Luang Prabang

Hi from the other side of the world!!! So we know that we said that Vang Vieng was our favorite, but we spoke too soon...we hadn't been to Luang Prabang yet. It is SO cute here, we love it!! Lots of french influence....food, architecture, style...it's just cool. There are tons of cute little restaurants, all the houses, guesthouses and shops have coloured shutters on the outside...very european. We hiked up to the top of this hill today to get a view of the city and mountains (see pic), and both of us said the it looked very German/Austrian, minus the palm trees :) Now, what we SHOULD have done, was left Vang Vieng when it was monsooning for a day and come HERE...BUT hindsight is 20/20, and we know that. We were looking into doing a trek, but we didn't have a whole lot of time here, and we wanted to actually see the city and some of the temples they have here. Yesterday we took a trip to the waterfalls that are just outside the city...they are beautiful (see pic)!!! We even got to swim at the bottom of them....a little cooler water than we're used to :) Today we rented bikes for the day and rode around to check out some of the temples they have in the city, which we MIGHT do again before we leave tomorrow because it's just such a nice way to see the city. We also discovered night markets (see pic) that are SENSATIONAL here :) They sell lots of silk, LOTS of silk, silver, handcrafts, linens, house and home decor...it's just really cool and makes both Lauren and I wish we had a caddie to carry another bag around for us :)
We also threw in a picture of the soup that we found and LOVE...along with some appetizers that they well on street corners for 50 cents..spring rolls...mmmm. Check out the fresh bowl of herbs that you add to your soup! So cute! I think the total cost of that dinner was maybe $3? Together?

We leave on an afternoon flight tomorrow for Hanoi, Vietnam. We've heard it's similar to Bangkok, but boy are we ever ready!! After having been to Phnom Penh, we can handle anything. Really. In closing, we would just like to say that Laos is a magical place and we love it. It is a fantastic country to travel through....and we're not coming home :)

Love and misses,

L and L

Vang Vieng

Definitely one of our fave places so far!! Aside from the fact that we woke up today and it was MONSOONING outside (see picture...notice the friends on tv)...for a good 7 hours? So we decided we'd write another blog! We're going to include some more pics of us on the river, and some of the cute little town so you can see it. We also put in a pic of a fruit stand at the mini market here...take a look at the kind of fruit we eat!! Dragon fruit...and that's about all I know in english! We get them in fruit salads and most of them taste great...the only one to watch out for is the one on the far end with the yellow spikes. Yesterday we rented some tubes and did some floating down the river...actually it's more like bar hopping using a tube :) It's pretty much the main attraction here, and you have to at least do it once if you visit. You float down and stop off at little bars on the side of the river (see LH enjoying her tube..and an oreo:)). They have ropes and long bamboo sticks to reach you as you float by, OR if you miss that, they just come swimming after you. You go in, have a drink, do a zip line or a swing into the river and then on to the next one! At some of the bigger bars, there is beach volleyball (LT loved this :)) and hackey sack with a ball. The zip lines and swings get bigger as you go, and you should all know that LH definitely went off one of the biggest ones. We pretty much just ushered her up there so she didn't have time to think about what she was doing. Fun times though! Check out LT on one in the pic! Today, due to a rain out, we ate some breakfast, and watched about 3 hrs worth of friends at our cafe (see pic)...ugh. I think we're both good for our friends fix until we get home. We also decided to have a Lao massage...which was way overdue, and actually recognized some of the moves from our thai massage course! But $3 is great for an hour massage anywhere. Tomorrow we're off to Luang Prabang, which is about 6 hours from here on the bus...don't worry..we booked VIP!!! We're there for a few days before we FLY to Hanoi!!

Until then...




Love L and L

Laos

Getting into Laos was awesome...flights are fantastic!! we loved it so much we booked another one getting out of Laos into Vietnam :) We flew into Pakse, in southern Laos, and then had to bus it down to four thousand islands. There IS no such thing as a VIP bus down there so for 3 dollars we got on the back of a..what we might call a large tuk tuk (see numerous photos)...with one other girl from poland and a whole bunch of locals. This also meant with bags of clothes, food, cement (dry of course), and boxes of random stuff. We were actually totally fine with being in there for 3 hours...we had the back seats so were close to fresh air and could stretch our legs out the back. it started pouring, so we had to load ALL the cement bags in front of us so our legs were up at our chins..and we decided for fun to pick up a broken down motor bike and its 2 riders, and just throw it on the back. No prob!! Anyway..we made it in one piece, still smiling. I think we're getting better at this?? We took a quick longboat across the river to Don Det, one of the many small islands in the south...it was a quiet, laid back islands with too many guesthouses for the amount of people that were there. One dirt street was pretty much it, and electricity turned off at 10pm. We found a cute little guesthouse for $3 a night...which was on a FARM, per se. Cow directly out the window, roosters all OVER, dog fights...you name it. I think we got less sleep the first night than on a night bus. Best part was renting bikes and biking down to the next island on dirt roads in between rice fields (see photo) to see a waterfall...or a really wide part of the river that flowed really fast over some big rocks...not necessarily niagara falls :) We left on a bus back to Pakse, and actually got a minibus this time!! We took a night bus to Vientiane..on which we should mention blaring Thai or Asian karaoke on the tvs until about 12am. BLARING!! And there is no in between for air conditioning or not...it's either freezing or dripping hot. Vientiane was really cute...and the best capital city, and least intimidating so far. Lots of cute little french cafes and restaurants, and even a Laos Arc de Triomphe! LH was a little under the weather...so we got most of our sight seeing done going from pharmacy to pharmacy trying to communicate what we actually wanted...it's hard enough ordering food. Acidopholus Bifidus? Come on.....We took a VIP bus according to laos standards on probably the prettiest bus ride we've had since we've been over here to Vang Vieng, north of Vientiane. It's beautiful here! I would say the Banff of Laos. yesterday we did a kayaking tour, which involved some caving..or floating on tubes with headlamps in caves that came about 1 foot above your head. Then kayaking down the Mekong stopping at riverside "bars" on the way to do some zip lining into the river :) Check out the scenery in the background...Other than watching rerun after rerun of friends....there isn't much going on here at night...tours during the day, or watching tv, internetting and that's about it! It's nice to relax for awhile before we head to Luang Prabang and then...Vietnam!!
Thanks to everyone for all the messages!! We love hearing from you!
L and L

Phnom Penh and Siem Reap/Angkor

Ola!! We're gonna break down the Cambodia trip for you because Lauren and I each took about 3000 pictures at Angkor Wat...last we left you we had just arrived at Phnom Penh after what was by far, THE worst bus trip we'd had so far. I won't get into it because you've already heard some good stories..but lets just say that 23 people on a MINIBUS IS NOT COOL. Our hostel in Phnom Penh was super cute, but we didn't really feel safe enough to leave the "backpacker" area at night...First full day in Phnom Penh involved a Tuk Tuk tour(see picture) of some tourist spots: Tuol Sleng, which is a high school which was taken over and used as a prison during the Khmer Rouge ruling (see picture of prison cells), The Grand Palace and the National Museum. The second day we saw the Killing Fields...which was pretty intense...there was still clothing in the ground from the prisoners that were taken there to be murdered and then buried. It's hard to believe it wasn't that long ago...

After the killing fields we went to the Russian Market in town, which was even tinier and hotter than the market in Bangkok..but we got cheap ipods!!! Night buses will no longer be unbearable! Maybe...After the market, our driver insisted on taking us to an orphanage, which was clearly just a way for them to bring in donations, which were definitely needed. The kids were super cute and you could tell that they were used to visitors.

2 days in Phnom Penh was enough and we were happy to have seen the sights...and even happier when we saw the bus we'd be travelling on to go to Siem Reap...it was HUGE, AND it had air conditioning!! Yay (see pic of our happiness)!

Siem Reap was refreshingly nice after Phnom Penh...we could leave our guest house at night and walk around safely! There were TONS of tourists, lots of cool places to eat and hang out in town..a little pricier than what we were used to:) We bought a 3 day pass to Angkor and got a chance to see Angkor Wat (see pic), Angkor Thom (including Bayon), Ta Prohm (pic with the tree) and a few others. It was UNBELIEVABLE and we could probably write a whole blog about it...Our fave was Bayon (see faces pic), which was part of Angkor Thom....SO cool and not as busy as Angkor Wat. We also got a chance to wake up at 4am to see the sunrise one morning at Angkor Wat...it was surprising to see how many other people had the same idea. It was a little less sunny than we would have liked...but hey we can say we did sunrise at Angkor right!? Definitely a worthwhile stop.You'll all get your postcards in the mail :)

And since we'd been having such luck with transportation..we decided to splurge and buy a flight out of Cambodia to Pakse in southern Laos. SO worth it and made crossing the border that much less of a hassle. So far the south of Laos has been awesome..we're on to Vientiane and northern Laos tonight! We'll fill you all in later!!

Love and misses,

L and L

Intro to Cambodia

Hi again!!

We decided to do some mass posting while we had the internet and the time..and tell you about our first few days in Cambodia! Our plan was to cross the border at Ban Hat Lek (in Thailand) and go into Koh Kong in Cambodia and then take a taxi boat down to Sihanoukville. We did an overnight bus to Bangkok on the most uncomfortable night bus yet...tiny seats with NO leg room. We spent the day in Bangkok and then took our second night bus to Trat, which was a teeny bus station. We had to get a taxi there at 5am to make it to the border for 7am when it opened. Border crossing went smoothly, we crossed, got our visas no problem and then had to catch a taxi to the boat, which would take us to Sihanoukville. It was raining when we got there, and had been all morning. Our taxi driver (or was he!?) drove us to the dock, where he told us that the boat wasn't running and hadn't been because of the rain, so we decided we should just go straight to Phnom Penh. We didn't want to be on the beach if it was raining...so he took us to the "bus station"which we assumed was his friend's guesthouse. They had buses there, and we were in a place we didn't know..so didn't have much choice but to book a bus at 9:00am to Phnom Penh. He told us it would take about 6 hours...HA. When are we going to learn that mass transport just is NOT the same!? We climbed on a mini bus (full) and headed off. We were both absolutely exhausted and had had about 3 hours of sleep in 2 nights. We thought we'd at least be able to sleep...but got woken up 4 times to cross a river on a "barge" because the bridges WEREN'T BUILT YET. After the crossings were done, we switched mini vans to one that already had 6 people in it...Us 4 girls were crammed in the middle. We decided that the bus had just been hijacked by 16 year olds and they were just seeing how many people they could cram in there for fun..at one point we had 23...23!!! people in the mini van. People hanging out the windows...babies sleeping...seriously. They stopped about every 10 min to pick up or drop people off. We switched drivers at one point..you know..just for fun. At 6pm we FINALLY got here...and had to navigate through masses of tuk tuk drivers and garbage to find a hostel. There are a million and one more motorbikes here than thailand!! we luckily found a cute hostel right on the lake, in backpacker central! So we feel relatively safe there :) But honestly...we miss thailand already! We did visit Tuol Sleng museum, the Royal Palace and the National Museum today, which were all really cool..and are doing some more sight seeing tomorrow (including maybe ipod shopping?!).

Hope all's well at home!

Love L and L

Krabi and Phi Phi

This is so far one of our favorite places that we've visited. Krabi is one of the most laid-back, relaxed places we've been. Nobody hassles you..and it's cheap!! We stayed in a pretty nice hotel too, so it made it that much more enjoyable. Our first day there, we EVEN got up early and went for a run in the park! We decided it was Thailand's version of stanley park...a mini version :) We were surprised that other people were actually out exercising-running, speed walking. We also went on a day tour to Ko Phi Phi islands and some other ones close to Krabi. They took us on a "speed boat"which was a little bigger than a motor boat...it had 15 people on it for our day. It was probably the windiest day that we've had since we got here and the boat was probably airborne for a good part of the time on the way there...so LH got whiplash (check out the picture attempt while we were being thrashed around) , and both of us couldn't MOVE the next day because our backs KILLED. It was gorgeous to see the islands though....huge limestone cliffs and turquoise water. We visited Maya Beach which is where the movie "The Beach"was filmed (picture #3). It was a little busier than we would have liked...only about 50 other tour boats. There was also a ton of garbage on the beach, which ruined the ambiance a little. We DID, however, get to go snorkelling!!! There were a ton of fish, including a long snaky looking one that freaked LH out a little :) We ate lunch on Phi Phi Don at a cute little sea side restaurant, and then made our way back.

We didn't get a chance to visit Ko Lanta while we were there (apparently boats don't do day trips there anymore) and Phuket would have been more than a day trip. We ARE kicking ourselves for not staying longer and doing some climbing and kayaking tho....we're hoping we'll get another opportunity.

We are now in Cambodia in Phnom Penh after a LONG trip over here...more pics and stories to come soon!

Love and misses,

L and L

Mom's Worst Nightmare

After 2 overnight buses and a treacherous 4 hour boat ride with too many people, we finally made it to Ko Phangan! We had booked a place for 3 nights at a place that must have been new because the taxi didn't know where it was...we drove around for half an hour before he dropped us on the side of the road to walk in to our resort. It was about 15-20 minutes in the heat with all our bags..not impressed! Our resort turned out to be super cute, and right on the beach. Unfortuantely, we were told that the Full Moon Party was on the 29th so we only booked for 3 nights...when it was actually on the 31st. We walked down the beach from resort to resort trying to find a place to stay. The ONLY place that had room was BAY HUT Bungalows, with a shady kind of creepy owner. There was obviously no one else staying there and there was garbage in the driveway. BUT we decided it was only a place to sleep, so we did it. We moved our stuff into a hut on the beach and when we walked in, we found holes in the floor, broken windows, a roof that was merely sitting on the walls and mosquito netting that probably hadn't been used in years....about the same amount of time since anyone had stayed there. The bathroom...although we wouldn't call it that...had no flooring, rust, mold and water stains, the sink ran through on to the floor and the shower head attached to a tube trickled dirty water. Still...we sucked it up, laughed at the sitch and stayed. The next morning, LH woke up and went in to the bathroom, shut the door and found 2 HUGE lizards on the back of it. Not geckos...LIZARDS the size of our feet. That was it. We RAN down the beach, yes I said we ran, to scope out a new place to stay. We found a cute one about 3km down the beach, booked it, went back and made record time packing up and getting out of there. We CARRIED our bags (repeat west coast trail in 35 degree heat) to the next resort. In short, it turned out to be fantastic...the bathroom had tiles, we had a hammock on our balcony, there was a great place to eat, and the lady that owned it spoke fluent english, which made things that much easier. She saved our lives!!! We got to enjoy the full moon party safely and sleep in a safe lizard-free cabin.

Getting off the island was ALMOST as fun...we booked a night boat and bus to Krabi. We were 2 of the first people there...and climbed on the boat, got ourselves a spot amongst the 2 rows of mattresses, and were actually pretty excited about getting to sleep! Masses of people started climbing on, and we realized that they were given a PLACE number. We were kicked out of our beds and told that we'd be taken care of after the boat took off. This meant being given a life jacket for 3 peole, and sleeping with all our stuff on the floor in the entrance way on to the boat. No stretching your legs out...for fear of smoking someone in the face (LH) or hitting a MOTORCYCLE (LT). It was a little like illegal immigration....for EIGHT HOURS on wavy waters. FUN TIMES!! It's all about character building right!? NO MORE NIGHT BOATS!!!

Stay tuned for more travel fun :)

Love L and L