones

So people call Luang Prabang one of the most romantic cities in the world. I can see why they’ve made that assumption.

Firstly, the city is still heavily influenced by its time under French Rule hundreds of years ago. There are countless crepe stands, numerous signs written in French and probably more tourists from France here than from anywhere else in the world. So at times I feel the city tries to be a little bit like Paris.

Secondly, candles. They’re every where. In your room, on the street, at your table in a restaurant, cafe, bar and even club.

Thirdly, the romantic music. It doesn’t matter where you are or what time in the day it is, you will hear Celine Dion or another song that came from someone’s broken heart. Laos loves Celine Dion. Whenever I sit down at a resturant I ask for ‘My heart will go on’ to be played and they more than happily oblige. However this can be a problem when I’m sitting by myself somewhere with a candle on the table, a tuktuk driver harrassing me to buy some ‘smoke’ (more on that later), and the Laoation staff laughing at me for being alone. But it’s okay I just keep the tears on the inside. My years of poker have hardened me into a marble statue through which feelings cannot enter or escape, so much so that even the little girls begging me to buy a bracelet or the old topless man asking me for money doesn’t phase me at all (I realise my sarcasm doesn’t come across so clearly sometimes so for the record I don’t view myself as a marble statue of no emotion ). Oh, just as I was writing this a girl who works at the guest house walked past me singing a love song to herself. It can’t all be a coincidence.

But really, I do like this city. It’s definitely feels smaller than it really is. You never really venture too far off the main street and the people are quite kind to you, even if you don’t buy something off them.

I’ll just talk about the tuktuk drivers really quickly. There are a lot here, often 3-4 on every corner. They come out of no where with a little brochure showing you pictures of waterfalls and caves offering to take you there, and if you’re not interested in sight-seeing, they offer you some ‘smoke’ as they call it – or as we call it, weed. Don’t worry, I’m not dumb enough to buy off them, but it is pretty funny. At first I noticed it at night when they’d go ‘psst, psst’ and you’re turn and see them hiding in a corner and they’d offer it to you. But today I was offered 3 times on my way to breakfast. It’s quite flattering that they view me as a potential customer but I feel they just need to improve their sales strategy. The little girls with bracelets are far better at it (selling bracelets, not weed). They come up to you, put a puppy-dog face on and beg you to buy one. Then they won’t leave you alone until you buy something. They can also be pretty funny, with a couple of them near me trying to sell to a woman as she walked by, and after she ignored them they told me that she had a baby in her tummy (she didn’t). Just blame it on bad parenting.

So I’ve already written 525+ words and I haven’t even told you anything about what I’ve been doing. So the group I mentioned in the last post, ‘The Buckateers’ as we call ourselves, took Luang Prabang by storm and all checked-in to a guest house called SokDee Guest House which besides for the 7am construction and coldish showers is actually pretty nice, and is only costing me 60,000 KIP ($7.50usd) a night, and I’ve got a double bed, desk, bathroom, etc.

On our first night we all went for dinner at a place called ‘The Pizza’ (mainly for the cheapish Beer Lao and because you could smoke inside), and then off to a bar called Utopia. The bar is like nothing I’ve seen before. It’s suprisingly huge, but feels very intimate (with all the candles ), and it sits right above the Nam Khan river. It even has a volley ball court! However, the bar closes early like most places in Luang Prabang, so at 11.30 we all head to the Discoteque – another unexpected place in Laos. It’s basically a huge warehouse, always full of people (mainly Laos people actually), and they play really corny house music for a couple hours. It was fun but I probably couldn’t go back sober. However like Utopia, Discoteque closes early at like 12.30 or 1. So it’s off to Laos Bowling! Yes, Luang Prabang has its very own bowling alley. Games are only 20,000 KIP ($2.50usd) each, and is definitely a lot of fun, as by this point every one’s pretty drunk and just wants to throw balls at inanimate objects. We ended up doing the same the next night, and even the night after that (but I went home early that time because I just can’t keep up with 28-year-olds.

The next day we went to the famous waterfalls, which was just incredible. The national park is full of them, small ones, big ones, gigantic ones, and you can swim in the pools surrounding them. It costs 20,000 KIP ($2.50usd) to see them, but it’s well worth it.

The best part about the day were probably the events before and after the waterfalls though.

On the way there, in 2 tuktuks (as there were so many of us), our tuktuk felt a huge bump and the driver quickly stopped. The other tuktuk driver, who was brother’s with ours, rushed out of his car and we soon realised that we’d run over a Cobra or Viper snake. It wasn’t very happy as it used its last breath to hiss at us and then try get away into the grass. The drivers were very determined to catch it though as you get a reward for killing them, so the brother’s were throwing rocks and anything they could find at the snake. Such family bonding… only in Laos.

Also went up to a famous temple overlooking the city. There are many many stairs. Besides for all the loud tourists it was the perfect place to watch the sunset from. In the photos on the website link above you’ll also see some photos of a temple next to the Luang Prabang museum, which I went to earlier today.

Later that day we all went to Hive Bar for a drink which was also really nice, mainly because of the giraffe Bear Lao towers we ordered, which were only 70,000 KIP each ($8.50usd).

One last thing I want to mention before I end this mammoth post. The post office. It’s hilarious. I had to go and post that wall hanging I bought in Chiang Mai, and besides for everything being in French, I was greeted by a young guy when I walked in, he weighed what I had, found an old box out back, sticky-taped it together, put the wall hanging in the box, closed the box up, had me write any where on the box where I was sending it, and write my name and email, and then I paid him $20 and he claims it’ll be in Melbourne by air in 2 weeks. Was just a very strange experience after sending so much stuff through Australia Post and it being so formal at home.

Also, yesterday everyone from the group left to go to Vang Vieng but I’m still here in Luang Prabang as I had to stay in order to attend a ‘book party’ with a charity called Big Brother Mouse that I donated some money to a couple months ago. It’s a really amazing charity that goes out to rural villages and sets up a library, gives every kid their first book, and teaches them how to read/runs programs. That’s going to take place on Friday morning and then I’ll get a bus to Vang Vieng to meet the group in the afternoon. Not much else happening besides for that. Pretty bored here but it’ll be worth it when I get to go along to the book party on Friday.

Hope everyone is well at home or wherever they are.

Now it’s time for some Beer Lao: