TravelStream™ news feed for member emmaandemma on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/emmaandemma en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 31 May 2009 09:06:10 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1243774560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1243774560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1243774560/tpod.html Sun, 31 May 2009 09:06:10 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

London, England, United Kingdom

This is Emma Raywood, making the line join up to Heathrow airport.We spent and entire day, 24h awake though were only in the air for about 14hours, had a nice 4hour stop over in Doha.Flight was fine, food was good, seats were small, drinks were free.We are indeed home in Goole and Bev and have brought the weather with us.:) thanks for reading
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1243298820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1243298820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1243298820/tpod.html Mon, 25 May 2009 09:28:30 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Bangkok, Thailand

Hello!We're nearly there, so you might want to read this slowly, to stave off the withdrawl symptoms that are surely going to blight your life for the next 4 months at least. Here goes,We got to the train station suitably early, so as not to miss a Train in Thailand again. The station was suitably empty except for a few monks and people who like us were erring on the side of timely caution.When the train arrived they first hosed down the whole outside of the train, which froma distance did make it look shiney and clean, but not so much close up.When we bought the tickets the man ensured us it was seats but that you could lie flat on them (we thought much like the sleeper buses in Laos hopefully). Turned out they were just seats. They did recline somewhat, but nowhere near flat. Ah well, as promised we did get a meal included in our ticket price. It was some rice and egg and some dubious looking meat, that was VERY spicy. Emma White didn't test it before putting it all over her rice and broke out in a sweat from the chillies, especially on her nose, as is the way. We got some nice white blankets and were ready to go.The train moved off on time and everything! but about 50m out of the station it stopped. And reversed. There were loads of police on board, one of them wasn't in uniform and had an overly large badge around his neck, they checked random Thai peoples ID cards, but totally ignored us. Didn't even look at us let alone ask to see our passports or tickets. Eventually they got off or something and the train again moved outof the station, the whole thing took about 40mins so didn;t delay us too much.Journey definatley wasn't the most comfy, but also wasn't the worst. We were really tired from our Chang Mai adventure times so passed out asleep pretty much. We got into Bangkok at 9.30am, and got attacked by tuktuk taxi men at the train station. Ahh to be western and with massive bags, they just can;t stay awy from us!We ended up in a taxi which had no meter despite saying it did, ah well we negociated a decent price from him and got to Samsen Soi Hok and our very nice boutique hotel, Roof View Place. We have air con and a tv and a fridge for the first time since vietnam and it is awesome, also not 2hours away from central bangkok like the first time we came here. Oh yes we've got this hotel thing sussed now. 10mins walk from Khao San Road and the backpacker hubbub.We'd got to Bangkok on the Sunday so we could go to the Chatuchuck Weekend Market. It is perhaps the biggest market in the whole world. We got a nice air con bus to it and everything.At the market it's best to have a plan, but despite Emma W having a list we got waylaid. It's just so big and our map was so poor and it was so busy we just got lead around by the crowds. We tried our best to get all the things on the list and indeed did have some successes. But the sheer size of the market, and the heat and then the rain and then the heat again meant we lasted about 2hours there before running away!I (ER) have been trying to lose my cheapo 2pounds tesco flip flops for the entireity of the trip to give me an excuseto buy some nice ones, and on the way into the market some stupid woman stood on the back of my flip flops, which as they were very cheap and also by now very battered, crumbled under the pressure. It took me far too long to buy some new shoes so instead of walking around half barefoot EW bought some new shoes, much more easily and lent me her old ones. Logically. The bus back to Khao San seemed to take forever to come but when it did it was indeed air con (its the luck of the draw which turns up first) and in the traffic we were glad we'd not taxied.On Khao San we had some lunch, did a bit more shopping admired the sights. We bumped into 2 of the 3 mancs who were following us up vietnam for the whole time we were there, what are the chances! Emma White made me watch the whole of the formula one again, there were by far not enough crashes, but Monaco is a pretty cool place. Well done mr Button.We watched Hull City Vs Man Utd as well, thank goodness hull are staying up, despite losing. We met some Aussies and had a few beverages and then got taken bu a tuktuk to see nighttime Bangkok, the tuk tuk was terrifying but the show was funny.Today we stayed in the hotel whilst it was hot, had our last bit of sunworshipping on the roof and made our way to Khao San for the last souvenir buying. IT was quite a successful day.Now we need to pack and sleep before catching our flight at 9am... and then... I am afraid, dear readers, it is all over. Love Emmas
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1243071540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1243071540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1243071540/tpod.html Sat, 23 May 2009 06:53:36 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Chiang Mai, Thailand

Hey there,So when we had nicely settled in to our (boiling hot) room in Banana Guest house we had to decide on what to do with our time here. So after wandering around the town a while we booked our train out of here to Bangkok just in case everything filled up and then decided we wanted to do something called the Jungle Flight. I'd (EW) been talking about doing the Gibbons experience all trip but it is in North North Lao (a trip which includes lots of ziplines in the jungle and a night in a treehouse), however we didn't make it that far up and we'd heard it was quite expensive so never managed to do it. So we did this instead which is a similar thing, different company to the Gibbons though, they also do one of these here but this one was 1000 baht cheaper :) we were a bit dubious about why it was much cheaper but luckily there was nothing that we could see that was lacking, we even got more as we had a free dinner with Jungle Flight.Basically we got up the next morning bright and early and went to the jungle, about an hour or so out of Chang Mai. We were the only 2 only the trip at that time so there was us and two guides which was pretty good. The guides were hilarious which helped, really good english speakers and a lot of fun. They got us kitted out in the harnesses and helmets and we headed into the jungle to the first platform. We then proceeded to throw ourselves off alot of high platform things, go down zipwires individually and together, abseiling and going across bridges. We had such fun doing it, and as there was only 2 of us there was no waiting around for people which was awesome, we even caught up with the group in front of us at the end as there were more of them. We did the whole thing (22 platforms) in about 2 hours and then had to trek back to the office up a hill through the jungle for about half anhour, this was knackering (and if the insurance company had asked, we were not jungle trekking, we were walking and happened to be in a jungle, as we didn't pay the extra for the jungle trekking...).Back at the office we had a huuuuge lunch which was surprisingly really tasty and then went to some hot springs which was just an added extra on the tour, was sulpher-y so smelt of eggs, lovely... Back in Chang Mai we went back to our sauna room for a nap because it was far too hot and then headed back out to find the fun in Chang Mai. We bought a paper and went to sit in a bar for a while before tea and have a beer (the first day I've been able to even contemplate having alcohol without feeling a little bit ill so thought we'd celebrate). However the bar we found seemed top be full of aging western men. After our beer we wandered round for a while trying to find where all the younger type people are. We found none. It was very odd. Maybe we were in completely the wrong part of town (unlikely as it's round all the backpacker guesthouses) but all we found were bars, and then more bars with the same type of aging western men, some with Thai girls. Hmmm. We were very confused and hungry so just ate in one less dodgy looking place in the end. We reckon everyone was in bed. Either that or everyone was in one bar/restaurant place which we didn't find. Anyway we soon got bored of looking and as the place with the most people which we had found was an internet cafe we gave up and went back.We were just chilling and reading on the balcony/corridor outside our room when the old Japanese man next door came back to his room. We had met him the night before sat in the same place and had had a very interesting conversation as he speaks about as much English as we do Japanese. So he spoke to us in Japanese and we spoke to us in English. It was good. Sometimes we were possibly even on the same topic, maybe.Anyway that night he came back and spoke to us, we nodded and smiled and agreed with whatever he was saying and he went back out again. Not long after he returned, with a bag of stuff. Apparently what he'd said was would you like some beer and crisps. Well now he'd got them we couldn't exactly refuse... So we all shared some beer and  crisps and had more of the awesome multilingual conversations. We did discover he was 74 years old and call Tsukamoto and apparently owns a mansion (?!) near Mount Fuji. Pretty good skills we thought. He also told us we should go stay with him in his mansion (with a beer garden, beer garden was a phrase he knew, for some reason), if we were ever in Japan. Anyway I've googled him and it didn't come up with him + mansion so no idea if it's true or if he's a bit odd.... Anyway it was funny and we had a good time anyway, despite instead of spending the evening with some similar backpacker types and having the same conversation as always (where've you been, where are you from, how long you away for etc.) we spent it with a Japanese guy 3 times our age who spoke no English. Ah well we got free beer :) The next day (or this morning even)  we packed out entire lives up again for the second to last time and checked  out. We then had an entire day to kill before the night train to Bangkok. We started out by heading to a Wat, Wat number 1 as it turned out to be, Wat Phra Singh. This took all of 10 minutes and it was still only midday so we decided to go daring, hire a moped again and head to wat quite far outdof town and up a hill. After battling the traffic, the 3 lane roads, millions of massive cars (we hadn't quite expected that, after only having driven on a deserted island and Vientiene, almost deserted), we stopped shaking, the adrenaline dissipated a bit and we were out of the centre of town. We then the started the really very pretty drive up the hill to the wat, it was a very nice one too. Shiny but not quite as impressive as the Chang Rai one, but then, no wat is going to compare after that. Anyway is was very nice as the views over Chang Mai were good to see.Lastly we decided to hit one more wat, a jungle one so very different again, with tunnels and stuff. There were lots of poignant phrases on boards nailed to trees and it was generally a lot quieter after the last one! So after our overload on wats we battled the traffic back into the centre, made it back alive thankfully and gave back the moped. And now we are just waiting around for time to go to the train station, out train goes in 4 hours so we will wander and get some food and then head train ways we reckon. Then it's to Bangkok and the last couple of days!Until next (and probably the last) time,Emmas xx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242810900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242810900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242810900/tpod.html Fri, 22 May 2009 06:00:14 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Chiang Rai, Thailand

So in Huay Xai we tried to lie in until a reasonable time, but there was some building work next door. Awesome. Luckily EW is feeling more human, though perhaps she'll never be fully healed after the boat ride... To cross the border you have to get stamped out of Loas take a ferry across the river and then get stamped into Thailand, so this si what we did. It was indeed very easy, but everyone going our way was local and everyone going the other direction was westerners, I think we may have done it all the wrong way round... Or perhaps the people going into Laos don't realise the rainy season is definitley starting... ho hum.We took a tuk tuk to the bus station (it wasn't a station, it was a market where buses park) and quite enjoyed using a currency where you can think in enough significant figures, go Baht!! Also, long live the king. We arrived at the bus at 9.51 and it was leaving at 10am, perfect. There was even time to nip into the 7/11 (oh how we've missed them) and get a cheese and ham toastie. Excellent. The bus ride to Chiang Rai was only 2 hours, which after 10h/day for the last 2 days on boats was a doddle, even if the bus was rubbishy. The bus station here is even in the centre of town, so we only had to walk about 10mins to get to somewhere to stay, though my map reading skills tried to make this as long as possible. After getting comfy and changing our dubiously sweaty clothes we made our way back to the bus station to go see Wat Rong Khun. Popped on another rubbishy local bus and went the 13km out of town to the Wat.This Wat is the reason we've stopped off at Chiang Rai and we weren't dissapointed. Imagine the shiniest thing you have ever seen, can ever imagine and this is how I would describe Wat Rong Khun. It's not finished yet, theres still murals to be painted and buildings to be built, but the bit they've finished is awesome. It's entirely white and covered in mirror tile mosaic., so bright you can barely look at it in the sun. There were bizzaree sculptures of hands coming up from the ground, presumably from hell and a mural with rockets/superman/neo from teh matrix/the twin towers/ converse shoes. Everything you'd not expect to see. It was genius. See picsWe had tea at a pizza place, and had an awesome bbq chicken pizza, EW indeed managed a meal, it was a proud moment.The next morning we got some breakfast, but EW ahd left her hat ina  cafe that didnt open til 10 so we loitered around a bit. The hat was retrieved and we went to buy a bus ticket to Chiang Mai.The woman at the booth was a poor salesperson. She sold us a ticket for the 1330 bus, 3hours away, and when we got to the bus station there were infact 4 buses before then. Unfortunatley we had to change the ticket 3 hours before the time on it so as to get a refund. So we waited in the bus station as long as the bus journey was.By the time the bus came we were both quite bored and annoyed at the woman who had sold us the ticket. But the journey was fine, air con etc. At one point the police stopped us and got on, looked important and got off. When we got to Chiang Mai we found the guesthouse we wanted to go to was full, but walked down the road following a man with a plan to the Banana GH which is fine enough, shall leave our Chiang Mai adventures for next time, oh and there have been adventures!Lots of LoveEmmas
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242680940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242680940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242680940/tpod.html Wed, 20 May 2009 06:15:41 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

Hello, So, Luang Prabang. we arrived there and decided to do the trick of me (EW by the way) sitting in a cafe and Raywood wandering off to find somewhere to stay. Whilst doing this she came across Ambrine and Ruth who we were with in Vang Vieng, Halong Bay and other points in Vietnam and Cambodia. So we went to stay where they were staying, for ease. We didn't do a lot after this as it was already getting late and the very strictly timed 6pm thunderstorm was about to come along. These are very impressive, it turns the road into a proper river within 5 minutes. the next day we all went to have breakfast/lunch and then went to the waterfall along with a couple of other English girls, Aliena and Holly who we found at breakfast. It was quite a way, an hour in a tuk tuk each way, not bad for 2 pounds each! When we got there there was a bear sanctuary (for some reason) and then the waterfall. This was pretty spectacular, the water was an amazing shade of blue, and, freezing cold as we soon found out when we went in. Was a bit of a shock after the temperature of the seas we have been in. There were many levels to it and when we'd climbed to the top someone told us you could go even further. So we did. This meant we actually did some scrambling up a muddy cliff thing for ages. It was knackering and took for ever but was worth it as it was amaaaazing in the top pool. We frolicked for a while and jumped off rocks (well, I did, Raywood is a pansy) and went under waterfalls until we got too cold to keep going. So we wandered back down a different way, which turned out to be much easier than our way up. Damn. We got back to our guesthouse, had a shower and went for some street food, to y'know, do "the local" thing, as we do every now and again. We had a very nice vegetable buffet thing and finished it off with a slab of chicken each off the bbq (as it turned out BIG MISTAKE). Later we went to a bar to have a few drinkies and chatted to a load of other traveller types. Then as 11pm hit the bar closed, as is the fashion in Laos with the strict 11pm curfew. Although here there is a bit of a difference as there is one place that stays open much later. Nope not a club, but, a bowling alley..... So we put on out Happy Days 50s era America style hats and all went bowling. The place was rammed with westerners. There was only 8 lanes but luckily me and Em managed to get on one with a load of people we'd been chatting to. I did quite well, after a late comeback I came joint second and Em finished spectacularly last. Haha :) The next day we decided to climb a hill. and make it last all day as we didn't have much else to do. We'd lost the other girls as they'd gone off to do elephant trekking. We went in the heat of the day (always a good idea) and it took forever to climb not a particularly big hill. However I wasn't feeling too great, and it wasn't even from the drinking the previous night, there were some suspicious stomach cramps occurring. Never a good sign. Anyway the hill was very nice from the top, there was a good view and we lit some incense for the buddha. When we got back down we wandered around for the afternoon and went to do some shopping at the really very nice night market, we also booked a slow boat for the next day. This boat would take 2 days and all the way to the Thai border. And sounded very nice.That night I got ill, damn chicken.... well you can imagine, and the next day we set out for the boat. I had had no sleep and dosed up to the eyballs with Immodium and paracetamol and generally not feeling on top of the world. The boat was pretty horrific, it took 9 hours to get to the half way town and the wooden benches were tiny and really uncomfortable, I chose to nap on the floor instead. The scenery was very pretty but I wasn't paying much attention, I was paying more attention to the paracetamol, of which we didn't have very many so had to steal some off an random English girl, and at one point missed the overlap of doses so had to spend half an hour with agonising stomach cramps waiting for the next lot to kick in :( boo hoo. At Pak Beng, the halfway town we went into the first guesthouse we found, which turned out to be quite nice, albeit with no hot water. We didn't do much here as I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, had some food in the restaurant downstairs, well I had some dull chips, which turned out to a be another mistake as I threw them up not too long after, pfft damn chicken.... The next day we continued on the boat. For another 10 hours, not the most fun time we've ever had. The boat had to stop at one point because the timely evening storm blew up and there was a danger we were going to capsize!! Apart from that small incident it was pretty uneventful and arrived in the border town of Huay Xai that evening. Again, didn't do much (still ill) and stayed in a bit of a dive of a gueshouse, couldn't cross the border right then as it was too late. So this morning (feeling a little better) we got the boat across the river and into Thailand, the last country on the tour, but maybe save all that fun for next time. Love Emmas xxx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242427080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242427080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242427080/tpod.html Fri, 15 May 2009 09:38:46 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

Vang Vieng, ahhh only a few hours from Vientiane so we got a more local style of bus than the king of bus, which was fine.V V itsself is a backpacker mecca, there are many many guesthouses, on the bus we met a guy who'd been before and he showed us to a bungalow resort, where we got a very nice bungalow with an ensuite and a river view for pennies! pennies! Across a precarious bridge though.The thing to do in V V is tubing, this involes sitting in a tyre tube and floating down the river, quite thoughtfully there are bars all teh way down the bank, so infact it's a floating pubcrawl somewhat. We arrived perhaps too late to tube that day though so resolved to tube the next!Another thing big in V V is friends bars. These are cafes which show the entire serieses of friends back to back, all day everyday. We had a big fat burger for tea at one of these establishments and it was good. We decided we should go socialise and meet people on this fine evening so followed some music to a place called the rock bar, there were no people there as such, but there was 1 free beer each and hammocks. excellent. Hilariously there was a drink menu (wiskey, beer, vodka etc) and a drugs menu (weed, mushrooms, opium (!!) etc), drugs aren't as illegal in good ol communist Laos.Eventually we bored of the fact the bar was empty and after emma talked to some people passing it turned out Smile bar was the place to be. We found smile and we found pepole, inculing some who had been here for months, tubing every single day. It was a pink party night, but we had no idea and wore no pink, emma manged to pilfer a tshirt from somewhere to get a reduced price bucket, excellent. We partied until the curfew and then perhaps some more. We met Ambriene and Ruth and some of the guys from Halong Bay weeks ago, it was excellent.Perhaps too much partying, we had a lie in the next day and stumbled into a friends bar for brunch later on in the afternoon. We didn't get to tube that day either, but it was raining so prob for the best. Later on we went to the internet and discovered EW was having some unforeseen issues with phone bills and money. The best course of action is always to ignore these problems and have spaghetti bolognaise, so I (ER) did just this, and the spaghetti bolognaise was very very good. We didn't make the same msitake as last night and went to bed early and sober so as to facilitate tubing the next day. The next day, we did indeed tube. There aren't any photos of this as we didn't want to take anything we liked that was electronic to the river. We wore bikinis and sarongs, put our money in plastic bags and off we set. To breakfast! We ate and then went and hired our tubety tube. Being stingy we hired one tube between two, it is the dry season after all, one person was required to push the ohter off the rocks... Tubing was brilliant. We danced and swam and EW went on a rope swing TWICE (i'm far too much of a pansy for such things) And we tubed until it was dark and then decided to seek other transport to get bck to the town, so loaded the tube on to a tuk tuk. Somewhere along the river my Sarong gave into the currents and went underwater never to be seen again, this meant despite my best efforts i had to walk through town  in just my bikini, like all the signs tell you is bad. oh dear, how embarrasing. That and we were covered in permanent marker saying our names, oh dear. After a wash, with a frog that had appeared in our ensuite. Infact our hut was a zoo almost, there was a tarty cat who kept coming round getting under our feet, rats living in the roof who fought all night long. That and the usual cockroaches and lizards. We went to the aussie bar and had the best fish and chips (see we're down with the local food... ahem) , THE BEST fish and chips. We had some more beverages and dancing and went to sleep at quite a reasonable hour, exhausted from all the tubing. Next day we successfully didnt go to a cave like we'd intended and just chilled out, EW read about 56 books in 2 hours. and we booked a bus to Luang Prabang for the next morning.The journey to LP was fine, beautiful scenery and a very small minibus, with all our bags strapped to the top. Well we thoguht all our bags were strapped to the top, when we got here it turned out our designer tailor made clothes bag was on a different minibus. We had an anxious 45min waiting for the other bus, but thankfully our bag was on it.PhewMore about Luang Prabang next time!!Love Emmas
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242038640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242038640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1242038640/tpod.html Mon, 11 May 2009 08:08:02 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

Hey there, We ended up not staying the night in Pakse because the only buses we could get to Vientiene were night buses and we really didn't want to spend another full day there because it's not that interesting. This was a pain because we'd already checked into a guesthouse for the night. Luckily Sophie and Laura (the girls we were with on Don Det) turned up then after being on the internet and decided they were going to stay in Pakse for a night. So they just took our room and we booked a bus for that night. We then spent to day bumming around, I tried to find a solution to my ipod suddenly stopping wanting to turn on (which I still haven't found, despite re-setting it thousands of times dammit).That evening we turned up to the bus station to get our. which turned out to be a party bus. it was called the King of Bus (genius) and was a double decker sleeper affair and painted on the outside like a circus lorry mural! Minus the boobs of course and had LED flashing lights all over it. The inside was luxury too! Almost like a boudoir, AND we got free food, rice and meat with water and sweeties for afters! Can't believe the shiniest bus we got was in Laos!So on our awesome bus we arrived into Vientiene at 7am, after getting a tuk tuk into town we checked into a very nice (if expensive compared to Don Det) guesthouse and went for some breakfast. We found that Vientiene wasn't half as horrible as people we have met said it was. In fact we quite liked it. Not much to do, admittedly but we had a good time. We started by hiring a moped again (in a capital city! Danger!) But it was fine, it's not like the death road of Vietnam or Cambodia, its a bit more chilled. Anyway we then went on an adventure to find the Buddha Park (unfortunately, not a theme park, but a park full of buddhas). It was pretty cool and we only got lost a couple of times. Which was impressive considering it was 30km away. After we'd been there, we managed to get back in one piece (I, EW, am getting pretty good at the moped driving thing now, didn't crash into one palm tree this time) we went to see the Stupa, which was very gold and shiny and we only got lost once on the way there. It's apparently the most important monument in Laos, we chatted to some small monks who were learning Japanese. After this we went to the Laos equivalent of the Arc de Triumph (actually called Patuxi, or something) and the Champs Elysee, which they built with Chinese money which was supposed to go towards an airport. Oh well it looks pretty good. By this point we were ridiculously hot and somewhat sunburnt so went back to chill for a couple of hours. Anyway that was all the sightseeing for Vientiene done really. Later we watched the Grand Prix (with Thai commentary) in the hostel common room with a couple of people, which was good as I've not managed to catch one yet. Until half way through when an ALMIGHTY thunderstorm broke out and the reception disappeared. So we watched the storm instead.The next morning we got a bus up to Vang Vieng which is very nice but will go on about in the next blog as we only just got here. That and this has taken me ages to write as Ben kept distracting me ;) (there you go)Until next time guys xxxx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1241897580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1241897580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1241897580/tpod.html Sat, 09 May 2009 03:32:16 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Dondet, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

HelloSo we left Hue bright and early, having the free breakfast we'd managed to negotiate into our room price (baguette jam and butter). We'd managed to meet some girls going the same way, Sophie and Laura who were at Leeds at the same time as us, so of we went in a minivan to the bus station.Despite the woman telling us we were getting a private bus and not the government bus, definitely not, we ended up sat on the government bus. The luggage hold was rammed to capacity even though there were about 5 people on the bus, so our bags ended up on the back seats. The bus never got that full of people, just massive amounts of luggage everywhere, under the seats/on the seats/around the seats..etc. Bus was fine as buses go, there was air con and an enormous, ENORMOUS tv, showing something we couldn't understand but the vietnamese/laos people seemed to like.We got to the Lao Bao border at about 12.30, and it was very nice and straight forward, definitely one of our better borders, we didn't even have to get our bags off of the bus. Due to the visa price being in Kip and being unable to get hold of kip out of Laos we had to pay in dollars, which as you may or may not know don't buy as much as they used to, so the visa was $40 not $35 as we'd expected. We got talking to a swede called Anna, so our 4 became a 5.After the border we stopped for some noodle soup lunch, which we paid for in a combo of kip and dollars just to confuse everything!We got to Savannaket at about 6pm and set off to the town centre in a tuktuk, we told him to take us to an ATM, where we got our first feel for Kips. We then had to walk for AAAGGGEEES (ok like 800m) to a hotel, we were all absolutley exhausted from the epic journeying of the last few days and we werent even at our destination yet, this was just a stop over.We rested amd washed etc then went to find some tea, we walked for ages down the Mekong (you can see Thailand) but didnt fancy the meat on sticks, ended up somewhere that did the usual, curry/rice/noodle soup type things and ordered. Had our first BeerLao, the national drink.We went to bed really early as the next morning had to catch another bus at 7.30am, thought we didnt have to go to the bus station, we just walked to the main road and flagged it down. We had baguettes with dubious but tasty meat for breakfast and then settled in for the bus ride to Pakse. The bus ride was not air conditioned, it kept stopping so women with bits of birds of sticks could sell their wares to us (see pics), the beetle kebabs im afraid we didnt try. Anna was sleeping and the pervy laos man next to her decided to cop a feel, she managed to get a good whack in before he ran of. What a perv. The laos woman behind looked suitably unimpressed too.We got to Pakse at 12ish and then had to take a tuktuk from the northern to the southern bus terminal, some 10km. When we got then we had an hour to wait for the Sangalangathaw (not its real spelling, lets say local bus) to take us to Don Det. In this time we had some noodle soup which came with massive amounts of folliage and some steak and was really cheap. About 10minutes before the bus was leaving the i guess conductor, but that sounds too formal a title, the man who stood on the back came to look for us, nice of him.Again the local bus stopped a lot to let women sell us things on sticks. A Laos lady gave us some of these orange fruits, like apricots but not, which were nice.We passed some westerners on an even more local form of transport, and our driver decided he wanted to pick them up, the spanish as i think they were bartered for about half an hour, annoying everyone in the bus, they seemed oblivious to this. One of them kept singing and clapping which was... nice... not annoying at all. (I should prob point out I (Raywood here) was feeling pretty grumpy, at some point me and EW have got throat infections or something and at various points had felt terrible. This was one of those points, combined with the excessive amounts of bus travel, I was grumpy and didnt care that the Spaniard wanted to pay 25p less).Eventually they got on, we set off, ended up going down quite a few dirt tracks etc. Got to the port for the boat to DonDet at about 6? something like that, it hadnt been sunset yet. The Spaniards were unable to barter the boat price down so we all ended up in one boat, which was definitley not that sturdy... oh my.Don Det, the boat ride there, was indeed stunning. Si Phan Don, 4000 Islands is where they named the sauce after you know. Its a beautiful place, see pics. EW and Anna went in search of acomm, we ended up in some bungalows where we all shared a porch, very nice, but the toilet and shower were across the road, behind the restaurant, not as nice. Also there was no light in our room, a window yes, electricity no. Infact the whole place is off the grid. We had electricty between 6pm and 10pm, though as our room had no fan this didnt really matter. Despite this lack of electricity there were still loads of satelite dishes and TVs, I guess you do need your priorities right....We had some tea and then passed out asleep, Anna mentioned a bike ride to a waterfall the next morning but this all sounded a little too energetic...We stayed on Don Det for 4nights and during this time we did the same everyday, I shall summarise our activities here.7-9amish, wake up covered in sweat. Have shower, sit in hammock for a nap. Have a baguette with cheese/jam for breakfast. Either head to the beach for some swimming in the river and admiration of the water buffalo or stay on porch in hammock reading, perhaps going down to river to cool down.1ish Eat some lunch, probably a sandwich.Sleep some more,6pmish watch the sunset from the beach or just a hammock.Wait for the electricity to come on, go find some food (probably coconut curry, whatever you try and order it will always be the same thing).10pmish, no more electricity, go to the reggae bar (with a generator so electricty until 11pm!) and then the beach and watch the bonfire until the small hours, pehaps drinking Lao Lao Whisky.It was indeed a very nice relaxing time, considering wed spent 3 days and nights trying to get there.From our bungalows you could get down to the river and bathe really easily, though the tide was the wrong way from the beach and very strong, so try as we might we just couldnt swim upstream.Was really a very beautiful  place, nicer for the lack of electricity even.On the 4th day we realised that we dont have all that much time left so decided we should leave, we booked another local bus (see pics) to get to Pakse, staying for a night before heading to Vientiane and the north.So here we are now, in Pakse, where it is really very hot still, but we now have 24h access to fans :)Lots of love,Emmas
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1241387580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1241387580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1241387580/tpod.html Sun, 03 May 2009 07:00:38 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Hue, Vietnam

So we are indeed in Hué, after getting the night bus from Hanoi, the bus stopped at one point for a tyre change. Very odd. By the time we got here it was raining and about 8am. We ran around like madmen, with two other girls who are headed Laos-wards, (one of them was in our year at Leeds doing pharmacology, small world) and ended up at the first place we started, due to buses elsewhere only being on odd days... We wandered around Hué, by now it was roasting and not the least bit raining, decided we didn't care enough about the citadel to pay the entrance fee and soon we shall eat tea! Tommorrow at 7.30am we shall go to Laos where the electricity is intermittent and the internet dubious, so don't worry too much if you don't hear from us for a while Love Emmas
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1241288220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1241288220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmaandemma/1/1241288220/tpod.html Sat, 02 May 2009 03:25:53 -0400 Emma and Emma go East 2009

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Sapa, Vietnam

Hey there, EW speaking. Okay where do we begin......Remember Yangshou in China? There were rice terraces and pretty views that we didn't see because of the clouds/rain... Well I know we never got round to putting pictures up but worry not, the photos for this entry are pretty much exactly the same. We thought "Oh yeah its summer now in North Vietnam of course it'll be sunny! AND the book says that between March and May are the best months to visit Sapa, weather wise." Well we'd forgotten that where ever we go, if it can be crap weather, it will be. Fantastic!We got the train at about 9pm on Tuesday night and found the trains to be really nice! I'm not sure why but we were expecting the trains here to be worse than China. But in fact they were nicer than the Russian ones, mostly because they had a door, despite us going by hard sleeper. But there were 6 beds in the compartment (although 7 people as 2 Vietnamese girls about our age only had one ticket between them but bribed the ticket man to let them stay on the same bunk). When we arrived at the train station at Lao Cai at 5am we wandered over to the minibuses to go the final hour to the town. We finally got on one that was a decent price i.e 30,000 Dong as oppose to 300,000 Dong which the first guy quoted us! Rip off! When we got to the town we went and found the hotel where a couple of Irish girls who we met at Halong Bay were staying who we'd sort of arranged to meet up with. Unfortunately that hotel was full up so we wandered down the road and found another one with an ok room for $5 a night so it wasn't too bad. Although absolutely everything in Sapa is always damp (including bedding etc) due to it spending most of its time in the clouds. Its up at 1500m so its not too high but still, always really really moist. Although the hotel we ended up in could only give us one night as it was full for the second night due to a festival/national holiday starting the next day. So we wandered around the town trying to find somewhere where we could stay for the second night. Unfortunately we had already booked our train ticket back to Hanoi for the Friday night so we had no choice but to stay there two nights. But as it transpired there was absolutely NO hotels with rooms free for the second night, the Vietnamese on holiday had booked them all up months ago. So at this point we were beginning to despair a little bit and think that we would have to sleep in the street or something. In the end we decided to do the sensible thing and book a two day trek including one night at a homestay in the hills. Not something we had originally planned to do because of the cost, but we had no choice. The only rooms available in certain dubious places didn't even bear thinking about staying in, they were that bad. Anyway we thought it would be fine, it wasn't even raining at this point....After a breakfast and feeling somewhat stressed, and poor as we'd forked out for a tour for $22, which isn't actually that bad for 2 days including all meals, we hopped on a little moto man to go and see a pretty cool waterfall and a mountain pass that was meant to have spectacular views. I'm sure the view was pretty spectacular however we couldn't see much because of the cloud.... We chilled the rest of the day in a cafe, being continuously harassed by the woman saying "you buy from me!" and showing us all their wares, whether we wanted to see them or not. Later that night we met up with the Irish girls (all we seem to meet are Irish!) and went out to dinner, had wine for the first time in months as it was pretty cheap and generally had a good time.The next day we set off at 9:30am on our trek with our guide who was a feisty girl of 15 years old! She was awesome though and her English was brilliant! It didn't rain too much which was good, as we didn't come best prepared, shoe-wise. All we had were our Converse, which, as we found out, were not the best for doing a trek in mud. But as we'd posted out hiking boots home months ago we didn't have much choice. We didn't even have a waterproof jacket so we had to buy a crappy poncho in case of rain. Prepared? Us? Of course.... The rest of the people in our group consisted of a French Canadian couple who also had to do the trek with the homestay as they couldn't find anywhere to stay in the town. The first day wasn't too bad. A little slippy but not too bad. We walked right amongst all the rice terraces which was pretty cool. I only had issues once when crossing a river I slipped off a rock and my right foot went ankle in water, which wasn't much fun for the rest of the day. The food was pretty nice and we only walked for about 5 hours. We arrived at the homestay quite early and were joined buy a Dutch brother and sister team to finish off the Western contingent, there were also a group of 6 Vietnamese from Hanoi on another tour staying there. We sat around chatting and playing cards/reading until teatime, which was really good. There was so much food! then afterwards the 'mum' came out with a plastic bottle full of Rice Wine! She then started pouring us all shots, we had about 4 or 5, which were all preceded by a chant which was approximately "1,2,3 1,2,3 1,2,3 drink!" Or something. Anyway it was fun. Made us sleep well anyway.The next day we set off, it had been raining for about 4 hours by then as was easing off as we left. My right foot had pretty much dried which was nice so we were hopeful. Unfortunately due to all the rain the walk was treacherous, we were slipping left right and centre. The Canadians were doing fine, they had done plenty of treks on their holiday and were wearing proper shoes so they were probably getting really annoyed at us for being slow. Oh well. I slipped down a cliff at one point, getting mud all up my leg. After that I had 2 Vietnamese woman helping me, one either side, and without their help it would have been much much worse. Although despite even that, whilst crossing a river I slipped off another rock and my right foot went ankle deep again! So I squelched and slipped away for the rest of the day. To add to this it was pouring with rain but quite warm as well so I gave up on the poncho as it was cooler that way. No point getting wet from sweat as well! Em on the other hand, did well, no falls or wet feet or anything. By the end of this day we looked pretty good and muddy I have to say. We got a bus in the afternoon back to Sapa and got a little woman to do a swift clean and dry of our incredibly muddy shoes. They washed up pretty good, we thought they were gone for good. We then got a bus back to Lao Cai train station, on which everyone seemed to be throwing up. At least 2 girls did anyway, with a couple more people looking really ill. They threw the plastic bags of vomit out the window and Emma is pretty sure at least one hit a man on a motorbike on the way out, lovely...After a few hours wait in the train station we were on a soft sleeper back to Hanoi (not as flashy as it sounds, the only difference between that and the hard sleeper is that there is 4 beds instead of 6). We got back to the original Hanio hostel about 8am where we had a sneaky shower and repacked our bags. We then wandered around the lake and ate at Fanny ice cream (lol) as it's a nice day, for a change. Tonight we get a bus down to Hue (its all go) and then hopefully soon into Laos and a whole new country wooo!Love the Emmas
]]>