Well, I left Luang Prabang on my own and headed to Vang Vieng on the government bus. I was there far to long. It was OK but as I'm pushed for time I wish I had moved on sooner.

Bus journey was ok. I got the cheap governemnt bus which has been a target for terrorsits in recent years. Luckily we had a guy with an AK47 sitting in our bus in case anyone tried anything. It was strange to see someone carrying a gun but not wearing a uniform. I said this to some french girls I was next to on the bus and they had never even seen anyone carry a gun before so it was really strange for them.

The bus took about 5 or 6 hours and arrived soon after dark. I didn't have a clue about Vang Vieng so the french girls from the bus took me to their guest house as they had been there before. After getting settled at the guest house we headed out for dinner and afew drinks and I got my first good look at the place.

I expected it would be biger than Luang Prabang but I was wrong. It much smaller. In fact its only really about 6 streets in the middle of nowhere. By streets I mean arrangements of buildings as the roads really arent up to much. 3 of them are sealed and the other are just rocks. It does however feel like there are more bars in Vang Vieng and definately far less families than in Luang Prabang.

All the bars have exactly the same menu as each other, all photocopied, with the back page having the "special menu". And all the bars have TV's in the which either show movies or episodes of friends. The friends bars are dangerous because if you sit down you get trapped! I sat and watched consecutive episodes of Friends for 9 hours on day. Its easily done, you just sit there all day, eating, drinking and watching season after season of friends. It's really comfortable as all the tables are on raised platforms and you have lots of cusions to sit on.

While I was here I drank with an Irish guy I met in Luang, and a couple of Swiss girls he met in Pai. Drinking and watching Friends is about all there was to do in Vang Vieng, although all the bars close at 23:30 for some reason. There are a coulpe of other bars on a little island which are open until about 3am so thats where everyone goes when the main bars close.

I met up with the Israeli girl I had been travelling with previously while in Vang Vieng, the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi!"
Her: "Hello, how are you?"
Me: "Fantastic!"
Her:"Are you sure? I saw you at Island Bar last night but you were unconscious."
Me: "Yeah, it was a good night!"

I think the best thing about Vang Vieng had to be the tubing. This is where you get a lift a couple of miles up the river and are then droped off with nothing to get back with other than and inflated tractor inner tube. There is no organisation as you would expect with something like this back home. They just drop you on the rode and point you in the direction of the river. Some of the guys were holding back, expecting someone to come along and tell them what to do, but I just threw the tube in, swam after it and jumped on.

Along the river there are various bars for the tubers to stop at. I saw bars but they are little more than afew sticks hammered together and a cool box to keep the beers cold, although some had a straw roof to. When you float towads them the staff get really excited and shout "Beer Laos! Beer Laos! Beer Laos! Beer Laos!" and if you wave to indicate you want to stop for a beer they throw a huge bamboo at you with a rope on it and shout "Bamboo! Bamboo! Bamboo! Bamboo!" for you to grab on and get pulled in.

Tubing down the river with afew beers was very relaxing even though it poured with rain most of the time, and the scenery is beautiful. Some of the bars had cliffs you could jump off into the river, about 15 foot high, so that kept us occupied for alot of the day to.

One of the things I have noticed about Laos is that there are some really funny traffic signs.

No Horns

Look out for women crossing the road.

I think my favorite observation about Laos is the way they love to spit. The don't just spit, they really hock the phlegm up from the back of their throats as loudly as possible and gob it on the ground. If you are in a busy place you will probably here someone do this about every 15 minutes. It's funny to think that this is frowned upon in the west but acceptable in Laos, a county where public displays of affection (such as hugging) are considered rude.

I left Vang Vieng on my 5th day there, again to long in the one place. After a 6 hour bus trip to the capital Vientiene I was supposed to meet the coach which would take me to Bangkok which I had paid for. This did not go as planned. For some reason, just at the bus reached Vienetiene it stopped, turned around and started driving back the way we had come. It was also driving at a ridiculous speeds and there very nearly some collisions with on coming traffic. After about 20 mins of going back the way we had come, the bus stopped for 10 mins then headed back on course. This ment my bus to Bangkok had left 30 mins ago.

After complaining to the driver for a while who spoke nearly no English they put me on a minibus with 4 Israeli girls (There are alot of them here) and the driver drove to try and catch the coach at the Thai-Laos border. This was even worse than the bus and he was driving the whole way with his horn and and lights flashing, trying to get through the traffic. One time he went the wrong way round a round about in order to beat the traffic in front of us to the last exit.

We did eventually make it to the border and the coach was still there, it taking a while for all the passengers to get stamped out of Laos and into Thailand. Once back in thailand the scenery quickly changed. The dirt roads became tar, cars drove on the left, people had new clothes, all the roads had street lights and the wooden huts of Laos were replaced with the modern stone buildings of Thailand.

10 Hours later I was back where I started, in Bangkok. I decided I didn't want to stick around. The writer of The Beach described Bangkok as a decompression chamber for those who have just entered, or are about to leave Thailand, and this makes alot of sense to me now. So I jumped in a taxi and headed to the airport, with no ticket but the idea that I wanted to be in Ko Samui asap.

I arrived at the airport at 6:40am, and by 7:02am I had found the ticket desk, bought a ticket, checked in, passed security, and boarded the plane. Fantastic! None of the 1 hour before check in nonsense we get back in the UK. No hanging about in the gate buying over priced food and drink. Fast and efficient.

The plane looked very cool and was the first propellor plane I have been on in a long long time. When we got to Ko Samui airport this was even better, the airport building was just some palmtree trunks supporting a straw roof.

So I got to the town and booked in to some very over priced accomodation. I thenhired a motorbike and toured the whole Island. Most of Ko Samui is very beautiful and I headed up to the highest point, 625meteres above sealevel. The map wasn't to be trusted though as the road I was driving on quickly disappeared and I had to take the road bike I had hired off road on some really dodgey roads. It was worth it tough as I got to see most of the island including some massive buddah statues.

So that was it for my travels in Ko Samui. After seeing the island I went to a taylor to enquire about having some suits made. The first guy seemed nice but I wasn't too impressed with his catalouge. Went to afew other places then found an indian gy who did me a good deal on a couple. Had my first measurements today, have to go back on Tuesday for more, then pick up suits afew days after that. Was really good fun as I got to choose all the materials for the suit, trousers, shirt, jacket lining and describe the kind of cuts and fits I wanted in various places. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished products, if completed to my specifications they should be quite unique!

Tomorrow I am off to Ko Pha Nga to get some good accomodation before the Full Moon Party. Will update again soon!

Cya

Yo,

Sorry for lack of updates recently, haven't had a chance to get to an internet cafe. I am now in the country of Laos, North of Thailand. So what has happened since my last post?

Last couple of days and nights in Chaung Mai were good fun. Went out to a Thai club and dranks lots of whisky, then headed back to the guest house and drank more. Ronit and Tony didn't make it til sunrise but me and Gemma kept drinking and then I woke surrounded by people eatting breakfast.

On my last full day in Chaing Mai I decided to do a bungee jump, something I have been meaning to do for years. Seeing as its about half the price it is in the UK I decided to take the chance.

The jump was great fun, will try and find a higher one next time as 50 metres isn't enough.

I had decided to work my way north and out of Thailand to Laos. They don't have any McDonalds there so I had to crapulate at the McD in Chaing Mai before leaving.

For our last night in Chaing Mai we went to see some Thai boxing at a bar. It was entertaining but I don;t think it was real. The real Thai boxing happens on specific nights and this was just to bring people in to the pub.

After the boxing we were enjoying a quiet drink when an American guy came up to me and said "hey man where you from?"

"Scotland" I replied,
"Gee, I though you were American, you kind look American"

And then he left. Five minutes later he came back and said "So man, are you in the military?"

"No, I work with computers" I replied
"Gee, I just figured with the army shorts you must be in the military. Say how would you like to work in Iraq?" He said, pronouncing Iraq as "Eye Rack"
"Sounds good, tell me more" I said.
"Well if you come over I can get you a job in Logistics. What do you say?"
"Sorry, I have a job to start in London soon" I said. But had it not been for the fact I do have another job to go to I might have taken his offer, although there is a good chance he was just making it up.

So we left Chaing Mai and headed for Chaing Rai, once there we got a bus to Chaing Kong. The bus was fantastic as it had a video karaokee machine, subs and I was the only white guy on it. Unfortunately all the songs were in Thai and they didn't have any Barry Manalow, Ken Dodd or Kate Bush :(

Once in Chang Kong we went to the Bamboo Riverside Guesthouse which was fantastic. Lots of nice little Bamboo huts with hamocks outside and a fantastic mexican menu.

The guy who ran the place seemed abit crazy and reminded me alot of MaryLou in Magalluf. He went on at length about how people who cook by recepies are not chefs and the the same is true with blues music. And when I asked him for directions to the local disco he acted out why I have to be careful.

The next day we headed for the boat across the Mekong river to Laos. We took a speed boat over the river and then checked in a Passport control. I had to pay 1500Baht for my Laos visa but I didn't have a spare passport photo on me. Luckily the border police let me through without a visa or to go to a shop and get my passport photocopied.

When I was filling in the visa application there was a fat american guy sitting across from me. He was wearing an Appocolypse Now T-shirt which was kinda in bad taste seeing as how Laos was the most bombed country during the Vietnam war. He turned to his mate and said "Hey man, do you think I should be using this pen to fill in the visa?"
"What does it say?" His friend replied."
"U.S. Government" he answered.

We then headed for the dock again to get our 2 day slow boat to Luang Prabang.

The boat was over crowded and uncomfortable and not the most fun way to spend two days. But I had my iPod, a copy of Retro Gamer Magazine and a case of Laos Beer so I was happy enough.

So I have now been in Luang Prabang for afew days now and have been financially supported by my travelling companion Ronit because I didn something really stupid. I never thought to check out the situation with ATMs in Laos, and seeing at its pretty much 3rd world they don't have any that work with international bank cards! So tomorrow morning I get some money from Western Union that my family have generously transfered for me. I should have got it on Friday afternoon, but there is only one Western Union machine in the country, and its in the capital, and the office there closed at 3pm so the money couldn't be transfered to the local bank. So tomorrow monring I will hopefully be heading off to Vang Veing, and from there I have no idea yeat, but probably south.

The local currency here is not the easiest. It's called Kip is worth so little its crazy. A 1000 kip note is worth about 7 pence. So this means your pockets are always bulging with notes and when you get change you end up with way too much paper. Also I am now trying to think in UK Pounds, Thai Baht, Laos Kip and U.S. Dollars to as they are used alot here due to the low value of the Kip.

Luang Prabang has been OK, but it is expensive by Thailand standards and Laos is supposed to be cheaper. I mean imagine paying 4 pounds UK per night for an air conditioned room, rip off! =) The highlight of my time in Luang Prabang has probably been jumping off waterfalls. I watched themonks do it first and when I saw was safe gave it ago my self. After that all the westerners followed.

Today visited the Buddha cave. This is a cave were buddish monks go to worship and leave little buddha statues behind. I don't know much about Buddism but it seems to be the only religion which makes any sense, and the monks wear funk orange robes.

Thats all from me for now. I have more stories but they will have to wait until next time =)

I have activated comments for this website. This means after each post you can click the comments link to leave a comment or to read comments that others have left. =)

Chilling in Chaing Mai.

Trek was fantastic. Not really sure where to start so I'll try and remember back to the beginning.

Headed off in the morning of what everday it was 4 days ago. Met everyone else that was coming on the trek, about 10 I think. Stopped off to pick up some supplies (beer, whisky) and then headed out of the city. I was luck as it was a really great crowd of people from all over the world.

From left to right: Clint (Canada),Kathleen (USA), Isabella (Austria), Wes (USA), Peter (Holland), Tony (Spain), Gemma (England), Ronit (Israel), Eugene (Malaysia).

The trek started with a few hours was through some farm land. followed by lunch at one of the hill tribe villiages.



After lunch the trek got a bit more intense with some rough terrain and lots of hills. After a couple of hours we were all knackered and roasting so cooled off at a waterfall.

We got to the camp in the early evening. This was basically afew huts in the hills. One for sleeping, one for eatting, one for cooking, a toilet and a shower. One of the Thai guides set a fire for us but wasn't up to much and soon went out so I used my old camping skills to sort it out and soon had an impressive blaze. We than had dinner and started on the beer and whisky.

After dinner the playing cards came out and the drinking games started. After that its a bit hazy but Tony got upset that I made a lot of noise when I came to bed and started asking him for more blankets to which he replied (Hey man, I'm not your mummy!)

The next day of the trek was even better. The walking wasn't to hard on this day and after a couple of hours we reached another hill tribe village where we met our elephants which would carry us to our camp for the night.

Me and Gemma aboard a 40 year old Phant.

The elephant ride was fantastic and lasted about an hour. Our camp for the night was in a hill tribe village. The people in this village came from Burma (I think about 15 years ago). Some were christian and some buddist. We sat down to have some dinner and then the villagers came out and danced round the fire for us. After they had finnished they got us up and we all had a dance.

As it was now quite late we got the whisky and the cards out and started playing some more drinking games. I was sitting next to a couple of guys from the village and got chatting to them. They are trying to learn english but all they have to help them is a phrase book. They were doing pretty well with it but bacause it was a book they were having trouble with the pronunciation. We had a few whiskys and I helped them out which means they will probably now be speaking some english phrases with a scottish accent. One of them had a congo so we played that for a bit and drank some more.

I taught the guys some songs I know from sesame street and then amazed then with my snapping fingers and water dropping sound tricks. After that we were all abit drunk and I got quite sick. Our thai trek guide was very worried I would stagger off into the Jungle not to be seen again but luckily Gemma found me and gave me a push in the direction of the sleeping hut.

In the morning we got to speak to the hill tribe people some more and they had jewlery that had made for us to buy.

The hill tribe people were fantastic, really friendly. One of the most amazing things was meeting the local kids. They were all so happy all they time, running about playing and really excited to meet us all. The kids loved my digital camera so I spent some time making videos of them and then playing them back.

It's strange to think about growing up in a village in the jungle, never having any computers to play with or credit cards to worry about, but they are all really happy and it makes me think that the things we think are important in the west just cause us problems.

We headed off from the village and after walk through some plantations we came to the next camp where we ahd lunch and then boarded bamboo rafts. The bamboo rafting was fantastic and we sailed along for about an hour on the rafts, finally coming to our destination and going for a quick swim before the 2 hour truck ride back to Chaing Mai.

It was quite sad that the trek was over cos we all had such a great time. We all went out to dinner together after and took our tour guide Daing along with us for a meal. We then headed out to a fantastic roof top bar for some beers.

Today we all stuck together again and hired motorbikes. It was a long day but we rode on some beautiful winding mountain roads with some amazing views.

We visited a fantastic waterfall and also saw a buddist temple.

Need to shoot now and grab some dinner then meet up with everyone for drinks.

Stay tuned for more fantastic adventures....

Yo,

News to date:

Finished my tour of Kanchanaburi. Was tempted to stay abit longer, but took the advise of an english guy I met who said "Best to leave a place while its still good, before it gets boring.". Seems like a good idea to me, also means there are afew things I haven't done there that I can do when I come back.

The last day in Kanchanaburi was good fun, if abit of an effort. We were going to see the Errewan waterfall, which is a series of waterfalls in seven steps. The idea being each step had a water fall and a resting/swimming bit. If you were knackered you didn't have to go all the way to the top of the 7th step. As usual transport was in the back of a pick up truck, but I still haf the motorbike, so I asked the guide if I could follow behing the pick up. At first he wasn;t too happy about it but I gave him some hassle and he said it would be ok.

The mistake that I had made was not asking how far it was to the waterfall. I just assumed like most trips it would be 15 to 20mins max. But I was wrong. I had been following behind the pickup for about 45 minutes when I released I was nearly out of fuel and in the middle of no where! I kept going however, knowing that thai people sell anything and in the worst case I was sure someone could take some fuel from their tank for me. Luckily just as the fuel guage sank bellow empty I saw a petrol station. Once filled up on a full tank I shooted off again to catch up with the pickup.

When we got to the waterfall park enterance I headed for the bike parking area where it all went wrong! As I was locking the wheel I felt my feet burning. When I looked down I was covered in little red ants and realised I had parked on their nest! I ran away as quick as I could and shook all the ants off my sandles but was left with lots of red bite/sting marks.

When I got to the first step of the waterfall I grabbed a beer and started the accent.

I am on the right, standing on the very slippery log

The waterfalls were quite impressive and swimming was great fun except when the fish tried to nibble at you. There was a rock which the guide told us we could slide down. I wasn't too sure but gave it a shot. After realising it wasn't too dangerous I gave it another go, on my front this time. Again, great fun but then I realised I had ripped my short right down the front. For the rest of the day I had the great experience of people laughing at me and saying things in lanuages I couldn't understand while I tried to hold my shorts together.

Sliding down the white limestone torn up my boardies/bathers!

I made it to the seventh step which wasn't too hard although most folk stopped at the fourth.

I didn't realise that after the waterfall we weren't going staight back. There were lots of other tours to be collected and dropped off. So I was on the bike for some time after that. I met a rather brave Israeli girl on the tour who wased to ride with me on the bike. I say brave because just 5 minutes earlier she had seen me riding with no hands, moving my arms in a swimming motion much to the amusement off all in the back of the pickup.

At the end of the day I was in alot of pain. Turned out I had ridden for 250kms on the bike. It had taken 2 full tanks of fuel and the engine was close to melting. Not only that but I was soaked to the skin as it was raining most of the time. My eyes were also really sore as I had to keep up with the pick up which did 60mph most of the way, at that speed the big thai rain drops really sting the eyes.

So got back to Bangkok and decided I didn't want to stay there, so jumped on an over night train to Chaing Mai in the north. There were no beds left so I had to make do with a seat in air con 3rd class. The aircon sounded like a good idea at the time but ended up being far too cold.

Met up with a couple of Isreali girls on the train called Ronit and Seffie and got chatting to them about places to stay in Chaing Mai. They were headed to a place which catered mainly for Isrealies so I had a look. Decided to head into town after to see what else was on offer in the accomodation.

Found a nice place in the guide book called Julie Inn. So me and Ronit staying there in a 5 bed dorm just now for only 60Baht per night (about 80pence). Tomorrow I am off on another trek. This time it is to stay with some of the hill tribes of northern Thailand and also includes some rafting and Elephant riding. I will probably be out of range for afew days if anyone is trying to call of email but will be straight back in the internet cafe with photos to put online when I return in 3 days!

Yo,

Today was the second day of my trek in Kanchanaburi. In the morning I headed up to the elephant camp with a polish guy and english guy who were staying at the guest house. We got to ride the elephants and then take them into the river for a bath.

This was a pretty fantastic experience. Getting the hang of staying on wasn't too hard although when the elephants walked down a steep hill holding on was a challenge. When they went into the water we had to shout to the guides, who didn't speak much english, that we had cameras and phones on us. They used their elephant sticks to hang our stuff up on a treet so it didn't get wet.

Once in the water the guides shouted commands to the elephants to get them to duck under the water and roll over etc. Apparently its true that an elephant never forgets, they learn by emulation and can be taught about 50 verbal commands. A bathing elephant is a bity lick a bucking broncho and you can only stay on for so long. Once you are off the challenge isn't so much getting back on as fighting the very strong current in the river.

We rode the elephants back to the camp after they'd had their bath and then we headed back to camp for lunch. Next stop was the tiger temple which is a Tiger sanctuary run by monks. The tigers are pretty amazing close up and the monks seem to have them under control.

Not much more to tell about today, other than I'm really tired and hungry so heading back to camp for dinner now. Tomorrow we are going diving at a waterfall and after that who knows. I am supposed to head back to bangkok tomorrow but might hang about here abit longer as therer are some things I haven't done yet and I can;t decided where I want to be after. Thinking about either heading up to Chang Mai or down to Ko Chang. Met a guy today who was telling me there are some fantastic mountain roads in Ko Chang which are good to motorbike round. Given bike hire is so cheap here (2 pounds a day) I have got another one today so going to ride back to camp now.

Yo, Currently I am in Kanchanabur. So far as I know this is a little town north of Bangkok.

I started my trek this morning, after about 1 hours sleep. It first involved alot of standing about due to a major lack of organisation. Eventually I was on my was in a minibus with a bunch of japs and one english girl. The first stop was a war cemetery for all those service men who lost their lives in the building of Death Railway.

The railway was ordered by the Japanese to link Siam with Burmah for supplied during WWII. The result of this was that hundreads of thousands of POWs and civilians lost their lives due to mistreatment and malnutrition. The weird thing was that most of the tourists at the cemetery were Japs. Very strange. Kinda like going to the Imperial War Museum in London and finding it full of German toursits. Anyway, after that I went to a very interesting museum about the Bridge over the River Kwai and the building of the death railway. After that I got to walk over the bridge.

Walking over the bridge is one of these things you will never see in a western country. It is very trecherous! The bridge is way to busy with tourists and the walk way is only a meter wide. If you slip it is straight into the water! Following the bridge we went for lunch on a floating restaurant made of bamboo and then had a look at some elephants. After that we went to a waterfall. This was cool. There were lots of Thai people here, all the kids were swimming and diving off the rocks. Had it not been for the fact I was carrying a digital camera, ipod and mobile phone I would have joined them. I was on my own as no one on the bus spoke english, except for an english girl who was quite strange. So I took a walk up the waterfall.

There were a couple of young Thai girls laughing and pointing at me and then they came and started talking to me. I had no idea what they were saying but they kept pushing me about. I eventualloy realised they wanted to get their photo taken with me so I happily obliged and got a photo for myself to. Kinda reminds me of my PR days in Magalluf where all the holiday makers wanted to get a pic with the most fantastic PR on the strip on the last night of their holiday =).


I had some time to kill so I bought a beer and watched the kids diving into the plunge pool. Some thai people kept trying to shout me over but I reckon they were after money so I just smiled and waved. We then headed to the train station for a ride in the train on the death railway. This was very cool. The train was so old. The carridges were all made of wood on the inside. I took a seat next to the strange english girl and grabbed a beer. She was nice enoguh but seemed very antisocial. She said she had come over with 18 friends and spent most of the time in Vietnam. When ever we were with the tour guide and were told to go somewhere the english girl would just go off on her own. Maybe beause she was so used to being with people she knew. Anyway I got her talking and told her how sad I felt when we were in the cemetery. All the graves had messages from the family about the person who had died and those they had left behind. Stuff like "In the light you shall be remembered and in the darkness you shall not be forgotten." As well as more personal stuff like "Goodbye Ron, you died for your country but your wife and son will never be complete without you."

Reading the graves was quite upsetting and the english girl told me that her grandfather was one of the POWs who had died building the death railway. After a few stops the english girl got off as she was only on the one day trek and I am on the 3 day. I sat on my own, feeling kinda lonely, so got some beers from a guy who kept waliking up and down the train with a bucket of drinks. Unfortunately I had afew too many and fell asleep and missed my stop.

I don't think it would have mattered if I had been awake as I didn't know where my stop was, all the station signs wew written in Thai, and our tour guide had disappered. I got off the train at the last stop with some Japs and realised I had no where to go. Luckily I had my mobile and the number for the tour company. I gave them a call and they send someone to get me. They guy took me to this guest house on the river kwai and sorted me out with a hut to stay in. It was only about 7pm tho and I was feeling bored. I chucked my bags in the hut and asked the guy on the desk to give me a motorbike.
He took me to a little rental place and they took my passport and 150baht (about 2 pounds) off me for 24hours use of a bike. The guy asked if I knew how to ride (although never even asked to see my licence) and I said yes. He gave me the bike and said on you go, anf then I realised it wasnt anything like a UK bike!

The bike has 4 gears arranged as N1234, rather than the usual 1N234. To put it up a gear you pressed down on the gear shift rather than pulling it up and there was a seperate pedal for changing down. There was no clutch either and I was very confused. It didnt take me long however to get to grips with it and soon I was flying round the streets beeping the horn like a regular Bangkok taxi driver.

I stopped into a Pizza place and got some pizza, garlic bread with cheese and a beer, then headed off to find a petrol station as the bike came with an empty tank! The woman at the petrol station filled the bike up from a cocacola bottle full of petrol which was quite worrying! But everything seemed ok and I went for a drive along the banks of the river and eventually eneded up in this net cafe.

I think tomorrow I am going caving, treking in the jungle and riding elephants in the river. I'm not 100% about this tho as the people dont speak much english, but I will see tomorrow.