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Journey through Asia. A Travel Log - Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos.


i eat babies

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Sorry I've been slacking...

 

Back on track.

This is a map of 'The loop'. A motorcycle tour around the Laotian countryside. We hooked up with a group of people at our hostel who also wanted to do it and we set of. The group consisted of me, Rik, two other Brits, a German couple, an Aussie chick, and Dutch chick and a half Lao/American chick. The trip was supposed to take between 3-5 days but because of the bikes we rented from a shifty chinaman being so unreliable it took us a week. The whole thing was a mixture of absolute calamity and incredible, unbeatable experiences. The group all became really close over the time and me and Rik ended up meeting or travelling for much of the rest of my trip. I also ended up fucking the Dutch chick for the trip and Rik got the Aussie.

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The crew in effect.

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As you can see the 'route' was hardly anything official. Many of the roads weren't maintained and were at the mercy of the elements.

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Crazy Dog beef.

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The first of many problems

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Loud little fella.

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Still flying around despite how fucked his wings were.

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More problems..

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Rik grabs an impromptu shower. When it rains in monsoon season, it really rains!

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One of the most stunning views I've ever seeen

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My socks after one day.

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hairy hairy caterpillar

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This is the entrance to Kong Lor cave, a 7km cave that you have to sail into as (in rainy season) it is also a river.

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Into the mouth of the cave.

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This was near the entrance to the cave. Once we got further in you couldn't see the light from your head torches bouncing off the walls anymore.

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It was in this cave that we encountered this guy:

World's largest spider

We saw this huge set of legs creeping over the side into the boat. The two locals looked just as shoock as us and were quick to beat the thing off the boat. My skin still crawls thinking about it.

 

Mountains and rice paddies for miles.

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Pushing the bike, managed to get it to 135km/h.

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Asphalt melting in the sun.

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I love views like this where there is no evidence of human interference..

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Sunset.

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This was at the end of a hard day riding along mountain dirt roads filled with potholes(and a result, puddles). We were all wet, muddy and in some cases, bloody. As you couldn't see how deep the potholes were, we'd all fallen off the bikes at least once during the day.

Rik happy to be on asphalt again..

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We sat in this roadside bar and got some food, these guys were all drinking beer and invited us over to drink with them. In Laos, they drink with just one bottle of beer and one glass between everyone. Whilst I'm sure this is partly due to financial reasons, but it also gets you fucking drunk quick as the next person is always egging you on to drink quicker so they can have their turn. We decided to buy everyone a beer, for which we were incredibly popular. We ended up sitting with them and getting shitfaced drunk, which resulted in several drunken mishaps as we left including someone knocking over the row of everyone's bikes and one of the girls driving her bike directly into a ditch. We made one hell of an exit!

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Mist rolling down the hills

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One of many stops at a 'rest station'.

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Another malfunctioning bike. This one totally gave up, so we put it into neutral and Rik used the bike and his leg to push her 40km back home.

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Fuck those hairy Caterpillars, those things have ruined too many of my days.

 

Also, regarding the spider:

'Distribution and habitat

 

The giant huntsman spider is found in Laos,[2] and is probably a cave dweller because of its pale colour, long legs and special hairs on the second foot of the male. There is no apparent reduction of the eyes, however, possibly because the species lives near cave entrances."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_huntsman_spider

 

Sounds about right, ehhh.

 

Surprising that they were only discovered in 2001.

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Surprising that they were only discovered in 2001.

 

Yeah. Like that quote down the bottom says, 'some of these species have no business just being discovered.'

To be honest though I suspect there is a certain amount western superiority going on. I reckon the locals knew about these things for ages but never thought to 'discover' them for western experts...

 

Damn. How did you guys wind up fixing the bikes? Did they give you tools for the trip just in case something like that happened? Or did you/someone you were with just happen to have them and know how to do the repairs?

 

Everybody from the age of about 6 upwards knows how to ride, take apart and fix bikes, as they are an integral part of life there. We usually just took the bikes to the nearest house and asked them to fix it. They had the tools and the knowledge and frequently the parts(and if they didn't, their neighbour did). Obviously we would give them some money for their trouble and pay for parts, but the disposition of the Lao people is such that they view helping their fellow man as the priority rather than the money.

 

 

These next few are from the ride we caught after we finished the tour and were heading north again.

We got a ride on the back of this truck, it was once we got on we saw who we were sharing the ride with.

On the truck were 7 Lao guys, 4 live chicken(and a sack full of dead ones), a live goat and 3 live pigs. And there was a boat strapped to the roof. In a landlocked country. Laos is a crazy place.

 

The chickens

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Mr Goat.

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The pigs

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Our next stop was Vang Vieng. Let me tell you about Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is an unremarkable town on the Mekong river. What makes this place extraordinairy is the main activity everyone egages in. Tubing. Tubing involves going down the river in an inflated tracktor inner tube. Along the river are various bars, who throw ropes to you that you grab onto, then they reel you in. At the bars people get absolutely shitfaced drunk on (frequently free, though I'm not sure why) Mekong whiskey, basically moonshine. Everyone paints on each other, parties, waterfights, beer pong, flaming limbo, mud wrestling and volleyball, rope swings, water slides.. The place is ridiculous. As fun as it sounds it's also a fucking death trap. In fact, someone had died the day before we got there from flying off a rope swing and hitting the 'wrong' part of the river. You know, the part which is shallow and covered in jagged rocks but which looks exactly the same as the rest of the river... The water slide was known as the 'slide of death' because of how many people had died going off it. People wouldn't tuck their heads in so would smash them on the end of the slide, knock themselves out and the current would drag them away before they could do anything.

Frequently, you would float past the last point where you could get a tuktuk into town and would have to float down river till you got there. This wasn't a problem for most but as I rarely rented a tube(run by tubing maffia, kept your deposit if you got back after 6, which you always did, plus I'd hitchiked this far...) it often resulted in a tough, drunken swim back home.

There was also an epidemic of pinkeye running around the town. You quickly learned not to talk to anyone wearing sunglasses.

The town was filled with bars that playd family guy and friends on repeat, all year round from what I hear. You could also buy weed, mushroom shakes and opium in some of them.

As you can imagine, I didn't think to take many photos.

Here is the only one I have, of the town as we arrived.

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After a week of debauchery it was time to go. The place had taken it's toll on us. All of us were kind of ill and I had cut my foot on a rock so badly I couldn't walk.

Here's a photo of Rik catching out, I had to sit down.

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A small bus picked us up. This was basically a locals bus, most tourists got the 'VIP buses', a bit nicer, a lot more pricey. I remember feeling like I was going to puke my guts out the entire time, a weeks worth of heavy boozing on horrendous alcohol was catching up with me..

Along the way we got held up because of a truck caught in a mudslide that was blocking the way. Mudslides in the mountains are a common occurence in monsoon season.

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This was a long journey, probably about 11 hours long. At some point during the evening we stopped for a piss break and to fix a flat tire. Whilst stadning out there, mindind my own I was stung by some huge, red wasp like insect. One of the most painful stings I've ever experienced. The stinger part got trapped in me and my arm was swollen adn huge for a few days until I got drunk enough to scratch it out.

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Trip is long over. I did all this in the summer of 2010.

 

We moved onto Luang Prabang, a welcomingly chilled out town. It's really nice, but super super touristy. Like family tourism though rather than backpackers tourism. Here we slowly recovered from Vang Vieng by smoking weed, getting massages(noo happy ending though) and seeing some sights.

We went to bars in the evening which annoyingly had a curfew. Luckily we managed to meet the owner of one of them who also happened to be the nephew of the chief of police in town. He could stay open as late as he wanted and continue serving booze as long as we weren't too loud.

On one night, on our way home from the bar we were nearly attacked by a pack of dogs. They started barking and chasing after us. Normally this would have been scary, I'm not too keen on rabies. But for some reason that fire whiskey gave us the courage to charge at them shouting abuse and throwing bottles. We alpha maled the shit out of them.

 

In our room..

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The best thing we went and saw was this.

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Getting a closer look.

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Man versus Nature.

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The group shot.

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We actually climbed up and round this waterfall. Standing at the top looking out was awesome!

 

On our final night in Luang Prabang Rik got super drunk and decided to buy some 'cocaine' from a tuktuk driver. Rik had never taken cocaine before however. He was boshing it telling me how fucking awesome it was. Eventually I was persuaded to have a line. Heroin.

I'd always intended never to do heroin. But I figured at this point I had already started so...

We got through about half the gram, sniffing bumps at a time. The next day I've never felt so bad from anything ever. Me and Rik both spent most of the day throwing up and trying to sleep it off. Not cool. The only upside is that the hangover was so bad that it ensured I will never touch it again.

Thats the last of my photos. Following on from this, we went to Vientiane, the capital. Here we got KFC(first fried chicken in 3 months!!) and lazed around.

Next, we got a train to Bangkok, where my flight home was leaving from. I only spent a few days in Bangkok. As I wasn't getting the chance to really see the city or Thailand in general, I didn't make any effort to sightsee. I resolved to come back at some point and see the country properly. Plus I had already seen a lot.

We spent the few nights in Bangkok relaxing and boozing. And avoiding the ladyboys.

Every evening we ate at a particular street stall where we had made friends with the people working there. One night one of the girls took us out to a Thai ska club. Fun!

 

This trip was one of the if not the best experience of my life. I had so much fun, made some great firends and had some amazing adventures. I cannot reccomend doing something similar enough. Hitching was a great thing to do as it made the trip feel more like our own, rather than a sort of national chaperoning of tourists round each country's tourist attractions. We got to see parts of the country that most others didn't get to see. Plus women in 'travelling mode' get all moist between the thighs when you tell them about your crazy adventures.

 

I hope you've all enjoyed this thread.

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