The one on same same but different – the last days in Bangkok

“Life is gooooood… Life is so good!” Many times during the last few months I had that feeling.

Last days of my Southeast Asian trip I spent in Bangkok. Certainly the city didn’t change but my perception and the way I experienced it were so much different this time. Lucy who I met while traveling to Cambodia invited me to stay in her place. I was happy to accept her offer.I didn’t realize how generous she was until I arrived there. She lives in an amazing apartment on the 15th floor… The view was spectacular! I was at the point where a hot shower was enough to make me happy so I couldn’t believe that I was staying in a place like that. It was so good to see her again.

My last days were pretty relaxed – I hang out with Lucy, chilled out on a roof pool, got a manicure & pedicure, had  Thai massage which included boobs massage… Lucy recommended me that place. I double checked it. Apparently that’s normal.  Never before have my boobs been so relaxed! I also went to that famous sky bar on 59th floor. Very nice place and they play jazz music there. And of course I did some shopping… It was a very nice end to my trip! 🙂

I will write one last post on my blog. Coming soon…

The one on paradise – Koh Tao

Sorry for neglecting you… What I’ve done recently… Well… I got to Koh Tao and started an diving course. As soon as I got my open water license I started an advance course. So cool! Tonight is my last dive… 😦

When not diving I’m watching the sunsets with Holly (we met on a ferry from Chumpon) and Mandy (my diving buddy), eat out, go out to Lotus to watch the fire performances and dance madly at the beach and… Hmmm that’s pretty much it. I love this island. So you see… No time for blogging 😉

When I will have some time I will write about my diving adventures. For now big kiss for everybody who is reading!!! You see – I’m embarrassingly happy here… 🙂

The one on doing nothing in Pai

Apart from the craziness of the national holidays Pai is very relaxed town. Very cool and hippie in the same time. I haven’t done much around here. There were few waterfalls I couldn’t be bothered to visit, Long Necks hilltribe which I refused to see (putting brass rings around young girls necks which destroy their bones so they could have a giraffe look was a bit too much for me…) etc. Instead I did disover what “changover” is (chang is a beer brand which apparently consist a lot of chemical substances) and just hang around the river or a downtown. The only thing that really bothered me here is how cold it got during the night. And I slept in the bungalow… And the shower was not that hot… The one thing I didn’t liked was the reason to come here for Thai people. “Thai people don’t touch cold weather so they like it here”, “They can put on a lot of clothes…” I was told 🙂 It was fun to watch the catwalk on the main street. Especially what I would call “the hats parade”. The more ridiculous hat the better. It was the first time for me to see locals on holidays. Cool experience! To sum up Pai was very nice.

I left yesterday. Took 12 hours sleeping train to Bangkok and then 8 hour one to Chumpon. Yes. I get a bit extreme sometimes. As to expect I’m tired and I’m going to bed early. Tomorrow at 5.15 I’m catching a boat to Koh Tao. I’m so looking forward…

The one on Gibbon Experience and King’s Birthday

Wow!!! The Gibbon Experience was one of the best things I’ve ever done!!! We were deep into the jungle (amazing surrounding!!! great experience!!! maybe apart from the leeches…), slept in tree houses sometimes 54 meters above the ground… and zip lines… of course there were the zip lines…You have to see it! 🙂

*** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvjLLsbsbAQ

But seriously… Apart from being so much fun it is amazing project. I’m really impressed!!! I love the idea behind it – to help locals “make a non-destructive living from their unique environment”. It did question my view on a charity I must admit… I will put some information directly from their site.

“Poaching, logging and slash-and-burn farming are destroying primary forest and its inhabitants in South East Asia. The team at Animo have long been looking for innovative methods to solve this problem.

A concept emerged; with the local people we build tree houses and a network of zip lines through the canopy of Bokeo Nature Reserve. We provide accommodation in the treetops and local guides ‘fly’ you over the forest to meet the wildlife. The funds received are reinvested to protect the forest.

At present, Lao National Parks have no forest guards for day-to-day protection.  Only the forest guards in the Bokeo Nature Reserve receive a salary; fully funded by The Gibbon Experience. They work 24 hrs a day and presently monitor 25% of the 123,000 hectare reserve.

Once The Gibbon Experience’s infrastructure is fully developed, full ownership of the project will be handed over to the Lao people.”

Once again… such an amazing idea!!! But enough of Gibbons… As soon as I came back from the jungle I took a ferry and cross the border to Thailand. Very easy… I just had to pay the border guys about 1 dollar for working on Saturday. Overtime fee they called it. Fine by me.

Anyway I wanted to go to Chang Mai in the North of Thailand. There was no direct buses at that time so I decided… kind of had to because I was so tired… to stop for one night in Chang Rai. I found a guest house, had a dinner and went for 2 hours Thai masage. So good after trekking… I should have pay more attention to my surrounding… At some point I saw a group of people singing “Happy Birthday King” near the Kings Portrait (King is so important here!!!) but I  ignored it. Next day I got a bus and went to Chang Mai. On a station there I  decided to go to Pai straight away (it’s a little hippie town in the mountains). I wasn’t aware that on the 5th of December  there is a national holiday here – King’s Birthday and thousands of Thai people go to Pai at that time… Apparently 5 years ago there was a movie which made a town so popular. Finding accommodation was so almost impossible. I ended up in a semi-finished bungalow near the river with two German girls. Next day to escape the crowd I went to for a trekking tour and spend a night in a tribe village. I’m still in Pai now. Kind of stuck here. It is a very relaxing place. Will write so more in the next post.

The long one trying to cover a week

Urged upon by mom I get myself to writing. What did I do? So many things can happen in one week that I don’t know where to start…

I’m in Huay Xai right now… It’s a sleepy little border town. I can actually see Thailand on the other side of the Mekong river. That reminds me that the Laotian part of my trip is coming to the end. Just one more thing to do here left… But I was supposed to write about what I did not what I will do…

I will start with the cave. On my last day in Vang Vieng I discovered why this town became a legend in the first place. Tired of tubing and the town itself I decided to explore a bit the surrounding area. I wanted to drive a motorbike myself but after trying it out I didn’t feel all that comfortable about the idea anymore. My skills (lack of them most probably) or state of the motorbike (less ego thretening version) made it much more easy to decide to rent one motorbike and let Andy drive (a friend I met in the hostel). We got lost a few times on the way but in the end we made it to the Blue Lagoon and Phu Kham Cave. We decided not to hire a guided (which was recomennded) and explore the place on our own. To reach the cave you need to climb up the mountain first. What we saw when we got there was simply amazing! Beautiful cave with a little temple in it. The light was falling directly on the reclining Buddha statue and there was nobady but us inside. We walked around a bit and sat down to watch the temple. Then we saw a sign “to the cave” on one of the stones. Puzzeled we followed the arrow. What we discovered? The real cave! All that time we were in the corridor while the salon was waiting! We came in. The cave was huge and pitch black! It was like being in an underground 2 store building! It was amazing and scary in the same time. We were going deeper and deeper not knowing what we would find… At some point we got to the place that when I turn off my flash light there was a complete darkness. I felt like in an acient Indian buryng site… Don’t laugh your imagination plays tricks on you in place like that plus some stones really looked like bones!  Absolutely amazing  experience! I left Vang Vieng happy.

After the city of madness I went to “her majesty Luang Probang” Unesco-protected World Heritage city. Hmmm…. I wrote so much about the cave that now I need to make it short. What did I do? Highlights:

– I met some friends I thought I would never see again and sang/whisper happy birthday in front of the temple at midnight when all the city was asleep

– Saw some temples and visited 3 of the surroding waterfalls. So beautifull…

– Went to the Lao school and helped with English classes. Interesting experience…

– Did the 2 days mahout (elephant keeper/ driver) training course.

I guess I should write more on that one… Some facts. Laos used to be known as Lane Xang which means Land of Million Elephants because… there was literally a million elephants walking freely in the jungles of the North and the South. Now there are maybe 1600 animals. Just as little as 10 years ago Lao Government put elephants under protection.

About it 1/3 of the remaining population is working really hard in the forest industry. It is very abusive environment. Near Luang Probang there are elephants camps which try to rescue elaphants from that kind of work. I went to one of them.

That’s what I learnt. Riding an elephant is not that easy. Sitting on it’s head is not that comfortable (bum and legs hurt..). Elephants eat and shit a lot. A lot! Unfortunately my mahout didn’t speak any English (the only words he knew were “Beer Lao” which he shouted every time the elephant was pissing).  So you can imagine that passing knowledge was rather difficult. But I got to ride a lot on the elephant and bath them. Although I leart basic commands I suspect that my elephant was doing what she wanted to do anyway. I could shout “Pai!!! Pai!!!” (Go!!! Go!!!) but she would move when she felt like 🙂

– I saw a Khmu village (Hoify Village).

– I spend 2 days on a slow boat on a Mekong river. Very relaxing journey although I was constantly torn between observing the amazing views and reading “Midnight’s children”.

– Probably I saw a former king of Laos… That one I have to investigate more before writing about it.

That would be it for the last week. Of course a lot of other things happend as well but that’s another story. Tomoroww I will be deep in the jungle of the Bokeo Nature Reserve hanging sometimes as high as 150 meters above the ground. Yes… I booked myself the famous Gibbon Experience 🙂 Will write about it soon!

The one on Vang Vieng and tubing

Where were I… Oh… My last post is from Vientiane… So… 5 hours on a local bus, one throwing up lady and one  collective peeing in the forest later (apparently the fact that I also had to pee was really funny for the Lao woman) I arrived to Vang Vieng.

Once upon a time there was this little village called Vang Vieng.  Located beside the Nam Song river, surronded by limestone mountains with houndreds of caves around… It simply looked like a paradise. Apart from stunning setting it had extremely friendly locals. By the way the first bricked house was build here in 1998 so imagine how it had to looked like. Slowly after Loas opened it’s border foreginers started to come. More or less 10 years ago tubing kicked in (floating down the river on a huge floating ring – the tube). The current wasn’t that strong so it was very relaxing and as I said the scenery was just the best! If you wanted to buy a beer locals would throw a rope and pull you to the bank so you could sell it for you. More and more people started coming. The place became a legend. And then somebody had that brilliant idea of constructing a little wooden bar on the river side…

How it looks now? It is madness… Tubing means basciclly getting  from one bar to another. Alcohol is super cheap (the infamous buckets) or even free. So most of the people never get past bar number 5 🙂  There are all those crazy competition for example you have to climb a bamboo stick to get a free bucket. I’ve seen quite a few bruises afterwards… To make it more fun swings (some very high) and zip lines were installed. By the way I learnt very fast that you had to let go before you get to the end of a zip line or you would land on your butt… Rather unplasant… So now the town changed completely. Houndreds of guesthouses, bars/restaurants showing Friends or Family Guy, food stalls with pankes  and sandwitches … Again houndreds of bars… It is a mayhem. I took it relatively easy but if you are here hangover is inevitable… It is such a shame what happend to the town. I don’t even want to imagine what Lao people think about Westeners.  One thing I have to admit though – I had a such a great time there! 🙂

The one on first impressions on Laos

My first impressions on Laos are very positive! 24 hours bus journey from Hanoi to Vientiane was surprisingly comfortable and border crossing was relatively hassle free. The only incontinence was the bad weather which made me steal a blanket from my bus, wrap it around me and do the whole visa procedure looking a little like a Muslim woman. At least I wasn’t cold… Another surprise was meeting a polish couple from Krakow (!!!)  traveling on the same bus as me. It is so nice be able to use your language again! 🙂

From what I saw from the bus Laos is sooooo beautiful!!! I’m sure I will love it here 🙂 I have a very homely feeling about this country! I’m in the capital right now but heading to Vang Vieng in few hours. I haven’t seen much of the town but it it most certainly doesn’t look like a capital to me. I used my time here to rest and organize myself. From what I planned next two weeks are going to be amazing! 😉 Still few things to do so I better get going… No photos this time because I have some problems with computer reading my camera 😦

 

 

The one on plastic money or me bitching about it

Although money in Vietnam indeed are made from plastic (you can’t torn them!) the plastic money I meant are credit and debit cards. Since they are constantly causing me problems I decided to bring 4 cards on this trip. 3 debits and a credit one from 2 different banks. Just to be one the safe side. I thought it was enough… Hmmm it wasn’t…

One of my credit cards was blocked before I even left Poland. Apparently some information were stolen from one of the branches of the bank so they decided to replace all of their customer’s cards. One Friday night I got a message informing me about it. Since my flight to Bangkok was on the following Monday morning there was no way I could get a new card before. My only option was to have my card permanently blocked but if I need to use it I could call the bank go through the whole security procedure so they could unblock it for 5 minutes. Real pain in the ass… I wasn’t bothered so much because I had 3 other cards that were working… At least that was what I thought.

At some point of my trip two other cards were blocked. One it was my mistake – I put the wrong PIN 3 times, second one was my bank’s fault. They thought that withdrawing 200 $ in Cambodia was a suspicious transaction… They didn’t feel the need to inform me about it. I found out in the ATM… Anyway it was few weeks ago and I sorted that out quite easily…

Now… I’m getting to the point. Yesterday… again at the ATM I found out my card wasn’t working. I called my bank and guess… Yes. 2 of my cards were blocked due to leak of customers information and again my only option is to call the bank when I want to make a transaction so they would make it work for 5 minutes… So in total 3 of my cards are blocked which as you can imagine won’t make my life easier over here… For now I’m good but I fear for the last remaining card safety… 🙂

Enough about it. In two hours I have my bus to Laos. I bought some dollars in the black market (the only way to get rid of the local curency). My Ipod is fully charged and I managed to find a real tresure in one of the bookshops – Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s children”‘. I n other words I’m prepared for the journey. Goodbye Vietnam! Hello Laos! 🙂

The continuing one (with my Vietnamese itinerary)

Tomorrow evening I will get on a sleeping bus to Laos. I’m so looking forward… Not in particular to a journey itself which takes about 24 hours but to getting to the place… I will have to arrange my visa on a border – it might be difficult or easy you never know – so please… Everybody fingers crossed for me! 😉

I was asked to write some more on what I’ve been up to.  Few facts:

– After a crazy border crossing from Cambodia I finally arrived in Can Tho were I spent 2 nights. It’s the biggest city in the Mekong Delta and a good spot to explore the floating markets and the countryside. Both very nice.

– Next two nights I spent in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Nothing to write about. The biggest attraction are Cu Chi tunnels – network of underground tunnels used by Viet Cong. I skipped that because I found crawling underground too claustrophobic.

-After a night on the bus I got to Nha Trang (South Central Coast). Nice beach place. I spend just one night there. Best part was boat trip to the island and a floating bar (jumping to the sea in the middle of nowhere, swimming in a floating rings and drinking terrible wine). Might not sound that great but I swear it was so much fun! 🙂

– Another night on the bus and I got to Hoi An. Lovely small city famous for craft shops and tailors. I got snickers shoes made for me, saw Marble Mountains and spend some time on the beach.

– Then… A terrible 16 hours ride on the worst sleeping bus ever and I got to Hanoi. I saw some culture here – water puppet show, concert of traditional music and the most surrealistic museum I’ve ever been to (Ho Chi Minh Museum). After one night I got myself on a cruise to Halong Bay.

– As I wrote in my last post I spent one night on a boat in Halong Bay. Amazing experience!!! I did a little bit of kayaking, visit some caves and in general I had the feeling of being taken back in time. It was so peaceful and beautiful over there.

– I’m waiting for my bus to Laos so I ‘m spending two more nights in Hanoi.

That is pretty much it. I was sightseeing a lot, went on few trips, indulge myself with food, got to know great people with whom I shared very nice moments. Yes… I finally met people traveling in the same direction as me! 🙂

By now I’m quite tired of Vietnam and pretty relived that I’m leaving… The way locals act here is just too much for me. I’m aware that I saw and experienced was not representative of the country. Simple statistics – the population of Vietnam is more than 84 millions people and 80 % of  them lives on the countryside. During my trip here I stayed in the urban areas so all my interaction with the locals involved a specific group… Apparently not my favorite group of people…

For some reason I didn’t have a time to blog… There are so may things happening… So many funny stories I would like to  write about… But the time flies… I must say that I missed sharing some parts of my trip with you.

 

 

The one that would be continued later on…

I know I know… It’s been a while… Sorry… Since I decided to spend just 2 weeks in Vietnam I’ve been keeping myself quite busy. I will write some more on what I’ve done here later one. Now I’m hungry and I’m meeting some friends for a dinner soon. So… Just a quick update. Last 2 days (one night) I spend on a boat on Halong Bay. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Amazing place – a bay with thousands of limestones and islands. Definitely a highlight on my trip to Vietnam…. Some photos… To be continued soon… 🙂