Sunday 21 March 2010

Phonsavanh onward

What a wierd place- a town in the middle of nowhere with a few guest houses and not much else. Phonsavanh is home to UXO (un-exploded ordinance) aplenty and jars. Yep JARS. No the normal flower holding variety. Nope, huge ancient jars, with an unknown purpose.
Lets start with the bombs, during the Vietnam war the Americans in all, their stupidity decided to follow the Viet Kong on their trails out of nam and into Laos. So the Americans bombed Laos too. Unnofficially of course. So what this left was a trail of destruction at the time and a trail of possible destruction to this day. The UXO in Laos in the Phonasavanh area is pretty mextream. They have managed to clear a certain amount out of the 'touristy' area- cus we're sooo important using metal detectors and then visually cleared the areas around the tourist routes. The locals have used UXO's and their aluminium to make cooking utensils, ordaments and also in their entirety to decorate their homes. Entering Phonsavanh there are hotels and guest housed with bombs as decoration at their doors.
The reason we visited Phonsavanh was for the jars. These jars are believed to be 2000 years + and there is debate about their original usage. Phonsavanh like I said is a small town surrounded by paddy fields and Lao-Lao whisky villages. There is not much else here apart from approx 60 sites worth of jars. They range from 1metre to approx 3 metres tall, they are thick and were calved from the mountains about 30km away from the current town.
So this is the tourist attraction and there is not much else to do but it was well worth it.
Back to the UXO, when walking around the site there were markers which were square and painted half red and half white. White means safe and cleared by a metal detector and red means site cleared only. Basically the advise was stay on the track! We also visited a cave where the people hid during the secret war and a Lao- Lao whisky making house where they ferment the sticky rice and turn it in to EVIL alcohol. mmmmm. Approx 45% buit god knows how bad it really is this unrestricted stuff. Had that taste of a bad night straight after you'd downed it.
there are pics pending but this tinterweb connection is too god dam slow
toodle pip. P.s Off to Nam tomorrow- visa's cost $50 each theiving bastards. Nam better be good.

Monday 15 March 2010

Laos

So this place has proven to have extream opposites. We started in Vientaine whihc is a basic town, but a capital city, with basic everything and quite a nice change after the chaos of other Asian capital cities. We moved on to Vang Vieng which was a backpacker hell hole selling buckets of rice wine/ whiskey for pennies and joints as long as a you hid round the corner to smoke them- not obvious honest. After a day of tubing which was good fun we headed to Luang Prabang which was promised to be a ancient city and previous capital city, 'one of the most photogenic cities in asia' was one quote. It's quite pretty, full of early 20th century french buildings and a 14 th c Wat which was quite spectacular. What was off putting was the package holiday feel to the place. It was full of aging Europeans, 60's+ lots in wheel chairs, which isn't a good bet in Laos. So with nothing against oldies it has turned the place into a tourist trap whith sky high prices and proper resturants and bars. Now don't get me wrong this country needs money and who better to get it from than 'rich' tourists? However the money is going to the rich, who are getting richer and the poorer are getting the blunt end of the stich. There are real polar differences from people living in mansions (the few) to village after village full of shacks.
Suffice to say we left sharpish and we are now in Phonsavan and we are going to the 'plain of Jars' will tell you about that later. However, Phonsavan is much more 'authentic' and not nearly as touristy thank god.
Toodle pip. Off on trip now.

Friday 12 March 2010

Tubing

What a fun, if not slow way to spend a day.
Step 1: Go get a tractor inner-tune.
2: Get the Tuk-Tuk a couple of Km up the road.
3: Get in water and slowly drift away.
Optional Steps:
4: Stop at as many bars as you fancy- they will tow you in.
5: Let the local kids bring you to shore- it'll cost you 10p.

Warning:- not all rocks are rocks, some are cows cooling down in the water.
watch out for locals with spears, they're really only after the fish but you never know.
avoid the random peops swinging on wires, they'll hurt if they land on you.

6hr bus drive tomorrow- we have chickened out and got a seat on a TOURIST aggghhhh bus cus our bums still hurt from before.
chao

Thursday 11 March 2010

Laos, is that in Singapore? and comfortable bushes



So we're in Laos at the moment. Flew in on Tuesday morning, left Malaysia at 7am, got to Vientiane at bout 10am. Good flight for 30 squids.
Landing at the air port (tiny and V. basic) we knew that we had to buy a visa in $ to get us in. $35 actually scanks. Reading the document we had to fill in it states 'Our country, Our Tax', Nicely put and fair doos.
So after Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur I expected a city with traffic, noise, Koh San area all the general workings. Vientiane, what a difference. It's about the size of GY, its mainly low rise, the tallest buildings are the temples, yes it's really dirty from the dust clouds but there isn't huge piles of traffic. All together a nice surprise.
So Vientiane is a quiet city and a couple of nights in a spotless B+B for 7 quid sufficed, So we decided to move on to Vang Vieng.
Now, there were a couple of ways to do this lengthy trip, either VIP bus of local. We chose Local. What fun, no not sarcastic it really was good fun.
Everyone piled on and threw in their belongings, baggage, a stalls worth of fruit and a mattress or two and off we set. No saying Vientiane was quiet, the roads were jammed to get out. Then all the locals were rushing to the front of out bus and properly rubber necking. MMMM.... what is going on.
Turns out there has been a crash between a ped and a lorry. So the police dont block the road, they just let you drive straight though. Lets just say there was blood and some bits of body which were indistinguishable all over the road. Me thinks he was a gonner.

Driving slowly on out of the traffic we found village after village which consisted of wooden huts raised off the ground on stilts. The living conditions were quite an eyeopener. There were also towns full of hanging smoked fish and rice for sale lining the streets.
At one point we stopped for a 'comfort brake' yep we stopped at the side of the road at a bushy area. We sat there and thought 'whats happening?' , 'toilet break' was the reply. No Shit- well maybe there was............

So we are in Vang Vieng, the Koh San of Laos. Full of knob heads and we think we will be moving on pretty soon, just got to sample to local speciallity of tubing down the river.
See you soon.

Oh, nearly forgot, best quote from an unnamed mother-in-law:

"Laos, is that in Singapore?" ?????????????????????????????????????????????????

Sunday 7 March 2010

Malaysia


So we have been here for our allotted two weeks now. Doesn't seem that much. What have we found? A country of contrasts.


We ahve started and ended our travels here in KL. Which is a busy city but not on the scale of Singapore or Bangkok. Its a pretty cool place but doesn't seem to have a definate centre - with a little India, china town, colonial district and the Golden Triangel which is the business centre.


It is clean, dirty, smelly and in places quite an eye opener. The China town area reminds me of Turkey with tonnes of 'genuine' fakes and as muck gucci and luis vuitton as you can take. It isn't like other china towns that we have been to. Little India is full of Sari's and head scalves and not as much tat.


The rest of KL follows tis pattern and whist there are some different things to see, like most places it's pretty repetative. Worthcomming though.


Next was Malacca, Mallaca, Malaka however you like to spell it. This place was excellent and full of history from portugese buildings from the 14th century to danisha nd then British Colonial buildings. The Cina town here was really good with the oldest Chinese Temple in the country. Whilst really touristy at the weekend it was quite layed back in the week and good fun. We then went up the coast to Penang, promising to be the Phuket of Malaysia. We stayed in George Town which again had a china town and a little India- all good for the food. This time we went to a Chinese clan House which was brilliant- will post pics on FB and also a Buddhist temple- chinese- Which is the oldest and biggest in Malaysia. The temple was up on a hill and has a pagoda which was 30 metres high and also a bronze statue further up the hill, had to go up on a venicular lift, which was even taller.

After George town we took a min bus at 5am to the east coast. Now this was ment to be a 5hr drive to I thought yippie some sleep. When we got on the bus it was quite posh with leather seats etc and only three of us on it. Excellent- sleep. NO how wrong could I be, we put our lives in our hand here. The bus driver was a complete lunatic. He drove the moterways at bout 90mph which I can handle but the back roads were worse. It was so fast and bumpy that my stomach hurt so I lay down (partly so I couldn't see that I was on the wrong side of the road going around corners) and hit my head repetatively on the seat. The drive as I said was ment to be 5 hrs it took 3 and a half.

The drive wasn't in vain though, it took us to Kuala Besut where we caught a stomach thumping speed oat ride to paradise.

We went to the perhentian islands on off the east coat. Even though we had been to malacca and penang there were no nice beaches. Here there were hundreds of white sandy beaches backed with tropical rain forests. Heaven.

The resorts have only opened for the season about a week ago so it was really quiet with only a few huts open on the beach. The only downside was it was a backpacker haven so the food was all westenised, boooooo.

Anyway a bumpy boat ride back and an 8 hr bus ride back to KL and our time in Malaysia has come to an end. The is so much stuff that we have missed that I think I'll have to come back. Anyone fancy a holiday sometime???

Laos next.

See ya.