Welcome to South East Asia

We got away with it for the whole day yesterday...almost.

It was overcast in the morning and lovely during the day. Sarah and I decided to hit ladies night at the Hive Bar (half price cocktails for win), and, towards the end of the evening the weather suddenly changed.

In a matter of seconds it went from 'Oh my gosh it's so warm...why won't someone point that fan at us??' to sitting in a gale force wind, leaves being blown all over the place.

I looked at Sarah and said 'I think it's going to rain', and sure enought we felt a spot of rain. You've never seen two women exit a bar so quickly. Our hostel is straight down the road and across an intersection. As we walked down the road at a pace the wind just kept picking up and the rain got heavier. I imagined the headlines about 2 British tourists being beheaded by flying shopfronts.

We managed to get back to the hostel before it all really kicked off, but we were pretty damp and covered in grit that the wind had swept up from the road.

Sexy

Welcome to South East Asia..

Uh Oh

Uh Oh.

Grey, overcast and a bit on the chilly side again today. Pong reckons a 50/50 chance of rain.

I'm supposed to be doing a cooking class under lovely pagodas and such next to the Meh Kong River today.

Fingies crossed for ok weather!

Tarrahz xx

Baby when the lights...go out

Something unprecedented happened in Luang Prabang yesterday. It rained in April.

You could tell from the morning that it was grey and overcast. Then at about 2ish the wind set in. I was eating and chatting with a girl called Lenny from Norway, and she said 'this is what it was like in Indonesia before the rain hit'.

We decided to see if we could get back to our hostels before it hit, but on the way we passed a mad Lao family who were having some kind of New Year beer celebration outside their shop and we were dragged in to join the festivities. Sure enough, soon the heavens opened. We were stuck, they kept pouring us more and more beer and there was no way we could go out in that torrential downpour.

Or could we?

Sod it, after a few minutes we dumped our bags in the shop and ran out into the middle of the rain, dancing with everyone else. It only took about 2 seconds flat to get completely soaked.

Then the electricity went off....the music stopped and all the lights went out, pretty much calling an end to the party. We wandered home to get showers and then meet up later for dinner but when I got back there was no water because of the eipc waterfights...and even if there had been, I couldn't see what the hell I was doing. The electricity had gone out at the hostel to.

So in the end, I spent the evening drinking beer by candlelight with most of the other people back at the lodge.

Tis a hard life...but someone has to do it!

Today I'm off to lunch at Tamarind which has had rave reviews from some of the people I've spoken to here. They also do cooking classes, so if that's not too expensive I'll book one for tomorrow and take lots of lovely piccies for you guys.

The Land of Smiles

It really is...they smile even whilst they're pouring buckets of water over your head.

It's Pii Mai Lao and those kids are out in force. The last few days in Luang Prabang have been one huge waterfight. You LITERALLY can't go out without getting soaked. Kids are lined up along every street with huge barrels of water and water pistols/bottles/buckets/anything that will hold water....and they will chase you if (when) you run. Pick up trucks full of teenagers drive around the streets with big barrels of water soaking passers by, and being soaked by the kids at the side of the road.

So what can we do? Except fight back. Luang Prabang must make a mint in water pistols at this time of year. Yesterday I had to change my clothes twice after I came back drenched and covered in talcum power that a lovely little 2 year old had smeared all over my face (I let her, I even crouched down..she was too sweet to resist).

It's absolute craziness and I'm glad I'm here to join in :D. Just have to protect the camera! It's actually run the town dry, there's no water coming out of the showers or to flush the toilets lol.

So, other than the water.....what does Luang Prabang have to offer?

Everything.

I'm totally in love with the place.

The only annoying thing is the curfew, bars have to stop serving at 11pm and have everyone out by midnight. It's very strict and places can be shutdown for breaking the law. The Lao have gotten around it though. After the bars close there are tuk tuks waiting to take you to 'secret parties'. Secret my arse. On our first night we pulled up outside a massive noisy warehouse with neon lights outside. The police quite obviously take backhanders from these places in return for not closing them down. They stand passively by, looking in the opposite direction as tuk tuks overloaded with drunken hooting falang drive past.

Even these places shut relatively early, between 1 and 3am.

Over the past few days I've climbed to the temple on the hill to see the Buddhas footprint (Buddha must have been pretty huge to make that thing), eaten in traditional Lao style, balling the sticky rice up and dipping it in sauces and been shown around town by locals. Some of the people in our group were busy waterfighting when they suddenly heard cries of BEERLAO!! They turned around to find Ary and his younger sister Noi from the slowboat. Today they took us to their houses and fed us some traditional Lao food, and then walked us around the city, showing us the sights and taking us to places we might not have otherwise have realised were there.

They're possibly the most kind and generous people I'e ever met, and they never stop smiling! I'm not sure I'll find this in any of the other SE Asian countries, apart from possibly the less touristed areas of Indonesia, so I'm really enjoying their company.

I Heart Laos :D

Pictures soon, I'll get them stuck on a DVD :)

Ethnic fashion show at the Hive Bar

Pii Mai Lao (Lao New Year) zodiac banners

Hmong tribe tourist night market

Buddha at Phousi Hill Temple

Gorgeous fish curry

Not as gorgeous traditional Lao fare

That might be enough for now, you'll get bored, plus...my computer is slowing down. I think it might die if I push it any further!!

The Slowboat of Fun

I'm so glad I decided to take the slowboat to Laos, it was an experience I wouldn't have wanted to miss.

The actual border crossing itself was quite stressful, you took a longtail ferry across the Meh Kong river where you picked up your passport (which had been removed from us the day before..much to our angst) and visa. Then we got a tuk tuk to the slowboat pier where we were installed in a shop and told that we should book a room through them, stock up on food as there would be none on the boat(lie) and that we should change money with them as they don't take baht or US dollars in Laos (double lie).

This was all so stressful that we had to have a beerlao at 10am.....and we didn't stop until about 3pm by which time we had practically drunk to boat dry, and by 3:30 we were snoozing like babies.


Overnight in Pak Beng was ok, you could fit the entire town onto the palm of one hand (exaggeration?). I shared a room with Katrin, the shower was a very poor show in the evening and the next morning there was barely any water at all. Lovely view of the river though.

The next day started out looking like it would be horrible. It was a different boat and the seats weren't good so we headed to the back and snagged an area where we could sit on the floor. It turned out to be the best thing we could do. A Lao family (brother, 3 sisters, mum and elderly uncle) were sat opposite us, and a little way into the journey they started sharing out the big bottles of beerlao they'd brought with them. So we subsequently started buying from the bar to replace what they'd shared with us and everyone got quite drunk. They were great and spoke a little english, we spoke almost no Lao, and it all disintegrated into screams of 'BEERLAO!!!' by the end.

A really old dude got on halfway through the trip and was loving the fact that he was being bought beer and snacks by all the drunken falang (caucasians). He spoke no english whatsoever.

All in all a most excellent journey, one of the highlights by far so far! I might be able to get some pics up for you later once I locate a card reader, I'm so buying one once I get to Hanoi!

What I'll remember most about Chiang Khong: Drinks in a bar by the Meh Kong

What I'll remember most about Pak Beng: Bedbugs and good indian food.

I'm Alive!!

That's all for now :o)

More later, I'm off to teach some kids to speak English, and I'll probably get soaked in the process....wonderful Lao New Year :D xxx

Passport Photos

I didn't mention (or did I?) that I went to get some passport photos taken yesterday.

I was taken up to a photo studio affair, the lady didn't speak much English, but kept laughing at me for reasons I cannot understand. I don't think I can keep a straight face for the camera, when one is pointed at me I automatically screw my face up into some contortion or another.

Being concious of this I tried to keep as straight a face as possible, which consequently leads to me looking miserable as sin. When she showed me the photo she had a little smile on her face and I just rolled my eyes at it....'orrible, but it'll do.

I also piled all my hair up into a bun, I figured it was the easiest and safest hairstyle to replicate at the border (but only adds to the stern grumpy look). When I was sitting later watching the guy looking at the pic I saw him first scroll down to my boobs, then up to my head, and then he started photoshopping off little bits of hair that were sticking out at random.

He was photoshopping my visa pictures! Is this not illegal?

I also suspect that he did something with my skintone to make me look less red and shiny, I mean, I'm grateful....but what happens when I turn up at the border, hair askew and puffing like an angry lizard?

'No...this is definitely not the same person...send her away, better yet, send her to jail, because if it IS her then these are photoshopped. NORTY!!'

I love Asia....