Paul's space

 On the 12 hour flight back from Bangkok, Xana got an upgrade to business class. I was left in cattle. Grrr.

So, it's come to this. 365 days, 15 countries, and 21 border crossings later, we have only three hours left before being whisked off to Bangkok airport and the final flight to the UK. We've got very mixed feelings at the moment. On one hand we're looking forward to seeing friends and family again, not having to pack a rucksack every two days, not having to try and figure out where we're going to be in the weeks ahead, and not getting constant hassle from street vendors, but, we're definitely not looking forward to the return to reality, getting jobs, not being able to change countries at the drop of a hat when we're fed up with the one we're in and being cold for six months (although, not sweating the moment you leave your room will be a bonus). Either way, it's too late to change our minds now - we're coming home.

 

Anyway, we've been in Bangkok since arriving late on Monday night. We were supposed to fly direct from Luang Prabang to Bangkok, but the incoming plane was cancelled due to bad weather at our airport (and it was pretty heavy rain). That meant we had to wait a couple of hours for the flight to the Laos capital, Vientiane, and then catch a connecting flight to Bangkok. The airline staff were pretty good and gave us some free food at LP airport. Despite a dodgy moment when the (different) airline in Vientiane said that they hadn't received the list of passengers and we had to wait for everyone else to check in before being allowed in, we got through to Bangkok with no further problems.

 

On Tuesday we telephoned the tailors we had been to the last time we were in Bangkok and,  after a bit of confusion, got them to take us out to their shop for a fitting for the suits, dress  and jackets we had previously ordered. We'd spent the intervening seven weeks worrying that the shop wouldn't be there when we got back, but, of course, it was and they took down the alterations we needed.

 

The next couple of days were mainly combinations of suit fitting sessions, sitting by the pool on the roof of our hotel (for short periods only - no shade...), and trying not to get annoyed by the large numbers of poseurs, tuk-tuk drivers and tailor touts that hang around in the roads close to our hotel (well, it is near Khao San road, so no great surprise, I guess). On Wednesday we ventured a little further afield and took a boat down one of the canals and then a skytrain ride to the commercial centre of Bangkok. We had hoped to visit a Laos food exhibition that was run by a restaurant we had visited, but it turned out just to be a Laos themed meal.

 

On Thursday, walking back from the tailors, we came across loads of Thai people all wearing yellow and a few cops handing out yellow flags and the Thain national flag. Knowing that yellow was the Thai king's colour we asked around and found out that the king would be passing through that street shortly. We found a good spot, had to sit down and then waved our little flags along with hundreds of Thais as a bunch of motorcycles and big cars roared past. We had no idea which car he was in, but neither did anyone else! That night we went to a street restaurant but got a little extra with my dinner - a stir fried cockroach! Nice. I sent the food back and soon had a, hopefully, fresh plate. Still, I finished it with no problems.

 

Friday saw us have our final fitting session. On the way back from the tailors we saw a wood shop that made doors with different English football club badges carved into the woodwork - very classy.

 

Today we made it out of the hotel again to visit Wat  Pho, where there is the world's largest reclining Buddha - it certainly is big. We're now just hanging around and waiting for the shuttle to the airport at 8pm.

 

So, this is the final entry - unless anything hugely exciting happens on the flight home. Here's hoping it won't! Just a few more photos to add when we get back. Anyway, thanks for reading. Hopefully see you all in the flesh soon!

 

So, after our unsuccessful attempt to escape the charms of Luang Prabang, we decided to accept our fate and spend the rest of the time here.  On Wednesday we didn't get up to much, just hung around town, ejoying eating at the nice restaurants. The only significant thing we did was to go to 'Big Brother Mouse', a charity that tries to encourage reading in local kids. We thought we'd be able to help out and maybe read to the kids, but when we got there it was just chaos. The kids were basically playing all the time and there was no way we could read to anyone. We played a few card games with some of the kids and then left them to it. They were also open in the morning, but we didn't get the chance to see if that was any more structured.

Thursday was more of the same, with a bit of shopping thrown in.

Next day we had booked ourselves on a Luang Prabang cooking course. It was just the two of us and an English guy, Matt. He was a recovered alcoholic, who was also a writer and he was researching a book he was writing, called 'Around the world in 80 AA meetings'! He had some pretty good stories to tell, so will have to look out for that one. We were taken to the local market by the two cooks and shown all the ingredients we would be using that day. We then went back to the kitchen and were taken through five different meals, cooking each one up ourselves after the demonstrations. We had loads of food all day and got a cook book at the end of it. The receipes were pretty simple and you could find the ingredients back in the UK (in most cases), so will have to try them out again when we get home.

On Saturday we did a bit more shopping (there are loads of good things to get here) and then went out for a few drinks in the evening. We ended up in a sports bar watching Japan get trampled on by the Aussies in the rugby and then most of the England v. Israel game. We had to leave before the final whistle as the police had been roun a couple of times to get all the bars to close up!

Yesterday we hired some bikes and went for a last tour around Luang Prabang. We visited a couple of Wats and went out to the market to buy a sticky rice container. On one of our passes through town we saw an old man who makes a living selling ice creams. He's always very polite and friendly (even when you don't want to buy anything), so we decided to stop and get a couple and take his photo. We rode off to calls of 'Good luck to you!'. Last night we went to L'Elephant, a posh French restaurant for our last night in Luang Prabang. The food was great and we even treated ourselves to a jug of red win - our first since leaving Oz.

Today we fly to Bangkok this afternoon - our final journey, before the final flight...

Thursday - After the kayaking the previous day we really needed a massage, so took ourselves off to the Red Cross where they do massages that contribute to the local medical care. That afternoon we went to the nearby Tamarind restaurant. This is a restaurant owned by an Australian-Laos couple that specialises in local food. We were having a tasting platter to try some of this, but when we arrived we found that there was a photographer from the brochure 'Stay Another Day'. This brochure is also in Cambodia and Vietnam and features businesses that help the local evironment, people or are supportive in some other way. Tamarind is going to be in the next edition and they wanted us to be models looking at the food appreciatively, or at the waitress with interest when she was explaining the different dishes. We slo got to go into the kitchen and pretend we were on a cooking course and got to help out in the cooking of our own food. When the waitress was explaining the food, it was very funny, as she couldn't speak any English and we had to nod and look interested as she went through all the ingrediants in Lao, with the photographer snapping away! We had a translation later from the Australian partowner and the food was great. Lots of different flavours, including a paste made with buffalo skin! Unfortunately, Xana wasn't feeling too great, so couldn't enjoy it so much.

 

Friday, Saturday and Sunday saw us both either ill, from the anti-malarial pills (each at different times), or going out for food and a wander around LP. You probably wouldn't want to spend too long here at the height of the peak season, but right now, it is a lovely place to chill out. We, therefore, decided not to try and risk the sometimes problematic loop to the east and, basically, sit on our bums for the last week or so of our travels and then fly to Bangkok direct from LP. Just so we didn't spend all our time in Laos in LP, we thought a four hour bus journey to the north for a few days stay in and around the village of Nhong Khiaw, was about acheiveable! As for the malarone pills, well, we decided to give up on them and have them as treatment if needed.

 

Monday - This involved the slightly surreal experience of sitting at Luang Prabang bus station waiting for our bus north whilst watching snooker from the Crucible in Sheffield! As we drove up to Nhong Khiaw it was really nice to see a lot less litter by the sides of the road and by people's houses than in other SE Asian countries. I don't know if they have a different attitude to litter here, but it makes a nice change. We also drove through quite a few villages where the houses were all very basic wood shacks, but they each had satellite dishes outside for the tv! Obviously more important (and, I guess, easier to install), than clean water and toilets! When we arrived in Nhong Khiaw the rain was absolutely pouring down and there is nothing in NK apart from a few guesthouses and a nice view (when you can see it!).

 

The next day the weather was no better and the rain was incredibly torriental. We had planned to take a boat a couple of hours up the river to see another village, but it was so wet and we would have had to stay the night at that village, so we decided it made more sense to head back to LP.

Our last day in Vietnam was one of the nicest has we had very little running round to do and got talking to one of the nicest guys. He tried to sell us some postcards in the old quarter, but as soon as we said no thank you he just sat quite happily and chatted with us, practising his English. It was the first time we had felt like we had the opportunity to ask questions about Vietnam and the Vietnamese people and he was keen to ask us about the UK and Europe.  Nice to restore some postivie feelings in us towards the Vietnamese people. When we were having lunch in a nearby cafe we noticed several western couples coming in, all with newly born Asian babies. The babies seemed too young for them to have been flown over from Europe or the States, so we wondered if they had been adopted from somewhere locally. We'd seen this eslewhere in Hanoi, so thought that there must be a 'baby shop' somewhere nearby...!

 

We took a shuttle bus to the airport and then caught our flight off to Luang Prabang in Laos. It was supposed to be a Vietnam Airlines flight, but the plane was Lao Air. This is an airline with a very dubious safety record and the UK Foreign Office recommend that you don't fly with them - oops! A couple of people complained, but in the end got on. The plane looked fine (better than one in Cuba, Xana had previously flown in) and we even got fed on our 1 hour flight. We made it through safely and touched down at the tiny Luang Prabang airport (makes Norwich airport look like Heathrow!!). And it's true what they say - as soon as you arrive in Laos, you just go 'aah' and relax. It is such a laid back place and it is such a contrast to Vietnam. You can wander around the markets with no one constantly hassling you and not everyone sees you as a dollar sign.

 

On Monday we wandered around LB and saw a few of the sights. We climbed the central hill at late afternoon for some great views over the surrounding countryside.

 

Yesterday, we were supposed to both go out to a nearby village to see a boat racing festival, but Xana wasn't feeling to good (headache) so decided to stay behind. I went off in the booked minibus through some lovely Laos countryside to the village. There were thousands of locals from all the surrounding areas and quite a market. The boat racing was kind of like a souped up Oxford/Cambidge boat race and went on for some time. We had no idea what was going on, but settled in at a restaurant overlooking the action for a few hours and managed to enjoy a few beerlaos. That night we enjoyed some good Laos food (some sort of soup and a pork with basil dish) in a cheap and cheerful restaurant, only for it to be our best meal in ages. Lovely. We also booked a table for Thursday for a restaurant where you can try and selection of 'unusual' Laos dishes - will let you know how we get on!

 

Today we went up to an Elephant sanctury this morning. Got a ride on a elephant. It was great to see them so close up. The place where we did this is supposed to treat the elephants better than some of the other sites around, but you never know. Hopefully they are treated okay - we gave them plenty of bananas anyway... Our elephant was called Manham. After that we went to a really nice waterfall, where you can sit in lots of different pools and generally dive around. After lunch we kayaked back into Luang Prabang, about 14kms. It took three hours, so were pretty knackered by the end. We'll sleep well tonight...It was nice kayaking throught the beautiful scenary, past water buffalo and small kids mucking about in the river. We also went through some small rapids and I was nearly a goner when we went sideways into a tree!