sabaai dii, hawng suam yuu sai?

since i last wrote we have left cambodia and travelled from ho chi minh city in the south of vietnam to hanoi in the north stopping off at nha trang and hue on the way. vietnam is beautiful, the food is really interesting but as i only have 20 mins left and want to talk about laos thats about all i can say. i think the things that sum vietnam up for me were the huge market in ho chi minh which is surrounded by main roads and no crossings so basically you have to walk out into the road which is incrediably scary when 60 or more motorbikes are racing towards you. i found that following a local is a safer options although i did feel like a loser sheltering behind tiny old ladies.

the market is divided up into different sections selling beautiful brightly coloured fruits, fake designer clothing, jewels and many food stalls. my least favourite area is the meat section which smells sickly sweet and the stalls are covered with tiny roasted bird on a stick, chicken heads, pigs head, strips of meat hanging everywhere and sometimes a whole roasted dog. needless to say i have been eating a lot of vegetarian food since.

on to laos which is the most beautiful country we have visited so far. limestone mountains covered in trees, rice fields everywhere and tiny villages made up of wooded houses on stilts. vang vieng is about 3 hours from vientiene and has to be seen to be believed, after nothing but local settlements and beautiful countryside the bus pulled into the main street of the village. as soon as i got off the bus i could hear a familiar television programme blaring from all but one of the many bars that lined the street and yes it was 'Friends' and the only bar that wasnt showing friends was showing family guy! its like freshers week gone mad, with drunk people crying and shouting in the streets, people wandering around in practically nothing showing no respect for the locals and dozens of tourists just lying around in bars watching episodes of friends.

tubing is the activity that draws most people to this area and this is basically where you hire a big rubber ring and float down the river. sounds ok but along the river banks there are numerous bars so most people end up drinking a lot and tubing which wasnt really that appealing to me.

on the first full day we met a lovely girl from taiwan called Ling, after some persuasion i gave in and we arranged to go tubing the next day. we met at 10am when everyone else was sleeping off their hangovers and along with about 6 other people hired tubes and lifejackets and actually it was fun, i only had one drink - a delicious fruit shake, but it was really relaxing floating down the river admiring the views.

after the success of tubing we decided to hire bikes and cycle to some caves on the other side of the river. over the bridge we experienced a teeth chattering ride on the most uneven path ever during which i was sure my bike would fall apart, passing heards of friendly cows, locals shouting hello to us and rice fields until we reached the caves. here we met 3 english guys and so the 6 of us along with our two extremely young guides made our way to the cave. between us we had 2 torches, a small torch on a lighter and a wind up torch which would have been enough however after the first big cave which housed a huge gold buddah we were beckonned by our guides to an opening further into the cave. so we followed them in and gradually the tunnel got smaller and smaller until we were all crawling on our stomachs absolutely covered in mud and slightly worried. one of the english guys had already hit his head on the cave ceiling and was bleeding so when someone suggested turning back we would have done so but with no room to even stand up let alone turn around meant we had to carry on. finally we saw daylight and as we exited the cave we lavished praise and money on our young guides and practically danced with glee at our escape from almost certain death. on our bikes we hopped and i dont think i was the only one likening us to the famous five, except with 6 and no lashings of ginger beer.

head to toe with mud we had heard tell of a crystall clear blue lagoon just a 20 minute cycle away so off we all cycled and after about only 5 minutes we reached what we thought was the lagoon. we paid a tiny old man the entrance fee and followed him through a rice field to the foot of a mountain. at the entrance to a cave was a large pool which didnt quite fit the description at all so when our elderly guide told us to follow him into the cave we assumed the lagoon was just around the corner. about 30 minutes later slipping, sliding clinging to mud covered rocks we realised we werent on our way to a lagoon, we had been tricked! more caving, more mud and after telling each other we were never going into a cave again. it was really funny and was the best day i had in vang vieng.

we are now in luang prabang which is a world heritage town. everyday at 4.30pm the street infront of our guesthouse is closed to vehicles and turns into a massive street market selling clothes, scarfs, earings, and lots lots more. last night i had a super delicious cup of laos coffee and only slept for about 2 hours so it must be pretty strong stuff!

love to everyone! in the next installment i will write a few laos recipes which i have enjoyed very much. apologies for the awful spelling, punctuation and sentance construction but after a few hours sleep and a weird coffee high my english is very poor. xxxxx