Wow Laos indeed! We sped through Laos in only a couple of weeks, but we had so much fun and met loads of really lovely people, from west and east.
There are two sides to this calm country. On the one side you find the lush green never-ending countryside, where people still work the land. Here are the wooden shacks on stilts, chickens pecking their way round the dusty tracks. Life is simple and slow. Apparently most children in Laos have never even seen a book, let alone read one.
On the other side of life you see the way the west have infiltrated this juvenile country. It’s only just reached it’s teens, hoping to catch up with it’s neighbouring older brothers who are getting rich quick and shedding their ‘developing world’ status. This is the side that caters for the extreme sport junkie and the rich holiday-maker.
Our first experience of this was in the rich ex-pat southern Continue Reading »
We finished our trip of Vietnam with two organised tours. I know it’s not the done thing for us traveller types to settle for the expensive easy route but it had been recommended and was well worth the money, even if the weather wasn’t included in the price. The first of which took us high up in to the hills to trek amongst the tribal villages of Sapa. And the second took us back down to sea-level to cruise among the beautiful karst limestone islands which towered above us in Halong Bay.
Sapa
We met our wonderful guide, called Si (pronounced the Spanish way, like See… or Sea). She was great, only 19 but very switched-on and kept us entertained with some good old sarcasm. She is the first in her family to leave the village for work. Her father works in his paddy fields which serves to feed the family and it will be expected that her younger brothers continue to toil in the fields.
Continue Reading »
It’s all too much; first we go paragliding in Pokhara, then we head off to this place north of Kathmandu near the Tibetan boarder (The Last Resort, hugely overpriced and badly run) to go white water rafting and on the following day I did a 180m bungee jump. Then, after walking up the side of the gorge (45mins in sweltering heat) we go and do the world’s biggest bridge swing!
Things got a bit out of hand you see, Helen even went back for seconds, jealous I was.
Not much to say about it all except we strongly advise anyone to do a bridge swing like this if they ever get the chance. 8 seconds of falling, you run out of scream and you can’t keep your eyes open.
A very big thank you to Chad for his rafting pics that one of the kayak guides took, they look fab :)
check ’em out
