28 OCT 08

Before I head back to possibly the last place on the planet without internet access, I thought I'd reflect on the two countries we've just visited.



Both were such different places that it would be difficult to compare the two, but I can point out the obvious bits to give you a little overview of our trip!



Of Vietnam, we saw three cities; Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Hue and Hanoi. Each could easily have been a country of its own, but all shared a frantic atmosphere that left us somewhat shell-shocked. Even the modern life of Kuala Lumpur couldn't prepare us for the maniacal motorcyclists and apparent lack of road-rules found on the streets of Ho Chi Minh, and it wasn't possible to walk the 200 yards from the hotel to the end of the road without being hassled to buy something. No matter how many times I pointed to the shades on my face (worn solely to avoid eye contact with the street vendors), they insisted it was necessary to purchase a dozen pairs of fake, Gucci sunglasses. The cyclo drivers weren't much better, and whilst I appreciate the need for them to attract customers, I was very much ready to explode in their general direction if anyone so much as muttered the word 'cyclo' at me again! Their general cause wasn't helped by the fact that one tried to swindle Chloe and I out of several thousand dong, which didn't impress us much! Having said all this, there are some fascinating sights around Saigon, including the Cu Chi Tunnels, a Cao Dai Temple, the Reunification Palace and so forth.

A bbig 'plus point' for Hue was that Karen and Naomi wereto meet us there. Unfortunately, I hadn't anticipated falling ill on the overnight train, and as a consequence, couldn't join the tour with everybody the next day. I don't think I've ever been so frustrated! Still, a quiet walk around town the next day showed us a much calmer place than Saigon, with its fair share of entrepreneurs, but also a respect for personal space, and so Hue was a far more enjoyable place to exist.

The sleeper buses we caught to Hanoi were travelling in convoy, so my initial disappointment that we couldn't all travel together was soon lifted as we pulled into a coffee stop half-way. The buses are worth a mention as unlike normal coaches, the seats are horizontal beds whereby your feet are inserted into a dark hole underneath the person infront! I've never seen anything like it!

Hanoi was just as busy as Ho Chi Minh City, but whether it was because we'd become used to it or for some other reason, it seemed a much more charming place. We stayed in the Old Quarter where the grubby streets form a winding maze of confusion. My sense of direction is usually quite good, but our primary activity in Hanoi was getting lost, followed closely by finding our way back to somewhere familiar.

From Hanoi, we took day-trips to Ha Long Bay, Cuc Phuong National Park and to see a water puppetry show, which is exactly what it says on the tin - a pupper show... in water. Who comes up with these things?

The bus journey to Vientiane in Laos was not my favourite part of the trip, but it was well worth the discomfort to see Laos and to meet the other travellers who we stuck with for the rest of our stay. We met some lovely people, including Jayne, Paul and Tasha from the U.K., Otto and Osku from Finland, Kat and Michael from Australia but teaching in Vietnam, Ben on his bike and Steve and Danielle who we met later for rock-climbing.

Vientiane is the nicest capital city I've ever visited, for the sole reason that it's quiet and not at all like a capital city! It's about as busy as Wareham in Dorset, or if you're Cardiff born and bred, think of Abergavenny! You can walk down the middle of the road without getting killed, and the tuk-tuk drivers don't mind too much if you genuinely want to walk somewhere.

Vang Vieng was the last town on our itinerary, and it was the icing on the holiday cake. It's exceptionally touristy, but as of yet it's kept a lot of its small-town appeal. The beautiful mountain scenery certainly helps a lot, and it was in these surroundings that we went tubing, rock-climbing and on our motorbike ride.

Laos seems to have been left behind its big brother next door in terms of rapid development, but not at all to its detriment. The tourism trade will continue to bloom here if it can remain a haven in the midst of the bustle of Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. As every t-shirt there reads, it needs to be the 'Same, Same, but Different!' Obviously that makes no sense, but some of the nicest things in this world don't!

Rachel x

24 OCT 2008

I wish I had more time to write, but my feet have hardly touched the ground in the last few days. It's our last couple of days with Dave, and we've been in Vang Vieng in Laos. We've been floating down a river in tractor tyres, rock climbing (although I didn't get very high...I'm more of a land-lover than a mountain goat!) and this morning we hired out motorbikes for a bit of an exploration. Unfortunately, in the ten minutes I had to teach myself to ride a bike, I realised quite early on that it would be an expensive disaster, so I settled for riding on the back of Dave's instead. Chloe rode on Ben's, one of the travellers we've been with for the last 4 days. He's travelling South East Asia on his bike and you can read about his adventures here: www.benonhisbike.blogspot.com.

We've got to catch ther bus back to Vientienne now, which will take about four hours, and tomorrow we fly back to Kuala Lumpur. Sorry this one's not been very informative, but there's not much time for a good story!

Write properly soon,
Rachel x

In Laos...

Hello!

Our 20 hour bus journey into Laos turned out to be more 23 hours and *what* a journey it was! There were 7 other travellers onboard and they were all squished at the back of the coach, wedged in between boxes and luggage of all sorts. For some reason, unkown to any of us, I had to sit next to an elderly Vietnamese gentleman halfway down the coach. My seat was angled forwards and the seat in front was 2 inches from my face the whole way. Dave got soaked due to a leaking roof and ended up having to sit in the aisle to avoid being drenched before we'd even reached the border. There were stools, engines and boxes all the way down the aisle with people sitting and sleeping on top, and (the best...) a HAMMOCK strung up halfway down the coach!

We arrived at the border at about 5am, to a deserted, cold and misty no-man's land. If it wasn't for one of the Australian lady's speaking a small amount of Vietnamese, I don't know how we would have got on, but the actual process of getting a visa was relatively painless!

Laos itself is stunningly beautiful, and the rest of the drive through mountains, forests and past flowing rivers would have been lovely to see, but by that time I was so exhausted from lack of sleep that I dropped off almost as soon as we got back on the coach! Typical!

The only other biggie was losing my wallet last night. Thankfully, due I think to a lot of praying and keeping fingers crossed, it turned up this morning at the place we ate at last night. It was a small place under a tarpaulin, and we all sat on little cushions on the floor in a circle, with the other travellers. The man who gave my wallet back looked amazed at how happy I was to get it back, but I'd been envisaging trying to find a payphone, ringing the banks and not having any cards for months... I gave him a couple of thousand Kip to say thankyou (before realising he'd already helped himself, but nevermind), and now I can travel happily on to Vang Vieng, up North, with more than two quid in my pocket!

Write soon,
Rach x

Primates and Ha Long Bay

We've been out of the jungle now for ten days, so where did we end up this week? A monkey sanctuary! I'd been having withdrawal symptoms, and as Karen, Naomi, Chloe and Dave were keen on a day trip it seemed like a good plan!

The Endangered Primate Rescue Centre at Cuc Phuong National Park is home to monkeys and gibbons that are dire need of human intervention if they are to continue living in the wild. Vietnam has 24 species of primate, including 12 species of langur (the ones with the cool, punk-like haircut), 5 species of macaques (a stereotypical monkey), 2 species of slow loris (nocturnal bundles of fur with large eyes) and 5 species of gibbon (the acrobatic apes with long arms and legs). A quick tour of the rescue centre introduced us to several of these, including the Cat Ba Langur, of which there are only 60 wild animals remaining, and the beautiful Duoc Langur. (Worth looking up on Google until I get some pictures up!) The centre keeps the animals in captivity before releasing them into one of three semi-wild enclosures in Vietnam. From there they can be released when they're ready to be returned to the wild. Unfortunately for many this isn't possible as hunting is still a massive problem in this country, and our guide wxplained that they were waiting until hunting stops before they can release certain species. I'm not an incredibly skeptical person, but I can see that the future is dim for many monkeys in Vietnam. Having said that, visiting the centre was a very positive experience and it seemed surprisingly well run, so maybe there's still a glimmer of hope.

Yesterday, we went on a group tour to Ha Long Bay. A boat trip took us to see some enormous hunks of rock towering up above the sea. Our grumpy guide pointed out that one particular rock is featured on the back of the 20,000 dong note. There were some interesting people on the tour, including a guy called Bruce from Australia who'd left his job for six months to travel, two Korean girls who got stuck in a kayak (due to lack of steering ability, not literally stuck due to being too round), and two Vietnamese ladies who thought we were so incompetent at using chopsticks that they had to instruct us everytime we tried to eat anything. It was a nice tour, albeit the weather was rubbish, and an enjoyable day. More enjoyable, I suspect, than the 20 hour bus journey we face tonight into Laos...

...stay tuned!

Rachel

Vietnam

I'm in Vietnam!!!!

We sucessfully obtained our visas (after a LOT of running around Kuala Lumpur and trying to persuade grumpy consulate workers), and caught the correct flights into Ho Chi Minh City. We spent a couple of days there before heading north to Hue (Pronounced 'Hway!') and.... met Karen and Naomi! Fantastic! We're now all in Hanoi together and going to see a water puppet show this evening. I don't know what that involves, but aquatic puppets sound interesting.

Also interesting is the traffic here. I can only liken crossing the road to a game we used to have on Dad's old PC. 'Frogger', I think it was called. You had to direct a little green frog-shaped blob safely across a road of maniac drivers. Change the drivers to motorcycles and the frog-shaped blob to the five of us and you get the picture. Either that or imagine us trying to walk along the starting line just after the runners set off on the London Marathon...

Ho Chi Minh was similar, but a little more controlled. Maybe because the streets weren't so narrow? The houses here are narrow too, and they all look very amusing, teetering above the crowded streets. Naomi pointed out that even when you move further out of town you still get the odd, single, tall house in the middle of nowhere, so it must be a design preference as well as a space-saving mechanism.

I'll write more when there's more to tell and more time to tell it in, but for now 'That's All Folks!'

Randomly Assorted Photographs

These are the children at the field centre. Left to Right: Asim, Rachel, Apoi and Amoi. Amoi and Apoi have left now, but it was fun with all three there!!! The sunset over the Kinabatangan River...
Two long-tailed macaques using a bridge to connect the fragmented forest. Intended for orangutan use, none have been seen using it yet, but both macaques and proboscis monkeys have found them useful or entertaining...
Me driving a boat and posing like a wally...
A young crocodile...
This photo made it into the newspapers out here a little while back! It's me releasing a blackbacked kingfisher...

These are elephants crossing the river...
This is me covered in mud... (Cadets note the Malaysian Air Force T-shirt...)
This is Dave climbing a big tree!
And this is Dave, Chloe and I with the children one evening!

07 OCT 08

It’s the day before we set off on our trip, and I’m glad to say that it’s a little less stressful than previously thought. "Don’t Panic Captain Mainwaring!"
Having spoken to Naomi, we now have a meeting point and a backup meeting point, should the first one fail us, and I’m hopeful that we can get our visa in the time we have available. Fingers crossed. I’ve heard from home that there’s flooding in both Vietnam and Laos, and I’m not sure of the severity but we’ll soon find out. Apparently it’s affecting most of Vietnam, and on asking how Laos was, Mum replied "It looks a bit soggy". However, having spent two years in Wales, we’re quite used to soggy now!

It’s Dave’s last week at the field centre, so we’ve been making the most of the forest and the wildlife, as well as doing a bit of handiwork to create some bits and bobs for a tree-house type thingy… I’ll update you on the progress when we get back. Chloe may be turning into Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen….or Delia Smith for that matter, as she’s been cooking non-stop for about a week! My claims to being helpful in both activities are creating a rung for the ladder (which turned out not to be needed, but to prevent disappointment has been nailed in place anyway to create a double-rung halfway up) and the crumble of an apple crumble. I also chopped up a pineapple and multiple onions. Maybe I’ll be more competent in both woodwork and cooking by the time I return?

I’m very excited about going to Vietnam and Laos, and can’t wait to see the others!
Rachel