By this Author: Susiep539

The minibus picked us up, as well as 5 other boys from other guesthouses, 2 of whom were already drunk. Fanastic! We were soon moved onto a VIP bus, BUT the aircon worked!!! HURRAH! We were joined by a lot of other tourists, and there was a very high idiot:seat ratio. We were starting to wonder whether Vang Vieng was going to for us, but we decided to appeal to the idiot tourist side of ourselves for a couple of days!

An uneventful 4 hours later, we arrived in Vang Vieng. We walked up towards a Guesthouse we’d read about in Lonely Planet, but were accosted midway by a drunk guy who persuaded us to go to the Guesthouse he was staying in. The room we were shown was only 50,000 kip ($6, £4), and the room was rather huge, with 2 double beds and another double mattress on the floor! We were slightly worried we’d accidentally found ourselves in a dorm, but never mind!

We wandered out to get dinner. Vang Vieng is definitely the most touristy place we’ve been to date, Siem Reap NOT excepted. The whole place is full of drunk westerners, and bars, restaurants and guesthouses catering to them. Even when we went for a walk the next day, this is all we really found in the whole place: unlike everywhere else we’ve been, there doesn’t seem to be a “real” town away from the tourist area. Undetered, we decided that a couple of days of tourist land never did anyone any favours, and we went to one of the riverside restaurants and had dinner. We had fried noodles, with a BeerLao, and had a good chat, and didn’t go to bed until 9pm. What an achievement!!

The next day we woke at about 6:30, chilled until 8 because we knew nothing would be open, then went and got bacon and salad baguettes for 10,000kip each ($1.10, 85p), which were super tasty! We then went and asked about rooms in the GH we’d wanted to stay in originally, they told us 60,000kip inc breakfast which sounded good to us, so we got our bags, and then the other member of staff told us there was no rooms. Grr! So we tried to find somewhere else, failed, went back to see if we could wait and see if anyone checked out, then magically they had a room, so we moved. It’s a lot more basic, with a shared bathroom and thin mattress, but it’s so pretty, with a lovely view and nice and open. We love it!

Then we walked to a cave about 2km away. It cost us 2000kip each to walk across a hotel’s grounds to get there, only 20p, but the principle made us cross!

Nevertheless, when we got to the cave, we had a good swim in the pool outside it, and slightly into it, but we didn’t walk into the main cave because it cost 20,000kip, and we figured that Kong Lo cave was enough for anyone!

John did try to get to the cave through a little back route, but it got too dark and we had no torch, so we gave up!

We went back, and John went on the internet while Susie had a nap. We then had lunch – chicken/sausage sandwiches this time – while watching ‘Friends’! A lot of restaurants show continual re-runs of it, and ‘Family Guy’, and although it’s horrifically touristy, it’s a nice little touch of home after nearly 10 weeks! Definitely a touristy thing we appreciate!

In the afternoon, we walked to another cave. We thought it was only 6km away...turned out to be over 8km. Phew! On the way, we went past a group of butterflies that were kind of swarming, and they were so beautiful.

We arrived, walked up some steep stone steps to the cave, which was very pretty,

and then we went and enjoyed ourselves in the river swimming spot at the bottom, which had a great rope swing (which Susie was unfortunately useless at!).

Then we set off on our very long walk home! The scenery made it acceptable though!

When we got back to Vang Vieng at 6pm we, nervously, went and asked about our passports at the guesthouse we’d been told would give us them back. The first man we spoke too was grumpy and unhelpful, tried to give John some random guys passport, didn’t know anything about it, and did nothing to reassure us! He then sent us down the garden to little office, where a much friendlier and more helpful guy produced them straightaway from a filing cabinet. A quick check showed us that they had our new visas in them. Hurrah! Susie was very relieved, and although John insisted he’d always known it’d be fine, he was relieved really!

In the evening, we had a dinner of fried rice, and watched more Friends, then headed to a second bar for another beer, and more Friends, and then went to bed.

The next day was the day we’d set aside for tubing. For those of you who don’t know, this is where you get the inner tube of a tractor tyre, and float down the Nam Sam river, which runs through Vang Vieng. It’s become a real thing to do in Laos, and there are a lot of bar set up along the river, and so it’s a bit of a boozy thing too! Since we’d decided that we were making the most of our time as idiot tourists, we decided to embrace it (although not as much as some people, who seem to come to Vang Vieng for a week or so and go tubing every day. Excessive.)

We chilled out in the morning, had Pad Thai for lunch, and then headed out for our tubing trip!

The first couple of bars were right at the start before any tubing at all, and were good fun but neither of us felt quite drunk enough for the party that was in swing, despite it only being 1pm!

John had a go on this ridiculously massive rope swing/trapeze that was above the river, which Susie thinks was terrifying, but John enjoyed it!

Scaaaary!!

We then headed a little way downriver to a ‘Jungle bar’, where John loved, and Susie hated, the music, and from there to a bar where we had great fun playing volleyball (or kind of) in this massive muddy pit they had. Absolutely disgusting, but good!

Both feeling a little drunk, we headed further downriver, where the scenery of the river really started to be amazing, with limestone karsts rising up right next to us. It was completely ridiculous floating along a river like that in a rubber ring!

We stopped off at one more bar, where we chatted to a few people, got a little too drunk, and then set off (too late) for the end. It was very pretty floating downriver, but it was a long way from the last bar to the end, and John got really cold, so we walked the last bit back. When we got back, we were both tired (and drunk) so we went to bed early. We both woke up at about midnight, very awake and dehydrated, and then couldn’t get to sleep, and ended up having a 3 hour ridiculous conversation, that only half asleep, slightly drunk people would have had!!

We did have a lot of fun tubing, but I think we were both a bit disappointed by it really. We thought the stretch of river would have the bars spread along it, and everyone would sort of move down as the afternoon went on, and party their way downriver. But in reality, all the bars are in the first 1km of the 3.5km stretch of river, and most of the ones that seemed to have party atmospheres were in the first 400m or so. This means that you can’t really have a fun time in the bars, and a fun time floating down the river, you kind of have to pick one or the other. It seems that most people go for the former option, but we’re glad we got further downriver, because there would be very little point having the tube for the section most people seem to do. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun, and I think we’d both do it again, and think that more rivers should do it, because that element of it was just fantastic!!

As it turned out the early bus wasn’t a big problem, since we fell asleep at a ridiculously early 6:30, so we woke up at about 6 the next morning! We certainly had deserved that 11 hours in bed!! After showering, we went to the bus station, via the morning market, where we bought chicken on a stick, sticky rice and doughnuts for breakfast.

It was very tasty, and we felt very local, munching on our chicken and waiting for our bus! The 7:30 bus eventually came at 8:15 – we’re so used to Laos/Cambodian time now that it didn’t even really phase us – and we (just) managed to find two seats together. The bus rapidly filled up, with lots of plastic stools down the aisle and quite a few people standing too. But it’s OK, it was a VIP bus, so we’d paid 60,000kip (only £5, but far more than other buses) to be in luxury...oh wait, the air con was broken. Plus, there were no windows because of the “air-con” which meant it was hot, stuffy and smelly, and they played loud Lao ballads on the television the whole way there, which were all awful and all the same (although some of the video storylines were fairly amusing). Needless to say, that’s the last time we’re getting a VIP bus, and we were very happy when, 6 hours later, we arrived in Vientiane.

Once we arrived, we were helpfully bundled into a shared jumbo (big tuk-tuk) which took us into the city centre. We walked to the guesthouse we’d picked out from our Lonely Planet, which in the 3 years since our guidebook was written has gotten rather more swish, and we ended up in their new extension, Mixay Paradise. Our room was 80,000kip a night (a whole $10, £7), but we were placated by the free breakfast, free wifi, nice downstairs seating area, and hot power shower in the (shared) bathroom. Mmmmm! Definitely worth the extra! They even ha a lift and everything. Wow!!

We went out for a walk, and were shocked by how modern and western Vientiane feels. We were expecting another Siem Reap, but it’s much more built up, and so much more shiny, from the carefully maintained gardens, to the modern eateries everywhere, to the promenade that they’re just doing up, it felt like there was a lot more money around than anywhere we’ve been for a while.

We went and got lunch at a restaurant called Lao Kitchen, which was a little overpriced, but fairly tasty. We had one coconutty curry type thing that was very tasty, and one tasty but stressful soup thing, that had these weird peas, buffalo skin, etc in it. We were unsure about that one!! We went back to the hotel and chilled for a couple of hours, then in the evening went for another walk around Vientiane. We went for curry for dinner, and then went to sleep at about 8:30pm, despite promising ourselves earlier that we’d make the most of being somewhere with lights in the evening! We’re hopeless!

The next day, we woke up at 7am, far too early for tourist land, and so went for a wander around several of the nearby Wats (temples).

Then we went back for breakfast at our hotel,

and then went out to Patuxai, a large monument that’s Laos’s answer to the Arc D’Triumph, and was built out of a load of concrete that the Americans gave Laos to build a aeroplane runway! The views from the top were lovely, and then we wandered down back to the centre along a road that, as the guidebook puts it, “is sometimes (very) generously described at the Champs Elysees of the East”!

We also went to Talat Sao, the morning market, a few more Wats, past the presidential palace, and to some random monument they’re building on the river (don’t know what it’s for – like I said, our guidebook is old – but all the locals seemed to love it, with lots of flowers and bowing going on!).

For lunch, we treated ourselves to a rather expensive all you can eat meal...but it was SUSHI. Yum, yum, yum! And 85,000 kip ($10, £7) isn’t that much really!! Plus, we certainly did justice to it. Mmmmmm!

Just some of our sushi!

In the afternoon, we chilled out to allow our (very full) stomachs to recover. We watched television, read, went on the internet and skyped our parents (once Susie’s mum finally bothered to come online. Humph). Very lazy we’re sure, but we think we’ve deserved it after all our long journeys and our time at Ban Khoun Kham! In the evening, we wanted a small meal, so we ended up sharing a curry again. Teehee! Very tasty, but we got cross at the sneaky way the man there tricked us into paying lots for water, grrr, so we’re now eschewing all Nazim Indian restaurants. A shame because there’s one everywhere and they’re tasty, but we’ll find better ones!

We also realised that evening that we’d made a bit of a woops....in the morning we’d handed in our passports to the hotel to sort our Vietnam visas (you can’t get them at any overland borders) which we were getting back at 4:30pm the next day. No problem, until we decided in the afternoon we’d leave on the afternoon bus the next day, bought our tickets, and then suddenly realised that leaving 3 hours before our passports arrived wasn’t the brightest idea ever. The hotel staff were really nice about it, and helpfully offered to send them on the bus the day after, which we (slightly worriedly) agreed to. Let’s just hope the system works!!

On our final morning in Vientiane, we went on a long, 5km each way, walk to Pha That Luang, Laos’s most famous and important monument. All well and good, but it wasn’t that interesting – just a pointy gold blob – and women had to pay 10000kip to rent a Lao style skirt to go in. Boo, like we were going for that sexist trap (it made Susie very cross). As we were leaving, we bumped into Jenny, the lady we were volunteering with at Grace House, and who is travelling Laos the opposite way to us! Was nice to see her, but she’s on a tour, so had to head off after a quick catch up chat. Very random to see her out off everyone in Laos!!

We then walked back to the centre, via a locals market (where Susie got even more disgruntled because she needs new flip flops, but no nice ones fit her because Lao women have little feet), and past the gardens near the Patuxai monument (where Susie was dehydrated, so even even more cross. Not a good morning!). We bumped into Jenny again at the monument, and then went back to the hotel, where we packed up (everything except our passports....), went and got lunch (we really branched out, and got....curry! From a cheaper, and just as nice place, so we felt vindicated against the nasty water). Then we sat and waited for our bus for Vang Vieng!

When we arrived in Kratie we booked seats on a bus from there to Nakasang in Laos. The bus was meant to leave at 12 the next day, great we thought, its 4 hours and we’ll be on Don Det for sunset. The next day came and the bus didn’t. In fact it didn’t come for two hours! When a bus did arrive, it wasn’t the one we’d been booked on, but another which was headed all the way to Vientiane. Fortunately this did mean it went past where we wanted to go so we got on board and headed to our.....beds! A sleeper bus in Cambodia, well there’s a first time for everything, though it would be a long way to fall from the top bunk!

The main worry over the bus being late was whether we would be able to get a visa at the Laos border. We’d read a few blogs which had hinted the visa on arrival service only ran normal office hours (and god knows what they’d be in sleepy Laos!) so at the very latest we’d want to arrive at the border was 5pm. We’d opted to get a visa on the border rather than in advance because it was $55 from Siem Reap or anywhere from $20 to $35 on the day. A gamble, but a worthy one, we hoped.

So we set off in that hope but weren’t too impressed when the bus we’d literally just got on, stopped so that some people could use and ATM, and we were even less impressed when it stopped 5 minutes outside Kratie so the drivers could eat their lunch! Anyway, we were now 2 ½ hours late and 5pm didn’’t seem so far away. After a few hours of napping we woke up to find the bus had dropped even further behind schedule for some reason making our hopes seem desperate. At 5:30pm the bus slowed, and slowed and stopped in the middle of nowhere next to a field. People got off for the usual fag break but the truth seemed to come out when a random moto drew up with a big barrel of something golden. We’d run out of petrol! Once that was filled lo and behold the bus wouldn’t start which meant the people outside had to push the double decker down the road to jump start it! With a big cheer it appeared to have worked but it was now nearly 6 and was getting darker by the minute.

10kms and half an hour later we arrived at the Cambodian border to find.....noone there! We all stood around clueless until from the distance a few motos and a suitcase carrying man in uniform arrived. We handed them our passports and the customary $1 for the Laos immigration retirement fund and headed down the dark road to the Laos side of the border. By this point we were pretty convinced it was going to cost an arm and a leg to get across, with some people banding about figures of $70 or more! Amazingly when we got there a very friendly border guard greeted us and quoted “just” $36! PHEW! All our fears of having to spend the night on the road were gone. We handed him our visa papers and passports and went to wait at the next window......

“John?!” came the call from the window.
“Yes?”
“No stamp.”
“Sorry?”
“No Cambodia stamp”
“You what?”
“No Cambodia exit stamp, go back and get one and we give you Laos entry stamp.”
“Errrrrrrrrrrrrr”
So John ran back down the road, where he couldn’t see his feet for the darkness, to the Cambodian border, where of course they’d all gone home. He then ran back panicked and spoke to the bus drivers who didn’t speak the best of English. They told him they didn’t have their number to call. Panic x 10. The drivers then spoke to Laos immigration who suggested he leave his passport there, go to nagasang for the night and come and get it in the morning. Well Nagasang was only 40 minutes away but that didn’t seem like the best idea. The discussions continued.....
Then a moto appeared and John was told to get on board. He did and headed off into the night back towards Cambodia......
The driver of the moto was one of the staff from the bus, but even in the dark he drove like he was in the motogp. Not the most reassuring position to be in for only my fourth moto ride! We stopped at the first house on the nearly deserted road and the driver explained the situation. Of course the locals didn’t have a clue but motioned us towards a bungalow a way down the road. Reluctantly the driver got me back onboard and we headed off into the night. Next stop was a military barracks where a rather rotuned and cantankerous officer was summoned from his bed (without a shirt on I might add.) (Moobs I might further add.) He seemed fairly miffed but sent us even further down the road. As we walked back to the moto I realised the driver had been keeping my passport in the basket on the front of the moto, marginally less safe than my pocket, so I rescused it. As I got onto the moto the other officer turned off the generator for their house and we were plunged into almost complete darkeness and then the moto wouldn’t start.....
Here we go I thought! Middle of nowhere, soldiers, half a Laos visa, half left Cambodia, eugh, stressful. Fortunately it turned out the driver had just forgotten to turn the key on the moto, maybe I wasn’t the only stressed one. Next stop was a house. With dogs. Who barked. Alot. This was a mistake and actually we wanted the building across the street. Thankfully the dogs didn’t bite! This building was the immigration office and more semi uniformed men emerged to fix my exit stamp. In the end it was so simple to fix. A simple stamp and date. And this time it didn’t even cost me a dollar! How nice of them.....
Back onto the moto to head back to the bus which was hopefully still waiting for us. The driver seemed to go even quicker this time and I really thought we were going to fall off. As you’re reading this now you can see that I didn’t and the bus was indeed waiting. Hurrah! All it took was another $2 to pay for the moto (which incidently belonged to a random Laos 12 yr old who had happened to be passing) and I was able to reboard the bus, visa in hand, legally exited Cambodia, relieved and ready to be on an island somewhere peaceful.

So the bus set off again (hopefully for the last time!) and it wasn’t long before we were told to get off because we’d finally arrived at Nakasang, where a boat would take us to Don Det. Noone really explained how this would all work though so we were pretty much dumped by the side of the road, all 20 of us, in the dark. Nice. Before too long a man appeared from somewhere and told us to get into his truck for a ride to the water. It would cost $3 rather than $2, due to the late hour (7:30pm), but would include our boat to the island. Now the truck did have seats but after perhaps 5 of us had got on with our bags we soon realised all 20 of us were not going to fit....comfortably. With 5 on the roof and a big squash we did all fit and in 15 minutes we were at the jetty. A similar situation transpired with the boat (though no one on the roof this time) and I have no idea how we all managed to fit in the end! Once again we set off into the night, on water this time, and headed for the dim lights in the distance which we hoped were Don Det. We landed on the shore happy to have arrived. We weren’t picky about where we stayed for the night and found the first place we could which didn’t have a queue. 30,000Kip a night did us just fine, even if it did mean cold showers, no sink and a squat toilet, but we were here! 4 hours later than we should have been but legal and a little wiser!

So, we woke up stupidly early, at 4am, in order to be ready to be picked up for our 5:30am bus to Kratie, in the Northeast of Cambodia. By 5:25 we were beginning to worry slightly, so we woke up the poor security guard, who phoned the bus company.. They sent someone over in a tuk-tuk to pick us up, and as we got to town, we flagged the bus down in the middle of the street, and transferred ourselves over to it. The journey promised to our first excessive bus journey, of 8 hours, so we settled down. Luckily the bus wasn’t too full, so we had two seats each, and after watching the sunrise, we settled down to sleep. However, peaceful slumber was not to be; as the bus thundered down the road, we were woken by an almighty crash, as one of the tyres burst! We fell asleep again as the bus got the tyre mended, and woke up an hour later as the bus set off again. For the next 4 hours, John mostly slept, whilst Susie watched interesting things out of the window, such as people harvesting rice using oxen, cows being driven to market, lots of ladies riding along on top of a truck full of bricks, various sculpture makers, a large group of men in a cafe intently watching a WWF wrestling match, and a man on moto with a trailer with two massive jars on, each with a small child in it!
We suddenly stopped at 11am, and were told to change buses. This time we were lucky enough to have aircon, but there were less seats, so poor Susie had to deal with John lolling all over her as he slept! Another looooong 4 and a half hours later, we arrived in Kratie at 3pm, 9 and a half hours after we’d left Siem Reap. Hurray!

We got settled into Yon Hong guesthouse, into a $5 a night room with a private bathroom, and then wandered into Kratie and bought our bus tickets to take us to Laos tomorrow. Kratie is nice, very untouristy really, but really quite small. We then got a tuk-tuk out to see the Irrawaddy dolphins – the main reason we’d chosen here as our stop off point. The tuk-tuk ride out, 20km through lots of villages, was very pretty, and as ever, we enjoyed all the kids getting excited at waving to us! We got to Kampi, where the dolphins are, paid our $9 conservation and boat fee, and set off, onto the beautiful Mekong river. It was so calm and picturesque, as we went across. We saw really quite a few dolphins, about 7 different ones we think which, when there are now only about 80 in the whole Mekong, isn’t bad really! Some of them were fairly close to the boat, but they’re not as inquisitive or playful as other dolphins, so we didn’t manage to get any good pictures unfortunately.

Susie on the boat

On the way back, the sun started to set, and it was just beautiful. The whole sky was pink and orange, and it was all reflected in the river. Just perfect! It lasted us most of the tuk-tuk ride back, before night fell and the hundreds of bugs started. Yuck! When we got back, we got some fried noodles where we’re staying, and fell into bed.

Goodbye to Siem Reap!
Our last week at school went well, and we both really felt like we’d got in the swing of it. The change of topic, from the ridiculous religion one to a (slightly) more sensible one of ‘Past and Future’ helped, as we both felt we were teaching the kids things that they’d actually find useful! John completely blew his kids minds by using a piece of string to show the history of the universe, whilst Susie stuck to the slightly more straightforward ‘Tomorrow is...’, ‘Yesterday was...’, etc!
Our last lessons, on arts and crafts Thursday, were both lovely. Susie’s class finished making octopus mobiles, that look really great hanging up the classroom (even if they are completely unrelated to the topics in hand, and only happened because we studied shapes, and octopus is like octagon!). John’s class made birthday cards for Grace House, as the school celebrated its 2 year anniversary on our last day. The cards are so sweet, and some of the things that the kids wrote about the school make you want to cry!

One of Johns cards

Some of Susie's octopuses

Then Friday was birthday party day! It was a really nice thing to end on. The party started with an hour of free choice – there were computers, arts and crafts, football, board games, and Khmer party games on offer, and the kids just wandered round doing what they wanted to. Susie spent her time making origami and bracelets in the arts and crafts room, whilst John split his time between computers, football and Khmer games.

Making bracelets

John's football crew

It was then break time, where the kids all got a snack of an orange, a cake/bag of crisps, and a juice drink. After they’d eaten we all joined together where they were given a sparkler each, since the day coincided with Bonfire Night. Not a good idea as it turned out, since none of the kids knew what to do with sparklers, and a few of them got burnt. Oops! There was then a little treasure hunt, where all the kids got a little something, like a bouncy ball or a hair clip. There was then about 30minutes of mad Khmer dancing, for which it is apparently very important to have a ROUND table WITH FLOWERS. Then some songs you dance round the table, and some you dance next to it! Obviously we joined in, John more enthusiastically it has to be said, but we really came into our own during the macerena, being the only two people there who knew it perfectly!!
We then said our goodbyes to all the kids as they went home. It was really sad, but it’s good to know that we’ll be back to say hello in a few weeks, and we both like the volunteers who are teaching our classes for the next 8 weeks, so we feel like we’ve left them in safe hands. The kids were really sweet with their goodbyes, with all of them who spoke enough English telling us to come back soon, and with lots of them giving us drawings they’d done and bracelets they’d made. I don’t think either of us are going to forget the kids at Grace House in a hurry, and we definitely want to keep helping them out somehow, as and when we can. We’ve just got to work out how!

All the kids bundle into a photo!

Then on Friday evening, we went out, which we’ve already written about.

On Saturday we had a really nice last day with the volunteers that we’ve gotten to know best. We went for breakfast with Jenny, Flic, Natasha and Tamara, to Soria Moria, which is our favourite ‘treat yourself’ breakfast place. For just $3, you get all you can eat of various cooked breakfast bits, ranging from pancakes to poached eggs to noodles, as well as fruit and drinks. Yum! We stuffed ourselves, which helped ward off the hangover, and then went back and tackled the mountain of packing we had to do.

After a failed attempt (we actually just watched ‘Australia’!), we went swimming, which again we’ve already written about. Then during swimming, we all realised that although we had no right to be hungry, we actually all wanted a burger! First we had to go back and skype to our mothers, since we didn’t know when we’d be able to again, and then we met Natasha and Flic at Soria Moria once more for lunch. It was very yummy, and the four of us had a really nice chat over our burgers! Very full, we went back and packed more successfully, before heading out to Green Cafe for our last dinner. We were meeting all the staff from school for the adults birthday celebration, which was really nice. We tried a variety of different dishes, but we were both too full to do them the justice they deserved! We did both try frog though! After goodbyes to the staff, we went to meet Flic and Natasha for some goodbye drinks. We also bought some popcorn from Angkor Famous for our bus journey the day after, and said a fond farewell to Tombraider, our favourite tuk-tuk driver! When the four of us got back (with a pancake stop for Susie and Natasha, and an ice-cream stop for Flic that ended with Susie and Natasha losing John and Flic and everyone being confused), we bundled into our room, swapped photos and took some more stupid ones!

"Into the Pride" - Natasha's favourite show!

We’re going to miss Flic and Natasha, all the kids, and everyone else at Globalteer and Grace House, but we’re excited to be setting out on new adventures!