Buying Pressies in Hanoi

Found a street full of Stamp makers (in the old quarter the streets traditionally had one occupation or craft in them, and this continues today)

Made a deal with the guy (read i got stung when i thought i was showing my stunning bargaining skills-not)

The speed with which he made the stamps was amazing (his knuckles showed the signs that he wasnt always as fast or as skilled!)

Joe and Nate have a stamp each on the way, as does Yvonne (got to the international post office today to send 3 parcels across the world)

His work area was a doorway, his desk one of the many multi use plastic seats that make you bend like a contortionist each time you sit at one!

Hanoi Images

I thought it looked too ordered to be graffitti, Its the names and numbers of plasterers on some of the cities plastered walls.

One of the many Cyclos that play their way around the Old Quarter, i havent been on one yet (not sure if its a "you look like the Sahib being taken on a ride to see the natives" sort of thing or i just dont dig slow moving transport)

A giant fruit at the temple, like a massive bright green orange!?

hehe, i got to watch the All Blacks on the tele in my room! (not the best game but.... it lines up next week for a cracker!)

Fruit Boy

More Hanoi vids

Hanoi Pagoda visit

Bumping into the French guy and his Vietnamese partner in Sa Pa was one thing, bumping into them, in Hanoi quite another!

They took me to see her village and the beautiful Pagoda there

The place was very peaceful and yet different to the temples i have visited in Laos and Cambodia (a case of Same same but different!)

We gave offerings in the temple and i followed his lead as best i could, it seemed to make sense and no-one gave us a second look which was a relief.

After the visit i caught a cpl of buses back into the city (feeling very clever and "like a local" i didnt think anything of the crush around me as rush hour caught me. Unfortuantely i must have seemed like any easy target because the cellphone in my front pocket got taken without me feeling a thing :(

I have emailed Vodaphone but strangely they havent rushed back a reply!? lol

Electric storm Hanoi

Hanoi

Some of the posters from the Propoganda Store

My last day in Hanoi

Im going to be making my own way to Halong Bay (No tours for me, im not sure why the "road less travelled" seems better than the "road led by tour guides")

I will upload some video taken in Hanoi

So where to begin?!

Its been a long time!

My scars are healing (cut the stitches out myself in Dien Bien Phu), not as rugged as it sounds.

Crossed over the border from Laos which was slightly surreal (misty mountains, erie quiet, friendly Lao, Super Tense Vietnamese border guards

The visit to DBP was awesome, a very quiet town with a fairly interesting history. Met lots of locals, bought the T-shirt, etc etc

One of the knocked out tanks from the battle at Dien Bien phu

So after a few days there i travelled down to Sapa

Sapa is a hill town that looks like something out out of the Alps

It is populated by a heap of hill tribes who come to the town to sell their cloting, jewellery, and meet the tourists.

The first you usually meet are the Hmong, the Black Hmong are the most forward, the kids (usually girls in their early teens come up and give you grief unless you buy one of their trinkets)

It is a very funny experience watching new tourists blown away by these kids but not so funny if they set their sights on you!

The most ornate are the Red Dao (pronounced Zao), the headresses are amazing and the whole town square is filled with up to 6 tribes all dressed traditionally (the funny thing is t see the younger kids at the end of the day, they are often changed into modern clothes)

Ok, you might be asking why these images look kinda like i went to Google and typed in Sapa, well my clever viewers it is because i did!

Having no camera other than my phone meant my photo memories of the last month hhavent been great, but wait it gets worse!

All te images, videos etc that i did have on my phone are now the property of the person who pick pocketed me in Hanoi today! Oh yeah!!

It was on a crowded bus, blah blah blah, never felt a thing.

Im gutted cos of the pics ive lost but....... and now having to email Vodaphone to see just how they might "help" a loyal customer in these circumstances.

You can just see it now, i have to go to the local police, get a form they cant read to then be scanned or mailed! to NZ, damn thieves.

So, to sum up.

Back streets Hanoi- The Old Quarter

Im happy in Hanoi, i have got a new camera! (evidence to follow) my visa is being sorted and i will soon be off to Halong Bay, oh and i met a French man who has marred a Vietnamese girl who i saw in Sapa in the street today and i went to visit his new home village, very cool.

So now here are the pics i took today, it feels weird having a camera again but it is great to be collecting images.

Images from the Military Museum

If it feels weird seeing a huey in Hanoi, try seeing it with a class of Vietnamese kids (yep it was field trip day today!)

I had a giggle watching the kids do what kids do, play tag on the machines, chat to each other during the video sessions etc etc (same same but same)

The long arm of the law doesnt allow Dad and Junior to climb the trees for a photo op in Hanoi!

I will post more pics tomorrow, im off to email Voadfone now :(

Plain of Jars

The landscape of Laos constantly takes your breath away. From hillside villages shrouded in mist to lowlands pounded into submission by thousands of high explosives (at one time there was a US airstrike in Laos every 8 mins, this went on for close to 9 years!)

The Plain of Jars certainly showed the evidence of 30 years of fighting, the remains of trenches and bomb craters was still fresh, as were the warning signs

The role of NZaid was good to see, the warning signs more effective than any "Keep of the grass"' signs!

Once through the entrance you come across this lovely area of rolling hills, very little tree life is there (a big difference from much of Laos) and studded all over the landscape are theses large stone Urns.

They were carved from solid stone and the size of some beggers belief (the reason for them is shrouded in folklore and beliefs range from Funeral functionaries to "godlike" creations

The lids on some suggest that storage of something precious may have been part of their function.

The surreal mixing of ancient art and mans detritus of war constantly clashed, many of the jars had been used as part of fighting trenches that could still be seen, along with huge craters from the many American B52 Arclight strikes that obliterated so much of the province.

The amount of UXO in the area is astounding, every house seems to have airplane drop tanks or defused shells as gate posts, while rusty AK47 parts and 'bomblets" part of the US cluster bombs are still found/killing people today.

I will miss this area, it has a battered feel to it, but people are just getting on with their lives. I may have a souvenir of my stay here to show when i get back.

;-)

Why did the Lao chicken cross the road?

To turn our motorbike journey to the historic plain of jars into something else entirely. Animals and stray objects are a fairly frequent obstacle on any asian road but today they got me.
As im writing this im not too badly bashed up, i was driving and Rosie was on the back taking pics, we braked and had to swerve to miss a chicken and bang we were on the ground sliding. i tried to stay on top of the bike but the combined weight of rosie and me meant we went over the handlebars.
My beautiful and hiterto untouched face now has a series of scars in new places, the first being my right eyebrow and the second being my right lip, my elbows and knees are scrapped up pretty good but in reality we were lucky, Rosie thank god has only a broken camera and a knuckle scrape.
We got the bike going and bleeding drove back to a Lao military hospital that we had seen earlier, much excitement from the staff and they patched me up pretty well.
I made sure i was staunch so the Lao couldnt tell stories about the wimpy falang!
I have a host of drugs to take to stop infection and i will take it easy over the next week (i know i will feel a whole lot worse tomorrow! the aching rib is sure to make sleep interesting)
We are still planning to leave to go Nth towards the border with Vietnam im going to visit Dien Bien Phu (what a history geek!)
I will send in a claim form for the damages and medical costs (kinda ate a chunk of the Kip i had for this part of the trip but cant be helped)
Not a great end to what had been a very cool time here in Phonsavan (last nite we met a group of guitar playing Lao guys who showed us how Lao party, then we gatecrashed a party in a restaurant and had fun dancing with an assortment of Lao (many ages and genders) to the stirring vocals and keyboard of the Lao "wedding singer". Very cultural indeed.
I will post some pics and stuff on the blog soon (im starting to ache all over now, so its off to bed and rest for the night, off to the early morning bus tomorrow!)

More pics from tubing

Not having your own camera is a pain but....

What can go wrong

Tubing Videos

Tubing in Vang Vieng

Well Vang Vieng has proved to be a bundle of giggles wrapped up in an inner tube

The main feature of the town is a beautiful river meandering past imposing Karst cliffs.

So what do backpackers from all over the world do in such a place?

They rent tractor inner tubes and go "Tubing"

Tubing involves minutes of relaxing paddling down stream broken by seconds of terro as you throw yourself off high towers and wire swings into the river.

The seconds before you jump are the toughest

This is helped by generous servings of LaoLao which makes the dangers seem less real.

Hitting the water at speed!

The danger was real as the following pics show

Before

After

The group i am travelling with at the moment, several Aussies, two Brits and a Kiwi.

As a group Ben, Joe and Rosie broke new ground in dangerous flips and somersaults (certainly impressed the Europeans!)

The water was lovely and cool and usually fairly deep (we soon learnt to read the river and avoid the shallow rapids which hurt any part of your body that was hanging in the water!!

The cliffs rise up in jagged peaks, much like parts of the 3 Gorges region in China and parts of Vietnam

As the afternoon wore on we took part in a large game of "throw the mud" an easy game to pick up and a welcome break from the leaping and floating.

The elderly asian tourists who decided to come and photograph the "crazy falang" got more than they bargained for when we leapt on them as they posed for their photos, i think the pictures they got were worth the mud! One of the ladies came back for repeat photos! lol

Im moving on soon, going up towards the Plain of Jars ( we will probably hire motorbikes again which makes travelling quicker and easier)

Laos

Where to start?!

Arrived in Pakse, hired a motorbike with some friends and rode up to Tad lo to view lots of amazing waterfalls, took lots of pictures (and lost my camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Im now reduced to copying the photos of my travelling buddies to show you what i have been doing!
Not a Happy Camper.

Don Det

A very pretty place to spend some quiet time, no power most of the day means the usual noise that surrounds "traveller haunts" is missing, which is something you only realise after a day or two of being near Khmer or Laos Karaoke TV!

The island is connected to another of the 400 islands by an old French bridge, we got the Aussie guy to drive along the rim (he made it , sorry hehehe)

The waterfall at the end of the road made the long cycle worth while but i guess it was the people and the place itself that made Don det so relaxing

Mr and Mrs Egg's baby (possibly the most photographed baby on the island, specialised in looking cute and picking cats up by the neck)

The island was a mix of traditional Laos farmers and fisherman and guesthouses. You were woken at 5am by cockerills crowing and water bufflao "mooing"? The ever present chickens and multitude of cats and dogs made me feel very much at home.

The cats and dogs not only dont fight but leave all the other animals alone?! not sure how they do this as they are not "owned" by any one family rather just live in the village.

Watched a family transplanting rice shoots for a day and will never complain about how a task i have been given is a "back breaker" almost non stop the group of mainly woman moved up and down transplanting shoots. Apparently some of the local farmers felt the the rainy season had come early last month because of a week of steady rain and planted their crops. They are now working hard to keep them from dying as the ground hardens into a brick like quality. A good example how hand to mouth the locals live that they were carrying buckets by hand up from the river to irrigate their crops!

Saw what Lao kids do for fun they bomb each other off a tree over the mekong and race cars made of empty plastic bottles. Less pleasent i guess they also catch birds and make pets of them by tying their legs with string.

The speed of life is much slower in Laos it seems and you only realise it when you stop shooting from one destination to the next and watch.

The other aspect of life that i guess you see more often is how families tend to be all together, so that grandparents are there (often as babysitters and helpers) as well as the extended family.

The ever present Buddist monks who must wonder why all the travellers jump out and photograph them whenever they walk along the street in a line with their umbrellas up. (it is a shot you see in every travellers gallery! lol mine's from Angkor)

Will hopefully have some pics of hill tribes weaving (maybe even buy some textiles) waterfalls and elephants next time

See you soon

OK, I have been slack at this, but there is a reason

hmmm, now what was the reason!?

Last time i was in Phnom staying with Yvone and Gary. Lots of being spoilt which was super appreciated.

I left for Steng Treng (the gateway city for crossing to Laos) with a cpl of Aussies and a Brit

We had to go overland to the smallest and least organised customs post in the world i think, where a cpl of guards asked for a "stamp tax" of $1 We paid as the idea of being not in Cambodia but not in Laos didnt appeal!

We then got picked up in a small boat and crossed the mekong to one of the 4000 Islands (dont freak, i think the 4000 is kinda like the "90 Mile beach" just a figure of speech)

They are a group of idyllic islands that you go around by bike (im talking one speed 1950s wheels here) there is no power most of the time and you have these unbelievable sunsets every night. Great for getting to know the travellers around you, and for getting bitten by flying beasties.

In case anyone is thinking im travelling first class i will post a pic of your usual "facilities" and you will understand quite how uncomfortable it can be when you get an attack of "stomach bug" at 1 in the morning!

It laid me low for a few days and that linked to a severe lack of internet connections meant i had not fixed my blog in a while! wow almost as bad an excuse as "My dog ate my modem"

While in Don Det i went to a beautiful waterfall, in exploring round it we found a dam at the top which you could swim in (it was safeish!) we played in there till we got bored and climbed over the edge and down under the falls (the feeling of being a surfer in a tubve of water is the only way i can explain it ) i will post pics from there soon.

Today i packed up and moved on to Pakse, a little town which acts as a hub for the south of Laos. With the people im travelling with i will get a motorbike and go on a 3 day trek into the villages of the south, to see waterfalls, minority tribes and elephants.

Im looking forward to it and a little nervous as it is my first time riding a manuel motorbike.

:)

See you soon