Holy Laos?

Soooooooo blog fans! Have you been an eager beaver, to read this golden retriever? Last time we left it on a cliff hanger... It was like Sylvester Stallone up in this MoFo!! So... Did we make it to the white temple of Chiang Rai!? Dum dum durrrr!! Well, keep your shorts tiiight! I have all the answers in this next sexy little package.... ;)

And the answer is..... OF COOOUUURSE WE DID, you silly blog fiends! We wouldn’t be so stupid to miss out on THAT! What a waste of time and effort that would of been! ;) For those of you that committed the sin of not reading my last blog, Chiang Rai was the last town we visited in Thailand, before crossing the Laos border. The main reason for visiting it, was the white temple... We got lost on our scooter the first time we tried, but this time round we weren’t making the same mistake blog fans...

We woke up the next morning, after all that stress, and walked to the bike rental place AGAIN. We were in a bit of a rush, as we had to get the bus to Laos, and cross what seemed to be a pretty awkward border... On the way to the bike place, we walked passed a tuk-tuk guy. He didn’t bother us for a ride... because he was sleeping... I said to Cat “shall we just wake him up, and get him to take us?” She preferred to take the bike as it was cheaper. But we STILL weren’t 100% sure of the way to the temple, we were in a rush, and I said that maybe we can get a good price if he drops us back to our hotel to get our bags, and then takes us to the bus station... So I managed to convince her... Turned out to be a good idea blog fans. We drove down the main road, just as I did the previous day, then turned RIGHT at a big crossing... Funny how everyone forgot to mention that part yesterday... So we finally got there, and it was PROPER amazing blog fans. Definitely worth waking up for... We got there slightly before the truck loads of Chinese tourists were dumped on us. And as someone said to us before, It looked like a castle from the Disney movie, Frozen or something... All bright white, crazy weird sculptures and carvings in it... Was pretty surreal... As we wondered round, I started to think this was more of mad mans art project, than a place of worship... Very strange... After we strolled the outside for a bit, we took a peek inside... It had signs saying “no photos inside”... We took our shoes off and wondered in, but it didn’t seem as impressive as the exterior anyway... Just your run of the mill Buddha shrine... Then we turned around and noticed the walls... It was WEIRD blog fans.... Instead of your typical religious paintings, they had painted some sort of post-apocalyptic nightmare... with the twin towers being flown into, flames rising, and molten rock... And if that wasn’t strange enough blog fans... they had Batman hanging off the buildings, Michael Jackson moonwalking the rock, Jabba the Hut in the flames, and Kung-Fu Panda fly kicking through the sky! :/ WTF... Not just that, but Minions, Bart Simpson, Elvis, Predator, Darf Vader... F***ed up sh*t blog fans... So now I was a bit disappointed by the “no photos” sign.... But if you wanna check it out bloig fans, just fly to Chiang Rai... and rent a scooter to find it... Its easy ;)

So that was the end of Thailand... for now... We were entering Laos for a couple of weeks before we returned to hit up Bangkok, Hangover 2 style... Our first stop in Laos was Huay Xai. There were only two reasons to stop here... To break up your trip from Thailand, after crossing the border... Or the GIBBON EXPERIENCE :D No prizes for guessing why we stopped there :p The Gibbin Experience is basically a zipline activity course, built by a French guy, in the Laos jungle... We opted for the 2 day express trip, which consisted of a 3hr hike, one night stay in the WORLDS HIGHEST TREE HOUSE, and overall, roughly 20 different ziplines.... Needless to say, it was sick... Some of the ziplines were 500m long, gliding very high, over jungle, and rivers... Our tree house accommodation was like a childhood fantasy... It was mad... 3-4 different levels, shower and toilet, cooked food, tea and coffee, and even drinking water from their taps... We had a group of 15 in our house, from all corners of the world. We had a couple beers at night, and played card games as the sun went down over the mountains in the distance... Woke up early to do a bit more ziplining and trekking on our way home. We were told the likelihood of us seeing gibbons on this trip was very small, as we were the express group. And unfortunately, we didn’t... We couldn’t afford to spend the time and money on the extra day, and to be honest, it didn’t bother me too much... I think two full days of zipling around, is enough for me lol...

We got back to the town of Huay Xai, and shit hit the fan... Cat and I both kinda wanted to jump on the 6pm “VIP bus” that night. But when we asked for tickets, they had sold out... The man behind the counter then said “Wait, we have other bus... 4pm... You leave now”... I didn’t wanna leave NOW blog fans... We didn’t see a 4pm bus advertised before. So we thought a 6pm bus would of given us time to pack our stuff properly, shower the mud and sweat off, and get clean clothes on after 2 days of trekking... Plus the prices for the “VIP bus” were ridiculously high for this part of the world, but this secret local bus was only quoted a dollar or two cheaper... I was a bit suspicious... So I suggested we stayed for an extra night in Huay Xai, shower, do our clothes washing, and get a bus the next day... Just chiiillll... But Cat wasn’t having it blog fans... Cat doesn’t do chill.... She wanted to get on this mysterious bus, leaving in half an hour, sweaty, muddy, and barely packed... SO, after her hissy fitting, I said “I’m not paying this guy... we’ll get a tuktuk, straight to station and buy a ticket there”... (I was pretty pissed off blog fans). I couldn’t really be bothered with all the rushing, negotiating, and uncertainty. So after haggling the tuktuk guy down, we rushed off, and luckily the local bus hadn’t left... We went to buy a ticket... And It WAS a lot cheaper than Mr Slimeboy quoted... So that was a good decision... But was getting the bus NOW a better decision than staying an extra night blog fans? Well... When I actually sat down, I just dealt with it... We were gonna be somewhere new in the morning, so I was happy about that... BUT blog fans, this bus was more of an “EXPERIENCE” than the Gibbon Experience ever was... No aircon, no knee room, broken seats, bumpy roads... and no sleep for 15hours. The only thing I did get was claustrophobia... and sweat rash... and extreme stress lol... Cat had all her bags and jacket on her lap, which was agitating me more. She tried sleeping on my shoulder, but I was having none of it! I was sweating enough thanks... I tried reaching down for my bottle of water, but the seat in front was too close to me... I couldn’t even lean forward to reach around my ankles... I wanted to jump out the window, into the fresh air... Worst bus journey EVER...

We arrived in Luang Prabang as the sun was rising... We got an overpriced tuktuk to the hostel, dropped our bags, and I finally got some sleep in the hammocks whilst waiting for check-in. We had a wander around to find breakfast, and we instantly liked Luang Prabang. It was very small and quiet, but still really pretty and had lots to do. It had a French colonial feel to it, which reminded me of Hoi An in Vietnam. Luckily though, this place wasn’t infested with tailors designed to rape our pockets... We went to some waterfalls close by in the afternoon, and they were BEAUTIFUL! It was what I imagined Plitvice Lakes looked like in Croatia... Me and Cat were gonna go there back in 2011, from Dubrovnik... But I had terrible diahhrea... Which was ironic... because I had some noodles before I went swimming in THESE waterfalls, but just before I jumped in..... I got diahhrea :/ Swear down blog fans, I might as well create a word that describes the state when you DON’T have diahhrea... because diahhrea is just me in standard mode.

Its like... If you’re blind, how can anything be dark?

How can I have diahhrea, when all I poo is liquid?

Its bullshit blog fans... Literally... But yeah, the waterfalls were BEAUTIFUL! :D

We only had a couple hours there, as a mini bus driver was waiting for us. We got to the bus 6 minutes late, and Cat was on the toilet... The driver said “COME! LETS GO!” tapping his watch at me... I casually smiled and said “Yeah... my friend in toilet” as I was stroking a cat. He huffed and got proper pissed off. Then some Chinese tourist started switching at me, tapping his watch even harder, like “WE GO, WE GO NOW!” I was like jheez! I thought Laos was supposed to be laid back and mellow? I got on the bus with Cat, still laughing, and unsure if they were taking the piss or being serious... Then a gay couple in the seats behind me laughed and agreed they were being WAY O.T.T... Strange...

The most popular bar in Luang Prabang was definitely a place called Utopia. We made sure we went there for a drink that night. We met up with a Dutch boy and girl, and 3 Swiss boys that we met at the Gibbon Experience. The night started well... Cat and I shared a big jug of “mega sangria”. Which was basically red wine, and vodka... Then, after that, every drink we had, had the words “poor man” in it... We had a Poor Mans Combo (rice wine and beer), Poor Mans Vodka (their cheap local stuff), and a Poor Mans Bucket... (God knows what was in that)... We staggered out the bar when it closed, and bought two bottles of cheap whisky off some sort of street vendor... We shared that in a tuktuk, and headed off to the “Chinese Bowling Alley”. Which is apparently what everyone does when they’re smashed, and everything else is closed. Its the only place licensed to keep serving alcohol... but at the end of the day... It was just a bowling alley... God knows what happened in our game of bowling, and God knows what happened to us next... But we ended up at the ex-house of another French guy that we met at the Gibbon Experience... Pretty weird :/ He hadn’t lived there for a few years, but he still had the keys, and it was empty... So we sat on his old porch, and kept drinking more there... Cat fell asleep on his bed, snoring, and I stayed up talking... The French guy then started passing a joint around (as all French people do)... I smoked it, drank, and then.... I CHUNDERED EVERYWAAHH!! Lol... Proper tradition... I managed to stumble about 15 yards away from everyone, into his grassy garden, but obviously the mixture of rice wine, beer, poor mans vodka, poor mans bucket, cheap whisky, the bottle of vodka Cat ordered whilst bowling, AND the weed... Was too much... We tried to get a tuktuk home, but there was none... so the French guy dropped us off on his motorbike... It was about a mile away from our hostel... But I like a good drunken stroll blog fans ;) As some of you will know...

We got home all OK, so it was fine... And Cat only lost one bangle, one watch, one and umbrella, and one sweat towel... So, not that much for Cats standards... Obviously the next day we weren’t motivated to do much. We did manage to climb to the top of the hill in the centre of town. It had a pretty unimpressive temple on the top of it, but the views from the top were pretty DAMN impressive actually... Also, we got lucky as we saw the view with a massive rainbow looooping over the town :) In the evening we went to a cafe, which played cool little indie movies on the top floor. We had a milkshake and some nachos there, and chilled out... We had an early bus in the morning to our next stop, but before that, we got out to see the monk procession in town. We were recommended to see it one morning. It was just a line of monks, walking down the streets at sunrise, accepting gifts of rice etc from the locals in the streets... It was a pretty cool way to end our stay there.

It was now time to hop on the “VIP” bus to Vang Vieng. We didn’t have the privilege of a VIP bus last time as they sold out, but this time we got luckily... Except for one thing blog fans... VIP doesn’t mean f*** all in Laos lol... It was a morning bus this time, so it wasn’t so bad. No sleepless, sweaty 15hr night bus... The views were beautiful between the two towns. Long windy roads, green hills, great views... But whilst this was all happening... We were being rained on... Yeah, rained on, INSIDE a bus... I don’t know if VIP meant you got the advantage of transportation, whilst still being able to feel the natural rain from outside? But I doubt it blog fans... There was a Chinese lady next to me falling asleep on my shoulder, water puddles by my feet, and a poor local boy in a Chelsea top chundering EVERYWAHH... I wasn’t sure if it was from the windy roads, or if he had a couple Poor Mans Buckets the night before ;) But to be honest blog fans, everyone on the bus was in a pretty GOOD MOOD this time. Including me! :) I think it was mainly because it was mostly local people there, and they seem to always be happy and able to laugh these things off. There was even an old man a few seats in front of me, who had to hold an empty water bottle over his head, coz he was getting PISSED ON! He got the worst of the leaking... But even he was smiling about it, and laughing along with the others.

Vang Veing... The place where its reputation clearly precedes it... Not many people have heard of the town, but its the town made famous for tubing... Pre 2012, backpackers from all over the world used to come here, get on a rubber ring to tube down the local river, and get absolutely SMASHED! So much so, roughly 30 backpackers were dying EVERY YEAR! Nowadays, you still get loads and loads of backpackers doing the same thing, but only 3 bars are allowed open on any given day. And (I think) a lot less accidents are happening... Cat and I arrived in two minds, coz the tubing sounded kinda fun, and it was one of the main reasons to come here. But also we heard about how the locals felt about drunk, half naked, loud, wankers, walking around their streets every day. There were also other options in the town... Like mountain biking, the blue lagoon, caves... But there was one BIG problem blog fans... The weather was SHIIIT! Was SO annoying. We paid for a hostel in a nice location overlooking the mountains, but we couldn’t see the mountains... our toilet seemed to have the same benefits as the bus... feeling rain on you whilst you were pooing... and we literally did nothing on the first day... Just sat inside, travel planning...

Next day was the same, we had a couple beers in a hammock next to the river, which was nice. But it just rained, rained, rained.... We knew the Dutch boy and girl were coming to town that day, so we waited round to see them. We thought we could put ponchos on, head to the bars, and try to get into the spirit of the town... Or should I say SPIRITS blog fans ;) We had 2 vodkas, which meant we got a free vest, and then stayed for another drink or two. But we didn’t get too drunk this time. We planned to go out the next night to get mega hammered... But when we woke up in the morning, to the same ol sound of rain rain rain... We thought f*** it, lets just get out of here... It was too depressing moping around, and so frustrating as we had loads we wanted to do... As we were waiting to leave, the Dutch guys came to say goodbye to us. Then we bumped into 2 other Dutch girls we had met before, and started speaking to them. Annoyingly the hostel owner said he could upgrade us to one of the cabins for the same price... Toilet seats with no rain... I really wanted to stay at that point. I Thought we could chill out, chat, have a massive night out, then leave tomorrow... But Cat had already booked the bus at this point, so I said nothing. We booked a mini-van to take us to Vientiane this time. We had enough of the big buses... But there was one small problem... ASKING for a mini-van, and being TOLD you’re getting a mini-van, obviously doesn’t mean SH*T in Laos... Because we got... Dun Dun Durrrr!! A VIP BUS! :D Yay! The worst buses in the world! Lol... But it was only a short ride, so I put up, and shut up...

Got to Vientiane, and I wasn’t too disappointed actually. Was kinda relieved to leave the frustration of being able to do nothing in Vang Vieng. Vientiane is the capital city, so we figured we should have something to do in a rainy situation... But we were wrong lol. Vientiane was famed for having f-all to do there. We did however, rent bikes, and cycled round the city in the drizzle, looking at average temples. We got stopped and interviewed by local college kids. Practising English, and asking us questions about Laos and England... They had to video it their mobile for a school project, so that was pretty fun... We met up with Martijn (the Dutch guy from before) in the evening for dinner. We then walked around the markets, and went to a nice rooftop bar for a beer. Was really good actually. We planned to get the morning bus across the border together, and BACK INTO THAILAND! Which is where we are noooow!! :D

We stayed one night in Nong Khai. Which is a really nice, relaxing, chilled out, little place. Had an awesome hostel there, that served the BEST Thai food :-0 And now... im writing this on a night train, heading to BANGKOK! :D We have some OUTRAGEOUS Hangover 2 plans this time round :) Staying in the crazy, sleazy, party side of town ;) So keep your shorts tight for THAT blog fans...

So thats it really! Just under 2 weeks in Laos, and we’re already out... Had mixed emotions on the whole experience there really... firstly, the weather screwed us... Secondly, it was a major bumpage... All the prices we were paying there were WAY too much for what you get... Tuktuk drivers took the piss... I don’t mind paying a lil more than the locals do, but when you pay like $3-4 for a bottle of water and budget biscuits, and you see a lil girl buying the same... You know she aint paying half her mums daily salary on it... Again, I don’t mind paying a lil extra here n there... But when you start paying more for things, than you would back in LONDON... You know its a piss take... The damn buses too lol... So bad... Again, paying 4 or 5 times the amount we did in Cambodia, got 4 or 5 times worse quality... They must be having a LAUGH at us tourists blog fans!... Other than that, I REALLY liked Laos! It was a shame we weren’t there that long, and we only saw the north of the country... But travelling is about sacrifice sometimes blog fans :/ But I would probably come back again one day...

Other than that, blog fans – It looks like Cat and I will be sacrificing a trip to Sri Lanka, to spend more time in South Thailand and India... I don’t think we will regret the decision... Got such a big to do list, and NOT MUCH TIME LEFT! :-0 So that means only ONE MORE COUNTRY TO BLOG ABOUT! Maybe thats a good thing! You must be getting bored of them now... Also, my passport is like nearly full lol. Got 8 years left on it, and not that much space... Looks like ill be having my holidays in Bognor Regis from now on, blog fans ;) Haha

So penultimate country! Next blog will be Bangkok, south of Thailand, and MY BIIIRRTHDAAY!! Im gonna chunder EVERYWAAAHHH!!! Hahahaha!!! Hohoho!!!

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPAAA!!! x

Youtube link to RobCat Travel videos:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAfiBjNHpl_Rybkp7-v4Mag