Laos: Naked Asian grannies and breaking down in the middle of nowhere

Like I said in a previous post, in July I was one lucky lady and received a big fat tax rebate which enabled me to make the pretty easy decision to finish work and go travelling. So my August plan was now to visit Laos and Cambodia before heading back to Saigon to meet my parents in early September. 

My first stop was Vientiane in Laos, where I met up with Lance who I had met whilst travelling Thailand with Breege. Deciding to travel Laos together after knowing each other for approximately four days could probably be seen as a bit weird (stranger danger). But travelling around you soon realise how easy going everyone is, so planning something with someone you've known only a couple of days doesn't seem too much of a big deal. 

We spent a couple of nights and one full day in Vientiane, and to be honest we soon realised there wasn't much going on there. For that day we rented a motorbike and had a wonder round. We saw some cool temples, which I'm now realising my whole camera is just going to be full of similar cool looking temples. For me, I think once you've see one...you've seen them all. 

Our next place to visit was Vang Vieng - the home of tubing. We took the sketchiest bus ride (with a semi-hangover) up a load of mountains and along the bumpiest roads. We were pretty excited to get here and booked on for some tubing. However, being rainy season the rivers were high and tubing kept being cancelled, which was gutting. We spent the rest of our time here visiting waterfalls and the blue lagoon. 

As we kept being told tubing was cancelled, we decided to head 8 hours north to Luang Prabang, along with some dreadlocked guy who we named Graeme. We arrived and in the town after another sketchy bus ride up some more mountains, but the views were unreal! Laos seems pretty rural compared to the other places I've been in Asia, and it's definitely one of the prettiest too. 

The first night in Luang Prabang we went out for a meal, which turned out to be fucking weird. I took a quick trip for a wee, and came out to a naked Asian granny in a towel screaming something at me in Lao! She was fuming that I'd forgotten to put the toilet toll in the bin rather than down the hole (bloody Asia) and was trying to make me fish it out. It was a weird experience and would have made for a great snapchat. 

Of course this same restaurant also gave both Lance and I a bit of a funny stomach. It's safe to say within the first week we crossed way too many friendship barriers and had way way too much poo talk. 

In Luang Prabang, we decided to climb some hill to see the sunset, which was apparently called Pussy Mountain... But anyway we climbed it to find the sunset behind a bunch of clouds, though it was still an amazing view. I also made mates with a cat. 

Our last day here we went to some beeautiful waterfalls. We had a swim in the water, but whatever nipping creatures that were in there made sure this was just a quick one.

Instead of carrying more north, as we were told there wasn't much more there, we went back down to Vang Vieng to have another shot at tubing. Again it was cancelled, so we decided to do caving and canoeing instead. We both thought caving was something to do with having a nice, chilled swim in some caves. Oh my god no it wasn't. It was a muddy trek through the jungle to some caves. Wearing flip flops, having had no breakfast and feeling the effects of the 8 rum and cokes I'd had the night before, it's safe to say this was no hangover cure for me.

The canoeing on the other hand so was and it was a lot of fun! We stopped off at a bar along the way and the views we had were amazing. It looked a bit like Jurassic park.

The next day we hired a bike which broke down in the middle of nowhere in the monsoon. Luckily a
near by petrol station took pity on us and helped us contact the motorbike people. They were bloody cute and couldn't get over how hairy and blonde mine and Lances arms were. 

My last day in Laos we hired a buggy for a couple of hours. We explored some roads we hadn't been down and then basically spent 40 minutes getting muddy and doing shit loads of donuts.

It was then time to go our separate ways, as I was heading down to Siem Reap in Cambodia (33 lonng hours - see next post) and Lance was heading to Bangkok to fly back to the UK. 

The best thing about travelling is that you meet people who you may never probably see or speak to on a daily basis. But the problem with this, and also with living abroad, is that you have so many goodbyes to do. I've had way too many in the past couple of months. It's rubbish. However, I reckon with these people you meet, at some point in time your paths will always cross again.            

The TEFL Academy: My Experience

I had an article published on The TEFL Academy's website this week. If you want to read more about my teaching experience, take a look at the full article here: http://www.theteflacademy.co.uk/stories.php

How to pack your life into one bag

The time has come again for me to sort through everything I have and pack my life into one bag, before I start travelling next week (and then eventually move to Australia). Six months ago this was a lot more difficult! I didn't know what I needed and what I didn't - why I packed 3 bottles of shampoo to come over here with I don't know. I also seemed to own a lot more things, it almost feels a little depressing knowing that everything I own can, at a squeeze, fit into one bag.

Over the past few days I've been pretty brutal on what I can and can't take with me. Whatever I take, I have to carry, so any item I haven't worn since living here, it's going. I've come up with a few more tips for anyone who is taking on the challenge of packing their life into one bag, or packing for travelling. 

If you haven't worn it in the past year, don't pack it (in my case the past 6 months)

You have to be brutal. Like I said, anything that you pack, you have to carry. Taking those never-worn heels 'just in case' is pointless. Don't do it. 

Roll your clothes rather than stack them

This gives you a lot more room in your case than if you just folded them. 

You can't have too many traveller pants

Maybe this is just me. They're so comfortable and it makes wearing something that looks a little like pyjamas perfectly acceptable. 

Though it takes up room, always have two towels 

There's nothing worse than coming out the shower and realising your one and only towel is drying from the wash, or with sand all over it. Obviously if you're staying somewhere a little more nicer, they'll provide you with one. But if not, I would say pack two. 

Pack plastic bags, always come in handy

Take half a dozen plastic/freezer bags. They can come in handy for anything - separating dirty washing, muddy shoes, storing shampoos etc. no one wants their Tres Semme all over the one nice outfit they planned to wear that evening. 

Keep everything important with you

There's nothing worse than the last bag coming out at baggage reclaim, and yours is no where to be seen. Keep everything you definitely need in your hand baggage - and a spare outfit too. 

All the things you're less likely to need put towards the bottom of your bag

You're going to have to get used to packing and re packing everything a silly amount of times. Don't make more hard work by putting something you need everyday alright at the bottom.

7 things that are only acceptable to do whilst travelling

There are certain things that seem perfectly ok to do when travelling. Do these things back home, then you'd probably have no friends and people will just basically think you're a massive weirdo. Here are just seven that I've come up with. 

1. Talking to people on public transport

Having a stranger start talking to you on the bus or train in England is genuinely the worst thing ever. No right-minded person talks to people they don't know, and it goes against everything your mum told you not to do when you were younger. Piping up a conversation with a stranger on public transport abroad however is the best thing you could do. 

2. Outdoor pissing

Having a wee in the weirdest places whilst travelling seems like a perfectly acceptable thing to do. When you gotta go you gotta go. Just don't do this back home. You'll probably get arrested. 

3. Baby wipe showers

Always a great substitute for the real thing and an absolute staple backpack item. Every traveller is in the same boat so it's fine, you all smell. Baby wipe showering at home however will result in having no friends. 

4. Becoming BFFs after 20 minutes

Knowing someone for 2 hours and then planning the next 2 weeks travelling with them seems perfectly normal. Going on holiday with a stranger at home is probably not the best idea, not that safe and just a bit weird.

5. Revisiting childhood trends and it being really cool

Hair braids, tourist t-shirts, bracelets with your name on it...they're all great and you're clearly only a real traveller till you have at least one. Reviving these trends back at home however will probably make you look like the fifth member of b witched. 

6. Having a picture taken with the local pharmacist 

This happened. Many thanks to this great woman for helping me with my leg burn.

7. Putting your life in the hands of a 70 year old motorbike taxi driver 

Absolutely fine and perfectly acceptable.

Life plan change no. 143

So I've changed my life plan. Again.

Prior to my trip to Thailand I was a little anxious about my dollar situation. Having not predicted how little I'd be earning, going to Thailand was always going to be a little difficult. But on the third day into my trip with Breege, my mum sent me the best text I think i've genuinely ever received! 

A letter had been sent to my parents house from the beautiful tax man saying I'd had an unreal tax rebate from my Ministry of Defence job! The best thing is I wasn't expecting it, and the second best thing is that this couldn't have come at a better time! After Thailand, I was really not looking forward to going back to work as I just wanted to carry on travelling South East Asia. Lucky for me, I can now do this! 

I text my mum back saying something along the lines of "quitting work, carrying on travelling". I think she thought it was a bit of a knee jerk reaction, but though she's probably true, I'm still doing it. Once you're in Asia, it's so so cheap to travel to other places here. I'm never going to have this opportunity again to travel and have such a good lump sum of money, so I'm just going to go with it. And anyway my Vietnamese visa runs out on August 1st so it's pretty good timing. Soooo this is my (rough) plan now:

End of July: Breege visits Saigon, and I then move out of my house.

August: Travelling Laos and Cambodia - if anyone has any tips and advice on where I should go/what I should do that would be great!

September: Back to Saigon to meet my parents. We're travelling up Vietnam together, visiting Hoi An, Ha Noi, Ha Long Bay and maybe Phu Quoc if there's time.

September 27th: I'M MOVING TO AUSTRALIA! 

Yes it's finally official, my working visa has been approved! I had a couple issues, as I'd been living in Vietnam for over 5 months and they wanted me to have some health checks- but I received the official approval yesterday! So my flight is booked from Ha Noi to Melbourne on the 27th of September, where Breege and Sophie will be already. I've got no plans for there as of yet, just that I want to work for the first few months to save up and travel more.

It's safe to say I'm living my dream and I'm not going to let it end any time soon!  

  

The best two weeks in Thailand!

On the 2nd of July I flew to Bangkok for the emotional reunion with my best friend Breege. I hadn't seen her in 6 months so i was literally so so excited! We spent the afternoon catching up and then went to Khao San road that night. That was pretty messy and emotional and after quite a few vodkas we put ourselves to bed.

The next day was grim and my vodka head wasn't great, but we booked onto a 14 hour bus ride down to Phuket, as Breege had already been in Bangkok for 6 days and we both were wanting the beach. Long journeys on sitting buses are obviously never fun, but for 900 Baht to take us half way down the country we couldn't complain. 

We spent three nights in Phuket, not really doing much but sunbathing, eating and drinking. It was good to just chill and catch up on our 6 months apart, even though we speak everyday so it was just a case of repeating everything again! We thought our hostel in Phuket was a bit odd though, people had been living there for months and weren't really doing much but watching films. So that was a bit weird.

Phi Phi Island was the next place we visited, and was about an hour and a half boat ride from Phuket. We spent two nights here - the first night in some proper grimey hostel and the second in a little shack thing on the beach we treated ourselves too. Basically on the first night, Breege thought she got alcohol poisoning (yeah) and I thought I was some kind of stunt woman and burnt myself jumping through a ring of fire, after actually successfully doing the fire skipping rope (sorry Mum). My leg
was fine, but Breege and I thought we'd treat ourselves to somewhere nicer and it was so great and
we even got some free toiletries. Amazing.

We left Phi Phi on the 9th and took another boat over to Krabi, where we stayed in a wicked hostel called Pak Up. It had been been recommended to Breege and I would definitely recommend it to anyone else staying in Krabi. It used to be a school, so all the hostel rooms are subject names and there are pretty sweet social areas. We met two Scottish girls here on the first night, Victoria and Anna, who we then spent the rest of our time in Thailand with. 

One of the days in Krabi, we took a boat ride with some guy who looked about 90 and he took us to
some caves and this fish place. Our next day in Krabi we took another boat ride to Railey beach. No
exaggeration Breege and I thought we were going to die. The boat man decided to take some shit
route and the boat was literally nearly capsizing. But we got there just about and the beach was beautiful! There was hardly any people there either, as it's low season at the moment, so it really was so chilled making the near-death experience worth it.

On the Friday we then got up at 5.30 (pretty difficult as we are both such lazy bitches) to catch a bus to Ko Phangan for the Full Moon party. Breege and I were both undecided at the beginning of the trip whether to do it or not, but we were so glad we did, as it was the best part of the trip so far! We stayed in a really wicked hostel called Palio, which had a great outside area with hammocks to be
hanging in. We spent four nights here and met some really great people. It was a messy four nights and hungover four days, and now I'm trying to live at yoga and drink green tea all day to detox. So so worth it though!

Breege stayed in Thailand, and is doing a diving course with Anna and Victoria, whilst I had to come back to Vietnam to sort things out for my Australian visa. My journey back from Ko Phangan  took 26 hours (bus, ferry, bus, train, bus, taxi, plane, taxi) so it was pretty grim and half of that journey was spent sitting next to some Thai lady sniffing glue, which is always a bonus. But I made it back in one piece only to be greeted with some cadburys chocolate from our Vietnamese-Aussie neighbour. What a cutie. 

I loved Thailand so much. The food, people and places we visited were all wicked, but it is good to be back in Vietnam. Breege is visiting Saigon next week some time as her visa doesn't start until the 21st of July, and then I think she's hoping to stay for a week so we can do all the touristy things together. She's then travelling the rest of Vietnam, and I will also be finishing work and leaving Saigon too! My life plan has changed quite a lot in the past two weeks, so take a look at my next post to see what I'm up to! 

OFF TO THAILAND! jbdvkdngkdngeonknvdkngkdngkngnng