Chaos in Laos

Laos is lovely and laid-back. Put simply, what is there not to like…

The locals are incredibly friendly. Everyone you see cheers hello with a smiley ‘saibadee’. The national brew BeerLao is delicious and the landscape of mountains, waterfalls, rivers and green forests more than makes up for its lack of beaches.

In the sleepy capital Vietiane Dave and I had a classic catch up with India travelling buds Jay and Caron plus met their mates Jamie and Lianne.

We went to Thakek to motorbike a 450km circuit through the breathtaking countryside. Despite a minor three bike pile-up and brief hospital patch-up, ‘the loop’ was a roaring success.

For many, the highlight is a 12km boat trip through Konglor Cave. It was cool, but my favourite part was scaling a winding mountain road for an hour to reach an unbelievable panoramamic view from the top.

Each night we stayed in guesthouses in fairly remote villages. One night we accidentally (I swear) went to two brothels. To be fair, the first had a BBQ outside and appeared to be a regular bar until the pimp appeared after we’d ordered a beer. We promptly left and went to another bar. Yup. brothel, too…

Next up was Vang Vieng. The place gets a bit of stick for being a backpacker’s playground. Say what you like, it’s a great place for a party, ideal since it was my birthday.

Wearing my present of a fetching, if skimpy, outfit, we went tubing before going out on the town in the evening. Countless tequila slammers and Dave’s flawless rendition of the entire Billie Jean dance routine made sure the night was a good one.

We headed on to Luang Prabang and visited Kuang Si waterfall, it’s one of the best I’ve seen and with photography teacher and generally good guy Zach in tow, it was a great place to learn a bit about cameras .

In Luang Prabang we played footy on the same ‘pitch’ two nights running. Pitch is in inverted commas since it was a dustbowl littered with rocks and even a fire at one point.

As Dave departed to London to begin a new job, the rest of us headed North to Meung Neua where I’m delighted to report I was hammock-bound and horizontal for most of the 10 chilled days we spent there.  Just gazing across a river at picturesque forested cliffs, it felt like the place you dream of when you’re in the office. Where a day spent juggling and reading Roald Dahl books felt like hard work. It took over a week before I bothered to walk for half an hour to visit a cave.

I also saw my first cock fight.

Despite it’s charms, the concept of economics hasn’t yet reached the village. All papayas cost 50p, even the one the size of the other three put together. So once you’ve bought and eaten that, you feel like you’re being ripped off buying the others for the next three days.

We stayed a few nights in equally attractive Nong Khiaw and played football at the local school. Fortunately for the first time on the trip, my team won and the local kids went loopy when we gave them a couple of footballs.

We returned to Luang Prabang, where I visited the Wat Xieng Thong temple complex. I liked it, even though I’ve become a temple snob.

Somehow I found myself heading back to Thailand alongside exercise addict Jamie to try out Muay Thai.

A lazy wimp tries the world’s most brutal martial art. What’s the worst that can happen?

Don’t answer that.

Living the Thai Life

I’d been to Thailand once before 5 years ago and my memories of Bangkok back then were of a grubby, busy place. But jetting in from crummy Chennai, I found the streets spotless and I relished the convenience of being back in a modern city.

Within 24 hours of landing, I had completed the Holy Trinity of McDonalds, Burger King and KFC and watched The Hobbit for a second time.

Sometimes when I’m deliriously hungry and not wearing my contact lenses, I suffer from Nandos mirages. Bata is a clothes shop chain in Asia. If you squint optimistically, you can find yourself confusing it with a restaurant serving delicious, piping-hot, Peri-Peri chicken. Sadly, it is not.

Alongside my new buddy, Sebastien the German, I spent a few days absorbing Bangkok’s tourist sights: the impressive Wat Arun, plus the Palace, Big Buddha and the obligatory table tennis tutorial. We dropped into a Buddhist monastery to grab a photo and weren’t allowed to leave until we’d been fed 5 plates of food each!

I love Thai food. Since Thai and Indian are my two first choices for a takeaway at home, I really have been spoiled in terms of the food so far on this trip.

On the day I found myself alone in Bangkok, I went to some weird museums. First to the autopsy museum at the Siriraj hospital, home to several grisly exhibits including a fascinating display on the science involved in identifying victims of the 2006 Tsunami. Next was the corrections museum housed in a former prison. Each cell contained equipment used for tortures and executions (some of them were proper grim, ask if you wanna know). Thankfully they’ve all been outlawed since 1900, but once the guide had locked me alone in the prison, he didn’t need to watch over me to make sure I obeyed his no photos rule.

All in all, the day was so freaky that I had to watch a Disney movie (Tangled) before bed.

From Bangkok I went to Nang Rong  to check out Thailand’s Khmer ruins. After the fun I had riding around ancient ruins in India, I put in a few hundred kilometers on motorbike exploring historical parks and the surrounding countryside. I’ve definitely gotta get a motorbike when I get home. The most impressive ruin is the Phanom Rung temple complex atop an extinct volcano.

Next I visited Khao Yai, Thailand’s largest national park. On a jeep and trek safari I saw a good haul of wildlife including gibbons, lizards and a scorpion. The highlight was seeing roaming wild elephants. Strike that. My highlight was the genuine fear on the face of our guide who’d left the jeep to pee only to be chased out of the bushes by a massive bull elephant. Jurassic Park!

I continued East to Kanchanaburi, where in World War 2 the Japanese army employed allied POWs to build a railway into Burma. Tens of thousands of young men died there. I went to pay my respects at the impeccably-maintained war cemeteries. Of the thousands of soldiers buried there, most are younger than me and a large percentage of the graves were unnamed. I don’t mind admitting it was a lip quiverer.

I stayed in a rustic bamboo hut on the River Kwai. One evening I watched the classic Alec Guinness movie with the bridge itself behind my laptop. This was made slightly less poetic by the fact that I had to pause the film several times as karaoke cruise ships passed, plus the fact the movie was actually shot in Sri Lanka.

I took a motorbike day trip out to the Prasat Muang Singh historical park, it was a particularly hot day and I was the only one there. I had a picnic of banana fritters, since I’d accidentally bought 2 kilograms instead of 2 pieces for breakfast.

I went back to Bangkok to reunite with Dave before we headed South to Ko Tao for a couple of bank-breaking but brilliant weeks of scuba diving.

There, I completed my advanced course which means descending to 30 metres. As part of this, you dive with torches at night-time which is a great experience, uniquely exhilarating and relaxing at the same time.

With one eye on diving with the sunken Japanese Navy fleet in The Phillipines, I completed the wreck penetration qualification. Swimming through a sunken ship is a quite incredible feeling, if a little claustrophobic. Since space is at a premium inside navy vessels and wearing a scuba tank, you’re a little larger than the average sailor, I clattered around a little inside the corridors and up staircases (you’re not meant to do this). Exiting the ship brings a feeling of relief to be back outside in the fresh air, which is funny considering you are still 30 metres below sea level.

During the fortnight, we were unlucky to miss out on spotting a whale shark by minutes a couple of times, but I was pleased to add a turtle and a sting ray to my log book.

Then we undertook a mammoth taxi-ferry-bus-taxi-train journey North to Laos, with a brief stop off in Bangkok for a hands-on demo at the snake farm.