Alex & Lizzy's (Travel) Blog

We arrived in Hanoi at the ungodly hour of 4.20am and had to find ways to pass the time until somewhere opened for breakfast (at about 6am in the end). Saw lots of people out exercising, doing individual and group tai chi in the semi-darkness, which was rather surreal.

Tom & Jules were still with us, and after quick showers in our hostel, they took us on a little exploration of Hanoi. The most striking part was walking through the markets where they were selling all kinds of very fresh animals for eating. We saw bags of frogs very much still jumping and sliding over each other. We saw buckets of worms and eels in slithering masses. Then we saw a fish being cut up and skinned whilst still flapping and moving its mouth. Needless to say we all chose a “safe” vegetarian lunch.

Unfortunately the lunch may not have been so “safe” after all – as Lizzy spent the rest of the day emitting the previous few days’ food and I had to have dinner on my own…

More photos

Got an overnight train with a couple of friends from Hanoi to Lao Cai and then a bus to Sapa which arrived at 7am.  Enjoyed Alex’s birthday cake en-route which I’d managed to smuggle through customs.

Sapa feels totally different to anything else we’ve seen in SE Asia- cold for one! fairly foggy, very alpine. Could almost feel Christmassy here so we’ve enjoyed a few mulled wines .

Did a one day trek from Sapa down into the valley, stopping at some hill tribe villages along the way.

Once again the trek was slightly more adventurous than we’d expected so we spent quite a bit of time slipping and sliding up and down paths and trying to avoid stumbling into the paddy fields (4 out of 5 of us managed to avoid falling in!).

Saw some Black H’Mong people working together to build a house and at another village a playground….also saw them manhandling a huge pig for the party afterwards….lots of squealing and then silence!

After returning from Vang Vieng, it was time to start celebrating my 30th birthday! We’d booked in to a lovely hotel (called “Le Bel Air” – hence the title)for 2 nights for some R&R and as a treat for my becoming an old man.  It was about 10 times more expensive than our normal nightly budget on this trip – but still about the price of a Travellodge in the UK! Here’s some photos:

It’s so posh, they collected us from our guest house, give us free bikes to ride around, carried our bags to our room, give free trips into town and will drop us (in about 30 mins from now) at the airport. It’s not at all what we’ve been used to – and a very nice way to celebrate my birthday.

The first evening we sat and watched the sun set from our balcony, had a HUGE bath (took 30 mins to fill!) and headed into town for some shopping and eating.

Then it was off to bed for the last time as a 29-year-old and to wake up as a 30-year-old! The next morning, whilst I was at breakfast, Lizzy decorated the room with balloons and when I came back, I opened the cards that Lizzy had carried half way around the world with her (thanks if one of them was from you!) and the presents she’d bought me (although I’d already had loads in the UK before I left).

We got up slowly and then headed into town again by bike to do more shopping and eating! Had lunch at a lovely french café and bought a few pictures before heading back late afternoon to chill out at the hotel and make friends with what I think was a sloth (the animal perhaps I’m most like!).

Then after a few phone / Skype calls to family, we headed back into town once more for a rather posh meal at the Aspara (again, posh for here – still only the price of a meal for 2 at Pizza Express in the UK probably!). The meal was magnificent! It was all very well flavoured and interesting combinations -I had buffalo sausages with chilli jam, followed by duck curry with a refreshing cucumber & ginger dipping sauce – YUM YUM YUM! All washed down with a bottle of rosé and we were both rather happy. A perfect meal for my birthday.

Once we were done with our upper-class meal, we headed to a bar where we met the 4 Scots from Vang Vieng for a few more drinks. (Lizzy had tried to arrange their being there as a surprise for me, but then I waded in and arranged it myself anyway, so that took the wind out of her sails – oops!).

On returning to the hotel room, there was a big surprise – A CAKE! In fact it was a surprise for Lizzy too really since she’d mentioned that it was my birthday to the hotel, but wasn’t sure they were going to do anything.

We were too full to eat much of it, so it’s now in our rucksack awaiting a convenient time for us to demolish it. Will they let it through customs? We hope so, because now it’s off to Hanoi, Vietnam!

Took a 5 hour bus through the mountains to Vang Vieng where the weather was sunny (hadn’t seen the sun since leaving Thailand).

Spent the next day tubing down the river, stopping at the bars (check out the menu- yep it’s all illegal, and no of course not), swinging on the ropes and jumping into the water.

The actual stretch of water that you tube down is 6 km long and we were stupidly advised before we went (flipping Kiwis – why are we going to live in their country?! ) that we didn’t really need to get a tube but we thought we’d get one and share it anyway…

Needless to say, further downstream (which the Kiwis blatantly never made it to) the river becomes very shallow, fast and rocky and  poor Alex (who’d insisted I take the tube) got scratched and bruised and lost his watch & wedding ring (fortunately only cheap replacements for the real thing!). However he wasn’t too sad (see below).

Had a wicked time, met 4 Scots who we hung out with which was a lot of fun. We also enjoyed watching Friends and Family Guy which were the only things played by EVERY bar in town rather bizarrely (although we’re almost ashamed to admit we enjoyed it but after a month of no TV, it was pretty good!)

The next morning, we got the bus back to Luang Prabang.

Interesting facts about Loas- The Americans (God bless ‘em) dropped 2 million tonnes of bombs on this beautiful land in the 60′s and 70′s.  30% failed to detonate so walking off tracks is generally unadvisable. Unfortunately, some of the locals risk their limbs and lives now trying to scrap the bombs in for money! It’s a very poor country.

Anyway, onto happier notes! Luang Prabang is pretty and chilled out. Did a day trip to Kouang Xi Waterfalls which was gorgeous.

Also saw a legit bear sanctuary which was pretty amazing.

 Spent the rest of the time wandering the night markets and riding round the city.

We’d be travelling a whole month and were yet to change countries, so we figured it was time to correct that. For our last night in Thailand we stayed in a lovely guesthouse on the banks of the Mekong (Baanrimtaling Home Stay) with friendly and well-informed hosts.  They gave us good advice about crossing the next day and shared plenty of stories. After a lot of discussing and changing of minds (one 5 minutes before we were due to leave!) we opted for the 2-day slow boat trip down the Mekong from Huay Xai (the Lao town opposite Thailand’s Chaing Khong) to Luang Prabang, which ended up being rather eventful!

We’d been warned that transport in Laos is somewhat unreliable, but were still taken a little aback when our slow boat broke down after just 1 hour on the move. An hour or so later another boat came along and we all had to step across onto that one whilst moored in the middle of the mighty Mekong:

The second boat was, unfortunately, rather smaller than the first, so there was a bit of a fight for seats and we spent the next 7 hours packed in like hot, sweaty sardines, but still enjoying the amazing scenery and weather as we glided down the river.

The overnight was spent at a rather grubby town called Pak Beng, which seems to only exist to provide basic mafia-run accommodation to slow-boaters. Next morning we were on the boat at 7.20am to get ourselves a seat (we were in the first 10 to do so, so got nice ones!). It was only later it became apparent that 2 boats would do the second leg, so there was actually plenty of space. This day took everyone by surprise as it was actually COLD! People ended up in sleeping bags, cowering behind umbrellas etc. Lizzy had her normal clothes, pyjamas, my shirt and a poncho on to keep her warm. Very annoying that our main packs were stowed below deck, so we couldn’t access our really warm stuff! Anyway, we arrived in Luang Prabang ahead of schedule to begin getting to know Laos.

On our last day in Chiang Mai, we did a 5-hour Thai massage course. It was very interesting, but rather tiring on the thumbs! So, we may offer free massages to friends & family

Then we went on to the Chiang Mai Sunday night market, which is immense! We walked around it for about 2 hours (I stopped for a 30 min foot massage whilst Lizzy carried on shopping) and still we didn’t see half of it! It’s a shame we’re going to so many lovely markets, selling very nice things, but having to resist the urge to buy much since we have no space in our bags for it!

And then the next morning we got up early to leave Chiang Mai to get to Chiang Khong which is on the Thailand / Laos border…

Decided to do a two day trek in the hills, visiting a couple of tribes. Loved the activities but didn’t think much of the first guide (who managed to lose 3 of the people in the jungle…fortunately they managed to find their own way to our camp!!). Also didn’t like having my arse eaten by a load of evil insects while we sat down waiting for our guide to return… OUCH!

Showering in a river was a new experience for both of us, but still very pleasant after sweating buckets on the walk. The next day we swam in some waterfalls, did some white water rafting (which was far safer than our truck ride to the water!) and did some more elephant riding. Before we arrived here, we’d already been told about a very ‘naughty’ baby elephant. We spotted it quite quickly when half way through our elephant ride, a baby elephant came charging through the jungle, hotly pursued by its mahout (elephant trainer). All the fully grown elephants were quick to step out of his way (fortunately we were holding on!) and eventually the mahout managed to jump on his back and slow him down. The other baby elephant was really cute too and kept touching us all with his trunk. I think Elephants are my favourite animals…unfortunately Alex doesn’t think our garden is big enough to have one as a pet