Let me take you on a journey...

Tomorrow we embark on the final journey of our south-east Asian backpacking adventure (not counting of course, the 2 aeroplanes we need to use to get to Australia!) and we are so excited to begin the next chapter of our year of discovery. It got me ol’ brainbox whizzing round though, reminiscing on the different ways we have traveled around this great spinny sphere we named Earth. We haven’t had a proper catch up since I told you about why I always lose at chess so I will start there, at the beginning of our journey to Laos. Grab a brew, a pizza or a kit-kat, and a cosy single-seater sofa because you’re about to hear a tale. 
Let me take you on a journey…

...It's always smiles on a minibus...usually...

The journey begins on a minibus. We had just been carried away from Thailand on a train and had gone through the drama of filling our visa application in. It’s a strange system really the visa making system. Some people pay lots of money, some pay a little bit, and some people don’t pay at all! It’s my understanding that Canada gets the worst deal, and I observed that the Russian girls in front of us got away scott-free! It’s how it would be if children were in charge of border control. “Russia is my BESTEST friend EVER and got me a ROBOT DOGGY for my birthday so they can come in for free. Canada only got me a balloon animal making set…so… a hundred pounds please…” Strange…

Anyway, once we had sorted the legalities we were ferried onto a minibus (no-one informs you ever of what’s going on or where we are going by the way, and this happens throughout Asia. We are just told; “Bus – get on.” And we sort of have to just do it! Seems to work though, so it’s all good! Mob mentality I think…). I was really digging my latest book so decided to spend the journey reading, and The Boy fell quickly into a slumber. Before we knew it we were in Laos! We didn’t feel the magic tingle as we passed over the boundary line or hear the fanfares or anything! But our biggest disappointment was when we realized that somewhere along the journey, we had CHANGED SIDES ON THE ROAD??! I would have loved to see how that worked! There must have been cars and buses all over the place, switching and swapping and swerving from left to right! I must pay more attention next time we change countries.

...At a night market in Vientiane...

Vientiane was wonderful. We enjoyed our first taste of western food in 2 months and scoffed baguettes left right and centre! After a few days, and after my tummy had decided to behave itself, (see last blog for details…) we ventured on to the town of Vang Vieng. A couple of days later it was The Boy’s birthday! We had planned to spend the day cycling to the lagoon and enjoying a picnic, (and birthday cake that I sneakily bought!) but alas, it was not to be…

We hired the bikes and began our journey. It was a boiling hot day and the sun scorched down on us as we cycled through the paddy fields. Laos has a very sad history in that it was involved in a secret war in the 60s-70s during America’s war with Vietnam. American planes dropped so many cluster bombs on it that it earned itself the sad title of ‘most bombed country in the world’. (See the bottom of the page for the link to an article if you would like to learn more) As a result, millions of bombies (not me trying to be ‘cute’, they are actually called bombies!) still hide in the countryside of Laos, waiting for an unsuspecting farmer or child to disturb them so they can continue to claim their victims long after the war has finished. Despite ongoing clean up operations, that have successfully removed thousands of bombies, many still remain, and this fact kind of freaked me out. As we cycled over the paddy fields, (in the designated path area, of course!) I was wondering how thoroughly the area had been checked for UXOs (unexploded ordinances). The idea was playing inside my brainbox, tickling the section that makes me worry, when all of a sudden…

…BANG!!!

I felt a rush of wind on my legs and my bike clatter to the side. Obviously my first thought was that I had ridden over a bombie and blown it up real bad. But then my brain woke up and said “Yeah, I don’t think you’d be functioning this well if that was the case. I’m fairly sure it would be more obvious…” Good old reassuring brain. So, I hadn’t disturbed a bombie, thankfully. But what on earth had happened?! I walked my bike over to The Boy who was waiting in a shady picnic benched area looking at me in shock. He said, “Your tyre just… exploded!” At this point I felt a bit guilty that I had glared at a nearby Lao man, thinking he had maybe thrown a banger at my bike, and tried to rectify it by giving him an apologetic smile. I looked down to see that The Boy was right. 

...The Boy likes to be naughty when
I try and take handsome photos
of him. Here is is being naughty
with all of his birthday presents..!

My rear tyre was completely blown apart. It was probably a combination of the heat and bumpy, rocky terrain that had caused it to give up the ghost. We decided that we had too far to go to walk to the lagoon and had our picnic there under the trees. Then we walked sheepishly back to the town and paid the price (50,000 kip) for a replacement tyre. We still had a fun day celebrating The Boy turning 28 though. We had a pizza and cake with candles, and played cards as the sun set. Beauty!

Vang Vieng also saw us tubing on the river. One of my favourite modes of transport! We lazily floated at 2mph throughout the entire day until the very last section, where we had to try and climb out of the river, at which point it became a wild, powerful, rapid flow. A couple of beers, a huge inner tube and uncontrollable laughter made it a bit of a hilarious (and dangerous) mission, desperately trying to wade towards the shore before you ended up in the next town along! Funny how the men are so helpful throwing ropes to bring you in when there’s a bar, yet at the end…none to be seen…mysterious!

The next stop on our adventure was a town called Luang Prabang. Again, we rented cycles and enjoyed exploring the cafes and markets. I decided Luang Prabang would be a good place to post all the parcels I had been building up for friends and family and we made our way to the local post office.

...Ruined the 'surprise' birthday
present for my Mum by forgetting
that I had been made to write
what was in the box...

Now, a long time ago, (in Thailand) I had spent several relaxing days forming shell creations to hang in various people’s houses. I had made one for my sister, one for the kids in my old class, and one for a gift to our friends for their wedding (spoiler alert guys, hope you read this after you open presents!) I also had to send a special gift home to my dear Mama, for her birthday, which was a rug, made by an Indian man. Add to this, various letters and trinkets for other friends I had been thinking of, and you end up with a whopping bill of around… 700,000 kip (£60)… Oh my word, The Boy was cross. But what could we do?! So we (I..) sent it! We moped around the rest of the day, promising we wouldn’t spend any more money, just living off rice until we got to Australia, and sleeping in local parks…

We traveled to Phonsavan a few days later, a small town with lots of information about the history of Laos and the secret war. We ate in a café with a bunch of bombs (as tall as a man!) standing up next to the tables, and bombies hanging on the wall. It was kind of chilling.

...Some of the jars...

The main attraction in Phonsavan though, is the Plain of Jars. It’s a bit like a Lao Stonehenge, and consists of acres of fields over many sites, scattered with stone jars of all sizes. There is a mystery surrounding the jars, with no-one really knowing their purpose. Some think they were water containers, some believe they were burial jars, wine containers, all sorts! The biggest was taller than The Boy and super huge! He had a fun time walking around like a historical documentary presenter, explaining to me what was going on.

It made me wonder how on earth they TRANSPORTED the jars! (Ahhh, see, there’s the link!) Elephants or spaceships probably. Or giant unicorns? No-one knows.

Our journey from Phonsavan to Paxse was one about which we do not speak. Except for right now when I relive it for you. And then we won’t ever speak of it again. The tuktuk was late to collect us from our guesthouse, resulting in us being the LAST passengers to board the bus. It was not as small as a minibus, but not a full size Daddy bus either. It was sort of a teenage bus, neither big nor small. Being the last to board meant that all the actual seats were taken. We thought they would maybe direct us to a second bus, as obviously we can’t fit on a bus when all the seats are taken! Nope! We were shown 2 pull-down makeshift seats right at the front (behind the driver and passenger). The seats had teeny backrests and no footwell, meaning we had to sit with our feet bent up in front of us, resting on the engine (boiling hot, needed a blanket to be able to rest on it). We sat like this for 16 hours. We weren’t the most unfortunate passengers however. An ancient woman in front of The Boy (who was actually sat ON the blanketed engine) had no backrest at all and twice, fell backwards in between his legs, onto his lap when she fell asleep! There were also two local men who stood behind our chairs. The entire time. So, shouldn’t complain really! Also, it has made a pretty good measuring stick by which we have compared every single journey since, making them all seem like a first class dream in comparison!

...Watching the driver pretend to fix the problem...

I must also mention the fact that, an hour in, we all had to pile off the bus and witnessed the driver examining the rear tyre as smoke plumes flooded out from under the bus. Comforting. Obviously we expected a new bus to arrive. Obviously, that aint happening! The driver poured water onto the rear axel (hisssssssssssss, crazy steam emerging) and piled us all on again. For the next 6 hours, I kept imagining us exploding into a crazy fireball as we hurtled around dangerous mountain passes into the path of oncoming vehicles.

As Paxse was just a stopover for us, the next day we jumped on another bus ready to complete our arduous journey to the 4,000 islands, a group of islands formed by the mighty Mekong as it widens and splits up along it’s journey to the ocean. After yesterday’s events, we were feeling positive (remember, how nothing will EVER be as dull and uncomfortable?) and jumped into our grown up seats with glee. We had obediently been taking our anti-malarials throughout our Lao journeys with no terrible side effects to be seen, and that morning was no different. However, today was the day The Boy’s tummy decided it was going to be a bit naughty and summoned an episode of serious nausea in him just as the bus set off. The heat and stuffy lack of fresh air worsened the situation, but just as he was pulling out a bag (to my alarm) to catch the nightmare, the bus came to a stop to let the first lot of people off. “Go, go, go!” I shouted and off he went to sort himself out. Fearing that the rest of the journey would be engulfed in an ocean of vomit, I thought it best to befriend my fellow passengers, in the hope that they wouldn’t actually hate us if The Boy did vomit en route. Luckily, the first people I turned to were some very friendly and heroic Candians who offered him a magical tablet that cures nausea and travel sickness! Within 30 minutes of The Boy reboarding the bus, he was all fine and dandy! 

...Laos' answer to overbooking?
Plastic chairs in the aisle..!

What Superheroes! They saved us all from a certain death via drowning in The Boy’s sick. It was a good job too because after he reboarded, the driver produced 4 or 5 plastic chairs to put in the aisle for the extra passengers to sit on. There was no way The Boy was getting off that bus once we began rolling again!

...Our Canadian heroes, Randi and Quinn...
(Quinn and George seen here sporting trendy
leaf watches)

After leaving the bus and faffing around with an ATM, we managed to get onto a boat that took us to one of the 4,000 islands, Don Khon. We settled into a guesthouse and the following day, hired bikes to visit the waterfalls that we had heard were spectacular. Imagine our surprise when, as we cycled along, we hear a friendly voice calling us over! 

It was the Canadian couple we met on the bus! Our superheroes! Randi and Quinn became firm friends fast, to the point where we actually moved in to the room next door to them and spent every waking moment in their presence! We werehonoured to meet their ‘Lao family’, a local family who they have been visiting for a few years, and had some really wonderful times all together.

...Before the combing...

One day we swam out to a sandbar in the Mekong and I spent a few hours with a comb and a ton of conditioner, trying to comb out the many dreadlocks that had accumulated in The Boy’s hair over the months, thanks to a combination of very curly hair and no brushing. The waterfalls, by the way, were indeed spectacular. We had a good laugh inagining the French, with their grand plans of using the Mekong to transport stuff up and down Lao, arriving to the waterfalls and gazing at them in dismay. “Zut Alors!” they might have said, as they scrumpled up their blueprints angrily. Back to the drawing board!

...The waterfalls...

SO there we have it. In Laos, we have traveled via bike, inner tube, bus, boat and of course, swimming.

I also did a fair bit of running, especially when I discovered the biggest spider I have ever seen, casually chilling in the corner of the room. Even the Lao man who owned the guesthouse wouldn’t go near it, which told me it was genuinely horrific.

4,000 islands was our final Lao destination, and after 9 wonderful days, (extended from 4 after meeting our new bezzies) we set off to discover Cambodia! 
But that’s for another time. Time is getting on and we all need a nice cup of tea and a little sleepy.

Robert Louis Stevenson once said:

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.

I travel for travel’s sake.

The great affair is to move.”

I don’t think Robert ever backpacked around South East Asia…

Love Hannan xxx

P.S. CLICK HERE to read about Laos and the secret war. CLICK HERE to find out how they are working towards a bombie-free country.

P.P.S. Also...THIS happened...and it's my favourite photo ever. EVER.