Laos And Bus From Hell

G’day all,
Well I’m currently on the train back to Bangkok after a few fine days in Laos and a 24 hour bus ride I will never forget. After arriving back in Hanoi from the boat cruise I pretty much jumped straight onto a 22 hour (ended up being 24 hours) bus ride to the Capital of Laos called Vientiane. This bus ride has a bit of a reputation as being the “Ride from Hell” and bugga me did it live up to its reputation. It started off all being fine as we got onto a brand spanking new bus and had a nice smooth 4 hour ride down the coast of Vietnam. This is where the fun stopped as I had to switch busses to head west to the Laos border. The bus we switched onto was chockablock full and me being the lucky last on the bus had to join the cue sitting on a 20cm plastic stool in the isle of the bus. After 10 minutes my back started aching. After an hour my back was killing me as I couldn’t lean back unless I wanted to fall off my chair. This English guy and I started to count the hours down until we would arrive and when we worked it out to being a good 17 hours we started to panic. After about 2 or 3 hours I tried to stand up for a bit to give my legs and back a rest before this Vietnamese mongrel told me off and I nose laughed and said sorry mate and sat back on my torture stool. The thing that really ticked me off was that the driver had 6 helpers who did sweet bugger all and took up all the seats, one of whom had his hammock stretched across the baggage holder and I wasn’t even allowed to stand up because it was “too dangerous”. It was impossible to sleep and a few hours after we crossed the border some people got off and I finally got a seat just a few hours before we got there. I felt like the queen with my new seat that I could actually lean back on and soon fell asleep. After a few minutes of sleep the tyre by my window exploded and it sound like a bomb going off and almost gave me a heart attack. So we finally arrived and I immediately took to Laos as the people were so nice and friendly and it was such a nice change after being in North Vietnam. There wasn’t much to do in Vientiane so I just chilled out with my English mates from the bus and we all spoiled ourselves and had a massive expensive pizza each. The next morning I jumped on a tiny 4 hour bus ride north to one of the coolest places I’ve even seen called Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is this tiny little town sitting amongst these amazing limestone cliffs and this beautiful flowing river. This town is a hit with the backpackers as it’s so chilled out and it’s famous for tubing down the river through a sea of bamboo bars. When I arrived I just walked around and took in the strange atmosphere the town gave off until the sunset and then had an early night. The next morning I went on a cave and tubing tour which was so cool. We went through 4 caves including a water cave which we tubed through on a tractor inner wheel tube. After lunch we did a 3km tube ride down the river which was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. The river is lined with bamboo build bars every 100 meters and they pull you in with a bamboo stick to come and buy a beer from them or take it down the river with you. Almost every bar also had a massive swing or zip line for all the customers to launch themselves from frightening heights into the river. I did it twice and it was such a great rush. I got a bit cocky after my perfect first jump and tried a “Napoleon Dynamite” dance move in the air on my second attempt. It didn’t pull off too well and I ended up face planting it in front of a good 50 odd onlookers. It didn’t tickle either being from such a massive height. We arrived back into town just before sunset and I chilled out with a few of my new mates from the tour and had some more beers. The town goes into shutdown at 11:30 at night and everything shuts and it pretty much turns into a ghost town. I’ve heard rumors about tourists being marched to bed by machine gun if they stay up after 11:30 so I made sure I was back to my $3 a night bungalow in time. I found out Laos is the most bombed country in the world and apparently in the South (which is scattered in land mines) many kids die each year from trying to sell grenades to tourists as war memorabilia. Well it was a short but sweet visit to Laos and I would recommend anyone to come and visit this amazing country. Tomorrow (Friday) I fly off from Bangkok to New Delhi in India so I’m really excited about that. That’s all for now legends. Update you next from the land of curry, camels, and cow worshiping.

Oorooo
Woodsy

Hanoi and Ha Long Bay

G’day all,
Well today is my last day in Vietnam as I’m catching a lovely 22 hour bus ride to Laos tonight so yeah I can’t wait for that. The train ride up to Hanoi was kind of cool because for once I got to lay down for 2 days and sleep rather than sit upright on a bus seat. I got the cheapest bed I could manage and saved 20 bucks but it meant being thrown down the back of the train into the refugee section rather than with my mates in their soft bed 4-bed rooms. It was a little hard trying to speak English to my new Vietnamese mates but we all smiled at each other and did nose laughs for the 40 hour train ride so that got awkward after the first 2 hours. I arrived in Hanoi at 4:45am and it was pissing down with rain and I had no Lonely Planet and no accommodation. I got ripped off by a taxi driver who promised me cheap accommodation and ended up dumping me if front of this guest house in the middle of the night which also tried to rip me off. They tried to make me pay for that night (4hrs until checkout) and the next one for $20 US and I had a little argument for a good 20 mins with my new Vietnamese enemy and said “Not today mate your bloody loss not mine”. I then jumped back out into the rain in my ripped up cheap poncho and went for a beautiful 2 hour rain walk in the dark with my 30kg backpack and waited for the sun to come up. I had no idea where I was but after sitting down for an hour I finally built up the strength to find the backpacker area and saved myself 10 bob and celebrated with a nice sleep. Hanoi didn’t start growing on me until later on that day as the fact every man and his dog tries to rip you off and they laugh in your face about it really was getting to me. In Thailand and Cambodia people still try and rip you off but at least they are nice to you and smile. The Vietnamese just seem to snarl and laugh the more they rip you off as if they hate tourists with a passion. After my little powernap I went for a stroll around town and ended up taking a motorbike tour around town in the rain to get all my sightseeing out of the way. The guy took me to a few museums and temples and this cool prison where they held some of the Americans during the war. Before dark I went for a walk along this lake and then found this great little café called the “City View Café” where I sat for a few hours and looked over this busy intersection and watched the sun set and the lights come out. I took some great photos of the traffic from up there then had an early night. Yesterday I left first thing in the morning to head up to “Ha Long Bay” on 2 day 1 night boat tour. It has been amazing and so worth the money. Ha Long Bay is one of the natural wonders of the world and when you get here you can see why. It has about 300 odd beautiful rocky islands scattered everywhere in a 360 degree view as the boat cruises between them all. We also went to this fantastic cave on one of the islands which was so massive I couldn’t believe it and it also had really cool coloured lights lighting up different parts of the cave inside. The other cool thing we did was take a little boat through this cave until it reaches a lagoon inside one of the beaches so that was also very nice. We slept on the boat last night and I hung out with a heap of cool tourists from all over the world. I ended up pulling out the laptop and showing them all some “Aussie Rules” highlights and then we ended up watching “Crocodile Dundee” before heading to bed. The people running the boat tour are also evil and have even switched off the power to save money so my dunny wont even flush. I just left them a nice little present in the dunny so I’m sure they will enjoy that when we arrive back to shore in a few hours (a generous tip). At the moment I’m still on the boat heading back to Hanoi where I say for an hour before jumping on my 22 hour bus ride to the Capital of Laos whatever it’s called (I’ll figure it out when I get there). Anyway that’s all for now I’ll update ya all from Laos if they’ve invented the internet yet over there yet.
Cheerio Woodsy