Trans Siberian and beyond with the Sandos

Monday, 15 October 2007

Location: Bristol, UK

Yes, somewhat surprisingly we are all the way back in the UK again. I think the last update I wrote was in Bangkok when we were about to jet off to the islands, so any avid readers may have wondered what the hell happened to us.

We had a call from my brother to let us know my dad was terminally ill which came as a massive shock after seeing him only in July seemingly fighting fit and his usual cheerful self. So we headed onto Perth earlier than planned, packed a suitcase full of winter clothes (all our stuff had been shipped over there) and headed back again to London.

This is a painfully short story rather than a long one but we ended up at my dad's funeral on Thursday. This must be the ultimate fear when you go travelling that something will happen to your loved ones while you're away but somehow you don't feel like it can really, it doesn't feel quite real, drifting along from place to place meeting new people and trying new food and staying in a different place every 2 days, you just expect to end up back where you started and nothing will have changed.

Anyway we're staying here in Bristol until December for a friend's wedding in London, might as well as can't afford these airfares, all this jetting about is eating into our house deposit! Then straight to Perth via Dubai to have another crack at the new life down under.

We'll be doing bar jobs to tide us over until we leave. I'll update from Perth when we finally arrive there, what a journey the last few months have been, I tell you what, I feel totally battered. Brett meanwhile has adjusted well back to British TV although the pounds are piling on now he is back on normal food rations!!

Back where we started and signing off for now...

Thursday, 20 September 2007

Location: Bangkok, Thailand

Hello from Thailand and just to reassure everyone we are not being identified by our dental records down in Phuket - very scary though as are due on a very similar flight in about 2 days time, with Air Asia and not One Two Go though. There but for the grace of God though... really makes you think.

We got on a small propellor plane from Luang Phabang to Bangkok, no more killer bus journeys or trains for us thank God. We had such a lovely time in Luang Phabang we didn't want to leave, especially not our lovely travelling companion Ally, we got so used to having her around I think we will actually have to move her into our house in Perth as a full time installment. The bagels in Jo Ma Bakery are out of this world if anyone is thinking of going there you must, it's the best place we've been yet. Our last day we went to an elephant park, one recommended by Lonely Planet as it's part of Fair Trek eco tourism so elephants aren't bashed over the head with nails etc. We got to ride on one and feed the baby elephant, so sweet! Then they took us on a trek (I know trekking again, we keep getting railroaded into it) to a local primary school with all the little kids rushed out with their exercise books to show us their drawings. I took a little video of them our on our camera to show them and they were screaming in excitement, they'd never seen anything like it!

Then after the elephants we went to the best waterfall yet, the water was clear blue and they had a roped off section for swimming in the middle of a suntrap in a tree clearing, it was fantastic! If anyone is wondering where to go on their next holiday, come to Luang Phabang, it's only an hour flight from Bangkok and it's so much fun and really cheap, we bought loads of stuff and posted it home as well.

So back to Bangkok... bit of a change from Laos. Everyone is out to rip you off for starters, even the ladies with clipboards at the airport trying to get you to take one of their taxis for 1000 baht!!! Luckily we bumped into a German guy who wanted to share a taxi and had been here 40 times already so knew you should go upstairs to where the other taxis wait who aren't on meters, agree 300 baht with them and off you go. He was a bit of an oddball though, told us his life story - after the 45 min cab ride I felt his ex wife and I were old friends.

The shopping here is brilliant, more bargaining, fortunately I am an old hand at this after 3 months of it, the clothes here are fantastic and so cheap. Pushy and rude stall owners though mostly, the people aren't as nice as in lovely Laos.

And then Patpong - I'm sure a few of you have seen it, so you know all about it, how depressing, went there last night and bored looking girls bouncing ping pongs around or just shuffling from side to side on a stage, hoping to get picked. It's not quite Las Vegas, the look on their faces they look so blank, as if they were slumped in front of Eastenders with a takeaway. And the sleazy Western men, 60 year old men or big fat sweaty blokes with a young Thai girl on each knee! Even Brett wanted to go home after about an hour! Yes, really!!

Anyway we bumped into that couple we met in Yangshuo and Hanoi, Josh and Ildi, completely by chance in the same hotel we're staying at. This seems to happen a lot to travellers going round South East Asia, it's a small world I guess! Lots of hippy travellers with beards here so for once Brett doesn't stand out a mile with his big grizzly he's grown again.

We had planned on going down to Ko Phi Phi and Ko Lanta but apparently it's monsoon rain down there so we might change our plans and go east to Ko Samui and Ko Tao instead. Not long to go now so we really are looking forward to some beach time. It's a full moon party down on Ko Phan Ngan in the next couple of days, but I'm thinking we're too old for that malarkey, met a few young travellers in their early 20's who'd been and were so excited about it - "yeah I met this girl called Dove and it was so weird, we really connected, it was amazing man, and everyone was just so into it". I think him and Dove shared more than a coconut shake together.

Anyway will upload photos later of elephants and try and take some more photos here and in the islands when we get there.

Must go and check weather forecast now!

Sunday, 16 September 2007

Location: Luang Phabang, Laos

The cockroaches and wooden huts of southern Laos are a long distant memory it seems as we hit the northern bit of Laos and really started to have fun. We left surely the quietest capital city in the world, Vientiane and travelled by bus 3 hours north to Vang Viang.

Vang Viang reminds me a bit of Yangshuo, it's a sweet little town nestled between big moss green coloured mountains, with umpteen guesthouses on offer, restaurants and bars and internet cafes. How they all make a living I don't know, probably about 50 new backpackers a day arrive but the same amount move on per day as well so there's nowhere near enough to fill all the guesthouses. We got a room in a place called Nanas which was utterly fab - a huge room with polished wood floors and furniture, big thick pillows, fluffy towels, a big marble bathtub and a copper sink. $15 a night - bit much as you can get a room for $6 but after the 2 nights in Vientiane with cockroaches in the first hotel and the room with no windows and aircon that spat dirty water on us all night - needed a bit of luxury!

We hired bikes and went on a ride out to some local caves which were supposed to be great. Unfortunately we never actually made it to the caves, the heavens opened and we got caught in a huge thunderstorm and had to find shelter in the middle of all this forest under some trees. If we were in a movie it would have been romantic - however with the amount of bugs that come out in the rain and mosquitos nipping at your ankles it's anything but romantic. We have seen some enormous geckos and spiders here!

Although we're travelling in the rainy season it's still sunny about 90% of the time, but when it rains - it really rains and each drop that falls on you feels like a slap. We then bumped into some other sorry looking wet bikers and ended up riding back into town with them and going for drinks and dinner. Later that night, after discovering what a whisky bucket is at a local bar, Brett got too drunk and lost his flip flops for the second time that week. Met up with Phil and Roxy and Ally the next day for dinner and ended up travelling on to Luang Phabang with Ally, a girl from Sydney and Rowan, a guy from Melbourne.

We're in Luang Phabang now and it is definitely my idea of a holiday town, it is fantastic!! They are now selling flights from Paris to Luang Phabang or other places, you should come here, it's so pretty and so much to do and the shopping - oh my God the shopping is fantastic, silks and cottons and silver all at a fraction of the price back home. It's land locked but there are waterfalls nearby you can swim in. Yesterday we went to the Kuang Si waterfalls and went for a dip in them, beautiful. Some Lao locals appeared to have brought their shampoo with them and were washing their hair, mainly men in tight jeans - I think they were showing off as they were the ones swinging hell for leather on the rope swing into the waterfall. It's quite a strong current once you're in and we watched in horror as a little boy jumped in and got swept towards the rapids, luckily he managed to grab a tree and Rowan reached out to help him back across. The Western men were having a go at the rope swing as well but were pretty rubbish, one large German chap kept trying again and again but would just end up belly flopping straight into the water clutching the rope and squinting and coughing, a far cry from the local boys in their tight jeans who swung back and forth like monkeys before plunging into the current and swimming back to shore.

And...tomorrow we are going elephant riding, I can't wait, it's with an eco tourism company, all this responsible tourism very much on offer here! Will put details of that and photos on later.

Well 2 more nights left in Laos then off to Bangkok. We've had such a lovely time here, it's much like Thailand was 20 years ago apparently, and the people in Laos are far less pushy than their Chinese or Vietnamese counterparts and friendlier I think, less out to rip you off. They are larger as well and darker skinned. There is also the Laos version of the infamous Thai lady-boy, we saw a few last night with some Western men in a bowling alley. Poor things always end up with the big fat baldies though, what a way to make a living!

Bye for now

K&B

Monday, 10 September 2007

Location: Vientiane, Laos

We are in Vientiane after 4 nights in Si Phan don, the 4000 islands in the far south of Laos, right on the border of Cambodia. Well they say islands but some of them I think are just trees buried underwater with just the tips sticking out the top through the brown muddy water of the Mekong.

Apparently these islands remained unaffected by both the French and the American wars so are an authentic slice of Laos life. After a day or so, we didnt' even bat an eyelid at having to navigate around water buffalo to get to the bathoom or waking up at dawn with the roosters crowing outside or pigs and ducks running in front of our bikes. However... cockroaches are a different matter. Dirty little bastards!!! They're not so little either, they are probably about 3 or 4 inches long with brown shiny backs and long creepy feelers coming out of their heads, they crap all over the place. Apparently if you decapitate one, they can still survive but they don't last long as they can't see their way around to find food or their way around. We haven't put this to the test but several have met their fate under a size 10 rubber flip flop in the last few days.

New flip flops I might add as Brett had an afternoon trying out the local firewater, Lao Lao, a sort of whisky and came home later that evening minus his shoes and sunglasses, crashed straight into the mosquito net and ripped a big hole in it and passed out facedown, later apparently unable to find his way to the bathroom. Lucky for him he made it back at all as he stupidly got on a motorbike with 2 English blokes in the pitch dark along the local muddy paths, some of which are big ditches only covered over with bamboo. He had a stiff neck and a bloody nose the next day and no recollection of it, we think he must have crashed into a tree or something! He is not allowed out unsupervised any more.

The islands down there have no electricity except between 6 and 10pm so no fans at night let alone aircon and everything shuts down, no street lights or restaurants open. Then you're woken up at the crack of dawn by pigs and roosters or local builders playing Laos reggae music. Although not as bad as when we were on the cruise on the Yangtze River and were woken up at 5.30am by Oh Come All Ye Faithful and a series of Christmas carols on the loudspeaker in the room.

I have been forced to have a series of dirt cheap beauty treatments here in Vientiane to recover from the cockroach encounters, pedicure, facial and manicure for only $10. Brett meanwhile has turned to his old reliable friend Beer Laos. We are still travelling with the Aussie from the Gold coast, Rob and he took us out to a local bar last night to meet his girlfriend, a local girl he had met while travelling through Vientiane a couple of weeks ago. Jai (the girlfriend) and her mates all dolled up in little dresses, sat at the bar or played pool all evening and at the end of the evening all went home with Western men, mostly middle aged and unattractive. Jai is a beautiful girl but give her credit for being honest, she has already informed Rob she likes to sleep with married men and have foreign boyfriends. Meanwhile Rob who has been working in Korea for the last couple of years is clearly besotted and keeps mentioning how he'd like to live here. Not the sharpest tool in the shed as Brett would say.

Not much else happening here in Vientiane - it's a very quiet capital city with a few cars around, which we haven't really seen since China, and a few old colonial style buildings, now looking in severe need of a paint job and a refurb, a few trendy cocktail bars and some nice restaurants.

We are moving on by bus tomorrow morning to Vang Viang, a river town about 5 hours north where we will update on the cockroach situation and Brett's swollen nose.