Matt and Milly do South East Asia: February 2015

Tues 3 Feb

Pancake for breakfast, then all aboard for the Slow boat to Luang Prabang, it's a 2 day trip with an overnight stop at Pack Beng. Each leg is 110,000 kip each.

We got to the dock early, got our tickets from the little office and were onboard by 9, got good seats. We didn't leave until nearly 12!! We were a bit keen!

The seats are like coach seats, pretty comfortable watching the scenery go by. Got chatting to a nice couple from London, Charlie and Harry, her grandmother started the famous 'River cafe'. We use some of the recipes from their books at Cafe Espresso, Exeter. Small world!

A lovely first day, relaxing and watching the scenery go by, arrived in Pak Beng at 17.45,

just up the hill we found a guesthouse for £8. Matt had the best local curry of the trip so far. Then we nearly got ran over. A local was speeding round a bend when the bike slid out from under him and slid right across the road in front of us. The local women came out of there shops and gave him what for!

Up early, sat having a coffee and the monks came by collecting their alms

Elephants on the bank in the morning. Yes they are there, zoom in and find them.

We bought tickets on the boat for the next leg to Luang Prabang, 110,000 each and climbed aboard with a picnic lunch made by our guesthouse. Left at 9.30am, a chilly and misty start.

Saw some Macques on the bank :-), no pic though, sorry.

The boat stopped on the outskirts of Luang Prabang, 10 km away from where we thought.

The agro Italians on board decided to stage a sit in as we hadn't been dropped at the town quay!

The captain left and went home for his dinner! We couldn't get our bags as they were in the hold.

An hour later we managed to get off and got a tuk tuk into town, 20,000 each (£1.50). No big deal really, although it does seem like a money making setup. We were told the big boats aren't allowed to drop off in town anymore, although we did see the boats moored up there the next day!

Found a little guest house near the Royal Palace museum.

Enema anyone?

Thursday 5

Luang Prabang is on a peninsular, French influenced architecture, lots of old colonial buildings. The Mekong on one side and the Nam Khan on the other. Found a great cafe with good coffee and pastries for breakfast, yummy. A pretty town, Easy on the eye. Huge market.

Fri 6

Nice cloudy day, booked flights to Cambodia. Climbed Phu Si, 329 steps up! Great views of mountains, town and rivers both sides.

Royal palace museum, bit boring really, nice to get out of the sun though

Sat 7

Got up at 5.30 to see the monks collecting their alms. It was awful, with Japanese and Chinese tourists chasing them with cameras. Pretty disrespectful. Should have stayed in bed!

Hired a moped, went off to Kuang Si waterfalls, beautiful place.

We enjoyed Luang Prabang :-)

Sat 31 Jan

Hired a moped for a couple days, Matt looks at the map and decides we should head to the 'Golden Traiangle' where the Mekong flows between Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. It was 63km, so we reckoned it'd take about an hour.........

The clock tower roundabout

...............4 hours later, after one wrong turn, no signs and back roads, we finally made it.

And, well, it wasn't really worth the sore bums.

Laos across the river, Myanmar straight ahead

Filling up

The journey back was awful, busy roads, sore butts and getting late. But at least we did it in 1 1/2 hours. I think we'll stick to buses for longer trips in future.

Sun 1 Feb

A more local trip today :-). Went to Wat Rong Khun, 'The White Temple', an artistic take on a Buddist Temple designed by Chalermchai Kositpipat, a local artist.

Ghoulish cones at the entrance

Predator...!

From what I can gather, the bridge represents the cycle of rebirth, the hands reaching up represent unguarded desire, you must cross the bridge without succumbing, once you cross the bridge there are two figures deciding your fate.

The inside of the temple has a mural with Buddist images and Western evils and temptations including such images as nuclear explosions, Superman, Kung Fu panda...I kid you not, a minion, Jack Sparrow, Darth Vader, Batman, Michael Jackson etc etc.

Strange.

After lunch we visited 'The Black Temple', created by a student of 'The White Temple' creator.

It was a bit shit really. Full of animal furs, skins, sculls, bones etc and other weird objects....

Picked up some presents for friends back home

Hit the country roads to the 'Buddah Cave', by the river, watched a local fishing.

Drove on, then spotted a MASSIVE Buddah being built, I mean massive, about 200 ft high, a sitting Buddah in a Lous flower.

Well, we had some surreal times here, including stumbling across the park with some kind of flower fairy show...life sized manikins, music and flowers, lots of Japanese and Chinese taking photos. Felt liked we'd been beamed up to another planet.

Line dancing locals, well, actually circle dancing locals, all doing the actions to loud music by the market one night and the national anthem blaring out of the local police station as we sat in traffic outside, it sounded like the Trumpton theme tune. I got the giggles.

Whilst Chiang Rai isn't a pretty place to look at, it's pretty scruffy and dirty really, it has a lovely relaxed feel about it, an amazing night food market and there is plenty to see around the area, well worth a few days.

Mon 2 Feb

Off to Laos...got a ramshackle local bus to Chiang Khong from the night bazar station.

£1.10 for a 3 hour trip, we were the only farangs (foreigners).

A strange farang on the bus

We asked to be dropped by the border crossing bridge (the tourist buses drop you 11km further on, forcing you to get a Tuktuk back, another money making scam).

Got dropped where we wanted and then a short Tuktuk ride to the immigration office, they take your Thai visa away and through you go, then a bus over 'Friendship bridge' to the passport office (only 20tb)

Goodbye Thailand..........................................................................................Hello Laos!

Then fill ill in visa on entry forms, hand over a passport photo at one desk, collect from another desk, pay 35US Dollars each. That's it. You're in. Walk through, jump into another Tuktuk into Huay Xai, about 10km, 100thb each.

What a scruffy town, checked into a place called Friendship guesthouse, £6 a room!

This is why....