Cambodia - Phnom Penh & Siem Reap

Sunday 19th June - Drove 6hours to Phnom Penh stopped off a few time to go to the loo and the young children are at the bus door befor its even open, screaching madam and Mr Sexy, you buy, you buy, you no buy I cry. There were women walking around with live taranchula's & deep friend ones trying to get us to buy one.....not thank you lady! Once we arrived at the hotel we all did a cyclo tour. We got to see all the sights and even an elephant in the park. As we walked to dinner that night we came across an interesting stall that sold snakes on a stick! Resturant was nice but expensive, lovely clean toilets which was nice for a change and NZ Free Range Lamb wa son the menue. We ordered a beautiful Angkor curry and a taster plate consisting of 3 different plate levels, a bit like high tea. A few remaning people went down to the pub played some pool and drunk some buckets......well Ok I was the only one who drunk buckets but they were so good and cheap you couldn't say no. I later got taling to the bar guy who turns out lived in Manurewa and studies at MIT the same time I would have been studying there. I taught some street kids some of my dance moves and bought a few books off them which truned out to be photocopied books and the cover is upside down, hehehe. Got a tuk tuk home.

Monday 20th June - 7am start, slightly hung over, off to Tou Sleng Prison in Pot Pol times. Our local guide was so graphic in telling us the horrible touture things that use to happen there, that if you wern't feeling sick hung over like me, you were feeling sick in general from hearing about it all.

Viet nam - Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An

Wednesday 8th June – Today we got our first proper sleep in day, check out was at 12. We managed 2 go online for a bit and Skped Leah’s mum for a chat.
We flew from Vientiane to Hanoi at 2pm. Before the flight we ate a pizza slice which when we ordered thought it would have been an actual large pizza, apparently not.

We arrived to a very hot and humid Hanoi (the hottest and most humid so far) and walked to our restaurant which was a 30 minute walk in a crazy crazy place. The traffic as mental man!!! Just walk and the traffic goes round you .Everyone hoots 2 let u know that they are coming, and there’s absolutely no road rage. Pedestrian crossings everywhere, but no traffic stops for ya .All I can say is that it’s so disorganised, but it works.
Disorganised chaos, that works. 3 million motorbikes, 6 million people do the math .Price of a motorbike is 2 -3 thousand, the same price as a water buffalo! Land is also extremely expensive also.
Dinner was at French restaurant called Little Hanoi, it should be re-named the bird cage , as there were birdcages everywhere, with no actual birds caged. We then walked the streets, saw random as things....live frogs. Tul tuk home......day over.

Thursday 09 June- 8am tour 2 see Ho Chi Min’s preserved dead body. Aircon was devine...We then went 2 see one pillar pagoda this is where Vietnamese people come to worship buddah where as temples here are to worship ancestors and family members who has passed away. Next we all went to the Ho Chi Min museum, Helen Clarke was is one of the pics.

Next was koto restaurant. This is a restaurant where they take street children off the streets and train them to cook and give them life skills for further development later in life. It’s a well famous restaurant that is recommended by the lonely planet guide.

Next we took a tuk tuk to the lake and had a relaxing walk round the lake. Graham got an interesting hair cut, I was really worried there for a bit but it turned out good, a slight mohawk but all good. More markets and back 2 the hotel 2 ring DHL and sort Grahams baggage out that was being held by customs at Heathrow airport. Leah had filled in the forms and the recipients contact number (Graham’s sister) wasn’t very clear. Customs officials had been ringing the wrong number.....anyways. Vertical learning curve on skype .Had 2 ring NZ DHL, Vietnaam DHL, and UK in the space of 10 mins. All good now sorted.

Next was the water puppet show which was awesome !!!! After the show we had dinner and drinks to meet up with the new crew on the tour. It was also a farewell for Patricia, Sinade, and Victoria. After dinner we sum of us headed 2 a club ( dragonfly) to get on it .....a good night and good farewell. The taxi ride back 2 the hotel was immense and real exciting !!!! Graham thought the taxi driver was keen on him and put his hand on his leg and asked him if he liked the boom boom !!!! very very disturbing ....we later learnt that this is just their culture or being caring and friendly, he didn’t actually want Graham for himself but he wanted to take Graham some where to find a good time ;-) .


Friday 10 June - 8am bus ride to Halong Bay ( 4 hours trip) after saying our farewells to Patricia, Victoria, and Sinade.
We arrived at Bai Chay Port were we boarded our own private Junk boat. The police were almost not going to approve our paper work as a storm was coming in and they had declined a lot of other boats, so we were extremely lucky to get approval. The boat was fully kitted out all wooden inside and out. The boat consisted of 3 levels. The bottom level consisted of the bedrooms which were cosy and exceeded our expectations. The rooms were quite spacious for a small boat. The second level was the dining area, where it was set up for 5* dining and the top level was a sun floor with sun loungers, way to hot to stay up there for too long.
First we had some lunch on the boat, it was just about all seafood dishes and was just delicious.
We cruised over to the lime caves where we walked up to the caves and went inside, they were amazing, all lit up with different colours, it was quite impressive. Got some gorgeous photos up the top of the Bay and then back to the boat and cruised some more.
There was optional kayaking up for grabs which Graham and I participated in. We Kayaked under some small rock formations to a blue lagoon and paddled back, took about an hour n a half. Back to the boat where everyone was diving and swimming of the side of the boat. Graham obviously opted for jumping in off the top, as high as he could go. The bay was so quite because as I mentioned earlier a lot of other companies were denied entry to Halong Bay so was quite tranquil. We watched the sun go down and had another flavour filled meal for dinner, then most people went to bed. Graham and I spotted a boat worker off the front of the boat with a fishing rod so we went over and started chatting to him. Apparently he was trying to catch squid, so we unsuccessfully joined in. The off to bed for a good sleep.



Saturday 11th June – We had to be checked out of our rooms by 10am and up for lunch on the second floor at 11.30am. Half was through lunch and you could hear the thunder and see the storm cloud coming. Was nice being inside the boat when it absolutely poured down outside, a spectacular view and a trilling feeling. Luckily the rain subsided before we boarded the speed boat back to the port. On the way to Hanoi we stopped off at a large shop where disabled people were given jobs to make beautiful silk paintings and egg shell paintings. There was so much to choose from. Graham and I got 2 little silk embroider images, one of a Vietnamese woman carrying the large baskets and one of the sunset over Halong Bay.


We got back to the Nhat Tien hotel in Hanoi and had 1.5hours to buy food for the train.


We decided to order pizza from the hotel and then go and pick it up. What a disaster that was, never complicate things while talking to a Vietnamese person over the phone. We ended up with several pizza's some small and some large. Lesson learned, never complicate things in Asia.


We jumped on the train and foud it much nice than the last train, we got actual cabbins. We bunked with Danielle and Richard.





Sunday 12th June - We arrived in Hue (pronounced Way). The Ngoc Huong Hotel that we stayed at was great with a pool on the top floor and breakfast included.
After a quick swim in the pool the whole group decided to do the option city scooter tour, so all 15 of us each had our own driver and scooter. It was great fun whizzing round the town and out to the country side to see people harvesting the rice. We went to a little place where we were taught step by step how rice was made. This well dress really old woman showed us the tools used and even sung in Vietnamese as she was demonstrating each one. She was so cute and tiny, such a lovely lady.
We then went off to meet the famous Vietnamese woman who makes the straw hat things that everyone wears here. She only had one hand and make such creative hats.
We visited the Minh Mang Tombs, Thien Mu Pagoda, scooted up the hill to get a good shot of the perfume river and finally the Imperial Citadel.

Monday 13th June – Up early as usual to travel to Hoi An via the Hai Van Pass. The trip took about 4 hours. We stopped off for some refreshments and took a walk around up to the top of the stair to get some nice photos of the bay, it looked just like NZ, similar to The Mount or something. We arrive at the rather flash looking hotel with flash marble looking bathrooms.
Off to lunch down at the river where Graham enjoyed a Snapper steamed in banana leaf, which was amazing.
Richard the tour guide then took us on a walk to visit his preferred tailor. The ladies at the tailor were lovely, mine and Grahams lady especially, her nick name was SIM Card so that is what we called her. We decided to buy a few winter coats for England and some shirts and suits. The girls measured us up and then we just sat at the tailors getting pissed. Richard has an agreement with this particular tailor, he brings customers to their shop and everyone including him gets fresh fruit, cold water and unlimited amounts of Beer, 333. After several beers we were all feeling really happy and chatty and decided to get a few more clothes made.
Sim wanted a down payment on my clothes and I was having difficulty drawing money our at the ATM across the road so she offered to take me to another ATM to draw some money out. As I had unsuccessfully tried to draw money our on my card several times this ATM machine decided to take my card and not give it back. Sim tried calling the bank but it was closed and she offered to drive me to the bank in the morning to get my card back.
We went out for dinner tonight at an Italian restaurant called the Mango Room. The Vietnamese chef had spent several years in Italy learning how to cook Italian food and introduced himself and some of the ingredients he uses and then took our orders. Graham ordered a pasta and I decided to go for the Chimichanga’s, it sounded cool and I have never eaten them before, was rather disappointed as it was basically a deep fried tortilla so not that great. Everyone else really enjoyed their meals so I mush of been the unlucky one with the bad choice.
After dinner we looked around some of the shops and came across a dive shop so got information about the diving and went and sat in the bar. Claire and I chatted about girl stuff while Graham, Mark and Drew played a Vietnamese guy at pool. We had to leave suddenly when he Vietnamese guys wanted payment for winning when that was never the arrangement. I went back to the room and Graham stayed up a bit later with the boys.





Tuesday 14th June - Today we just wanted to chill out. So we hired some bicycles, Azy, Jonothan, James, Graham and I all biked down to the beach. The sand was so hot, a really clear sunny day. We relaxed down on the sand on lounger under a straw unbrella. Swim.....lounge out....then repeat. We met up with Mark, Claire and Danielle bought a frisbie and threw that around in the water for several hours. We kept feeling small little stings in the water but didn't think much of it, we later found out that there are tiny little jelly fish in the water.

We then went for another fitting at the taylors and off to dinner with the group. The streets were all lit up with beautiful lanterns as tomorrow night is the lantern festival. I wasn't feeling that great at dinner and unfortunatly didn't get to eat my beautiful meal of beef wrapped up in banana leaf, Graham and I went down to the dive shop and went to scuba diving at Cham Island. After filling out several forms I was told that I could not dive as I had asthma, was really kinda annoyed that I couldnt apparently I need a certificate from my doctor stating that I am fit enought to dive with out getting an asthma attack. I then went home to bed while Graham partied it up and got back at 3.30am, lads night out!



Wednesday 15th June - We were up early this morning for pick up. The Cham Island Dive Company picked us up at 8am. We drove to the port and jumped on the boat with about 25 odd other people. Graham unsuccessfully tried talking one of the owners into letting me dive, so snorkling it was. Graham went for 2 dives and I went for one big long snorkle. We snorkled so far that the boat had to come and pick us up. The boat dropped us off at this beautiful tropical island where we had some lunch and I got a grass mat and went and sat under an unbrella. Graham and the other divers joined us on the island after an hour or so after their second dive. Graham said his dive was good, they saw a sting ray, lots of baracudas and some red snapper. As we were chilling on the beach we could see the storm rolling in like a huge dark wave, was quite impressive looking, then it absolutly poured down.

We got back to the hotel around 5 and had to go for another fitting at the tailors. We went out to dinner as a group to a place Richard suggested that served good cocktails, I hat a Miss Hanoi and Graham has a Miss Saigon, there wern't too bad. The girls bought some little candles in little paper holder and floated them down the river to celebrate the landern festival and full mood, letting their sins float down the river. We then all went to some funky western bar and got a bed type of sitting area, was quite strange but neat.



Thursday 16th June - Final fitting at the taylors and got all our 14kg worth of stuff shipped to Grahams sister in England. Graham got an electric blue blazer and a grey blazer, a winter coat & 5 shirts tailored and I got a creme trench coat, purple hooded jacket, funky red coat with puffy neck, 3 piece suit, a suit skirs, another suit jacket with hot pink lining, a grey pinstriped corporate dress, a black colared dress and a black and gold oriental chinese style dress with toggles, and 4 shirts. Perfect stuff for interviews and winter in England. We were really happy with all our purchases.

Back to the hotel to pack and then on the bus to go to the airport. The flight departed at 2.30pm and only too 1 hours or so to get to Ho Chi Min City aka Saigon. We had some spare time at the hotel for a change so decided to Skype Grahams parents and update them on our travels. We went to dinner shortly after that at Bar 333, I had an awesome Vietnamese Chicken curry and Graham had an eggplant pasta thing which was supprisingly nice. No one went out tonight, everyone came back to the hotel for a good nights sleep.



Friday 17th June - 8am start on the bus to Chu Chi tunnels. Our guide for the day was really nice, he had these huge big turbo hairs coming out of the mole on his face, apparnetly they don't cut them as they are a sign of good luck. Was crazy to believe that the Vietnamese people lived undergroud for so many years, unbelieveable. They dug a larger tunnel for foreigners and even that was small, I tried to go in there but the idea of crawling on my hands and knees in this hot dark tunnel for who knows how long gave me a creeps, Graham did it ofcourse and got some great photos, check out Facebook for these. After the tunnels we had some complementary tapioka with a salt & peanut dip, was kinda nice I guess. After going to the Chu Chi tunnels we then went off to the museum. The bottom level was interesting all the different photos of countries protesting against the war and what the Americans were doing to the Vietnamese people. But the second level started getting quite graphic, with images of what the agent orange did to people and their children, such sad images of young babies. Graham couldn't see anymore so waited for me in the foyer. It was really interesting and informative, 3 millionwere confirmed dead & 2 million missing. We met up with the new group for dinner, we went to a cheap noodle bar and had massive big bowls of noodles that no one could finish. Went to an Australian bar that same night where Graham managed to order a CC & dry........they don't seem to sell Ginger Ale in Asia so he was so excited to have one. We partied it up there for a while and when they started closing we felt like we wanted a boogey. So off to this night club where it was 'spot the non prostitute' I think us and all the dirty western guys were the only people not prozzies. Left the bar at 3.30am and a late on to bed for us.

Satruday 18th June - Up at7.15am, and with only about 3 hours sleep we were not feeling much in the mood. We went to a small village to see how they made rice wine and snake rice wine and tried them both. Well I think Graham was the only one to try the snake rice wine.........not only where there heaps of dead snakes in the jar there was also a dead bird in there for good measure. Apparently the guide was saying that it is good to drink for your lady.......aka Viagra substitute. They also made popped rice which was neat to watch and also rice paper in the making. We went to a house for lunch where there 3 old guys played music for us and then a lady and another guy sang in Vietnamese about love stories. Lunch was good and cheap. We went for a little ride in one of the paddel boats, the ones where the lady rows from the back of the boat. We got back to the hotel at 4.30pm and had a free night where Graham and I went out and had curry for a change.
Off to Cambodia tomorrow.

Laos 1 - Mekong River, Luang Prabang

1st June - Up at 6am for a 7am start. We headed to the Thailand border, got our departure forms and passports stamped. Then into a skinny long boat to cross the small river over to the Laos boarder. We hung around the Laos border until Richard (Our Tour Guide) got all our Laos visas sorted. I wanted to change NZ $ into Laos Kip but the bank wouldn’t take it so we ended up drawing out $1million kip. We then jumped into the back of a Ute and headed for our private boat. The boat is rather large and beautiful. The boat has deep red wood floors and carving details all around the side and many comfortable reclining car seats. The actual family who own the boats are on in with us, they have a separate section out the back of the boat.
The group just sat around talking, reading, drinking tea, and just chilled to the sights of the Mekong River. The river isn’t that wide and is a milky brown colour and the mountains are lush green, all you can hear is the hum of the engine and thousands and thousands of crickets chirping away. It is so relaxing just what we needed after a busy full on couple of days. There are children playing in the water while their parents fish with nets, and dotted all along the river are bamboo fishing rods wedged in between large rock formations with a water bottle connected to the top, so that when the fish takes the hook you can see the bottle bobbling about.
We stop off at a local Laos mountain village where the people live in bamboo houses about 2 meters off the ground on stilts. The children are super friendly and try to make you laugh. There were many animals roaming the village including, piglets, chickens, ducks, dogs (which they will eat eventually) & manky looking cats. It was so interesting to see how this village lived and even more interesting to see that just about each house had satellite TV dishes.
We get back to the boat and lunch is all prepared consisting of buffalo stir fry, morning glory and fried chicken, was pretty average but nice to eat on the boat.
After much relaxing Richard suggests we play a card game so he taught James, Graham and I to play. It is a very similar game to Asshole or Scum. We play this game for several hours with a constant flow of ice cold beers.
We got to Pak Beng at around 5pm, a total of 8 hours on the boat. Once docked up against the floating jetty about 6 small young Laos boys jumped on board and started putting our back packs on saying ‘ I carry uphill for you, $5,000 kip, cheap, cheap I carry yes’. Graham and I decided to toughen up and carry our packs on our backs for the first time, might I add our bags are the biggest and by far the heaviest on the whole trip. So one broken jandle and a pulled hammy later we made it to the top or the hill where our hotel was. We had 45 mins to shower and then meet in the lobby.
As we walked down the streets of Pak Beng Richard and our tour guide and Louis our local tour guide seem to know all the locals and are being pulled inside peoples home to drink Laos Whiskey (Laa Laa).
We found a nice place to eat where the price was right and there was a free bottle of Whiskey on the table. This is where the shots started, shot after shot of whiskey that burned when it went down, but peer pressure from Richard was the key to keeping the shots coming. ‘King moot’ we would all chant and down the clear burning liquid. About an hour after we ordered our food finally arrived, it is common to have to wait at least an hour to get your food, Laos is much more slower than Thailand, was more chilled and relaxed similar to Fiji and island time.
The tunes were pumping so after dinner we all got up and started dancing the night away.
The toilet or should I say, spider covered dungeon downstairs made you want to drink even more whiskey, just to get the courage to go down there again.
The food was amazing, the music was amazing, and company was amazing and the whiskey was......OK, it was free.
After much dancing we headed up the road to the Hive bar which was a funky cocktail bar. We made friends with the beautiful Laos bartender and I ended up old school dancing with her, swinging each other around and laughing so much we nearly fell over. Well actually I did fall over, but that was later on the way back to the hotel.
We got back to the room and there were bugs everywhere, massive, huge, black, flying bugs! Victoria and Shanad had a massive beetle encounter when is ran up Victoria’s leg, Graham was quick to help rescue the screaming girls, but instead the bug ended up crawling up Grahams leg and he let out a big girl scream!

2nd June – Feeling a tad bit hung over today, I think everyone is to be honest. Didn’t make the most of the included breakfast today, consuming only 2 pieces of bread and a tea. Back down the hill to the boat and another day of cruising down the Mekong. We are on our way to Luang Prabang, and will be stopping at the Pak Ou Caves. At the moment we are chillaxing , drinking fluids, and getting well replenished after last nights episode. Pak Ou Caves were a bit dissapointing to be honest, we walked up about 250 stairs and it was one small little cave with all these old dusty buddahs in it and about 30 odd bats flying around. Did I mention is was freeking hot, like one of the hottest days so far. Laos seems to be much hotter then Thailand at the moment.
We were lucky enough to see some elephants on the water front while on our last leg of the Mekong River. For the next 3 nights we are staying at the Villa Tavandeng which is pretty good and comes with breakfast included which was super yummy this morning.
Tonight we are off to have dinner with Richards family, he is married to a Lao lady and her and the mother in law are cooking us a feed.
It started off with a welcoming ritual where we all had to hold this table in the middle of the room and all 3 Lao ladies started mumbling prays, welcoming us into their home and protection us from any evil spirits. After this we all had to eat a small piece of food and then the ladies started going around tying white cotton braceletts around everyones wrists, everyone got 3 on each arm except Smith who get 4 on each wrist, not sure why though.
We ate the meal on the floor, sitting on little mats. Such an array of foods, the salad was the best by far and the frien egg plant was pretty up there also. After the main meal we finished off with some sweet sticky rice (wild rice cooked in coconut) and the best mango I have ever tasted in my life.
Off to the markets we go, Patricia who is from Germany and is only doing half the tour with us bought up a storm. I managed to some more country patches for my bag and another scarf, Graham got some slippers and Lao singlet and together we got some matching wodden lamps.
James who is from London bought nothing because he had run out of money and wanted to save it for a beer instead. So off to the pub we go, problem was they closed at 11.30pm as Laos have a 12am curfue rule. So it was off to bed for the 4 of us.

3rd June - We managed to get a little bit of a sleep in with an 8.40am go time. We all met in the foyer and headed off to the Arts & Ethnology Museaum, which was rather interesting learning about all the different Lao people and how they are all split up and different cultural dress for each group. Then on to an air conditioned bus for our 45min trip up to Kuang Sii waterfalls.
The Kuang Sii falls were amazing, like out of this world beautiful, we were in heaven....well I was in heaven when I saw the falls and Graham was in heaven when he saw the swing roap that went into the deep pool. We were all so pleased to get into the water and find that it was actually cold, so refreshing when its about 30 degree out. Graham went nuts on the swing roap so was good fun to watch, then of course he had to pu the swing rope and get more dangerous so climbed up the waterfall part and jumped off the top of that. See Facebook for all the pics, they are fabulous.
We have free time to do what ever we want for the next 2 days. Tonight we are off to dinner with Ausy and Jonothan who are from DC in America and are a lovely couple and I believe Patircia is suppose to be coming along also. Should be a good night.

4th June - Last night Azy, Jonny, Patricia, James Graham & I booked a full day tour including a leisurly bike ride on a drit track then elephant riding through the bush then a gentle kayak down the river, it was rated as 'easy' and the guy at the reception said it was easy for everyone. What a joke, it was more like intermediate level to hard. Our leisurly bike ride consisted of us biking up and down big dirt hills with millions of pot holes and rocks to dodge, on shit as bikes, in the intense heat of the sun. I was one of thoes hard core exercise activities when you have to get off your bike to vommit then push it up the hill. Graham on the other hand loved it and was one of the 3 who cycled right to the end, the whole 2.5 hrs. Azy had to throw in the towel after an hour as it was too sunny and she was getting burnt. I was tempted to go back with her as I was just about ready to pass out but decided to harden up and dig it in. About an hour after James slipped and rammed his bike into a large muddy pot hole and injured himself. I yelled out to the guide that James was hurt and he cycled back and quickly checked the bike had a laugh and made a call. I was kinda glad James fell off cause if meant I could get a ride to the end with him, I figured 2hrs of hard core cycling was good enough for unfit me. We then got to the river side and ate some fried rice. Thenn accross the river on this tiny little long skinny boat that was just about ready to sink over to the elephant riding. Elephant riding consisted of us on the back of the elephant and the elehapant guides following us round the forest, it was about half an hour all together and I almost slipped out the front of the chair. We corssed back over to the original side we were on and walked down the rockey river to the kayak's. The kayaking was the easy part kayaking for a total for 2.5 hours also, crusing down the Nam Ou river, watching the locals fish and the water buffalo having a swim. We stopped off at the Tad Sae falls another beautiful waterfall similar to the Kuang Sii one, same same but not as good as the Lao would say. We met 'the girls' Victoria and Shanade at the waterfalls, they had some a full day with the elephants feeding them and bathing them in the Nam Ou river, they said it was amazing. We got back in the kayaks and paddled down the river again over some small white water rafting spots which was fun and then got a tuk tuk back to the hotel. We names our little group 'Go Team Gap'.

5th June - We checked out of Villa Tavandeng and were off on the buss at 9am for a 7 hour trip to Vang Vieng. The scenery is gorgeous, much like the South Island for me and similar to the Drakensburg in SA mountain ranges, similar to the devils tooth in some parts. We stop at the top of one mountain and the view is stunning absolutely gorgeous, Graham ordered a prawn an cashew stir-fry and I had a spicy chicken soup, my taste in food has totally changed, im loving my spicey curries and soups. We get to the Thavensouk Guesthouse which was really nice. We had a second floor room with a balcony and a/c, yay. We have a free day tomorrow and decided to book an other tour with Azy and Jonothan. So the four of us decided to do a half day rock climing tour. Off to dinner for a pizza and a burger as we were craving western food.

6th June - Today was the day that 'Go Team Gap' was renamed 'Team Extreem', we seem to be suckers for pain. It was absolutly pouring down today and we had to wait around for 1.5 hours while the guides decided what we were going to do. At about 10.30 we finally got on the road off to the shead up the road to get our climbing shoes and harnes geers, then off to the mountain rock face.....or so we thought. We didn't really think that in order to get to the rock face we would actually have to hike through some pretty dense bush. We were rock climbing up the hill befor we even got to the rock climbing area. we crossed over a very strong river up to our thighs, got bitten by fire ants and jumped around like a bunch of little girls, climbed up slipery rocks and hiked up dense bush with more ants this time they were deadly so we stayed clear of them. Then some time later we finally got to the actual climbing wall. So first up was....hmmm....guess who? Graham! Hehehe.

Graham climbed the grade 6A and got ¾ of the way up on the 1st attempt. He found it quite a challenge as it has been a number of years since he has climbed and is out of practice. Azy climbed grade 5 on and managed to get about ¾ of the way A up she seemed to take the rock with much ease and like a rock rabbit scrambled up the cliff. Johnny attempted grade 6 and managed to get ½ way up the cliff. Leah was next, she attempted to climb grade 5 and got ½ way up the cliff. For a 1st time climber she took to the rock with much ease. I think Leah enjoyed abseiling down more than the climb, as she let out a little screech on the way down!!!I I’m not sure if it was from fear or excitement!!! Round 2 was on ...Graham attempted the more difficult grade again, and this time managed ½ way. He seemed very determined , but fatigue , and all the biting mozzies got the better of him .Azy attempted grade 6, and managed about ½ the climb. Johnny was next and climbed grade 5. He had no real issues , and with the guidance of one of the instructors (monkey man )who shouted out from the bottom where to put his hands and feet conquered the cliff!!!!! Leah decided that 1 climb was enough and took to the camera and captured all the evidence. I am writing this form a very very bumpy bus ride on the way to Halong Bay.
I forgot to mention the Singaporean girl who climbed with us and had a full day climb. Team extreme had a half days climb, we packed up and headed back down the mountain. The walk back was very challenging , as we had 2 deal with the fire ants , biting mozzies , and steep az rocks to get down. We got down the mountain and waited for the tuk tuk 2 arrive. We made some friends with a couple of dosy looking cows and found them quite amusing. We arrived back at the office about 3:30pm.
We rushed to go grab a coupla tubes to tube down the river, but they were about 2 close...not meant 2 be!! Off 2 the pub for a drink.

Later that night eam extreme + 2 caught a tuk tuk 2 the blue lagoon , which turned out not being so blue... it bucketed down the night before .nd the lagoon which was more of a stream was a murky brown colour.... classic.
We had a swim and a play in the water and then headed back virtually in the dark in the same tuk tuk to have sum grub and a early night . On the way back we passed a number of broken down scooters ..... classic az. quite glad that we didn’t hire a scooter as the road was bumpy as!

7th June- 8am bus ride from Vang Vieng to Vientiane took us 3.5 hours. A long time to hold it if u are busting!!!! We were supposed to have a toilet stop half way, but that never happened.
We arrived around mid day, checked in and took a walk 2 get a feed. Graham had a mean as cheese and egg burger, and leah had satay chicken on sticks.We also had fresh spring rolls (rice paper)

We then missioned round various temples, went up some monument that looked a lot like the Arc De Triomp. It was called Patu Xai. The history behind this was that the American’s supplied the dollar to build a runway,but that never developed into anything, so the Vietnamese people built a monument.
We climbed many stairs, there were markets inside the monuments, any opportunity for a market ay. Graham purchased a massive lighter that he had ever seen!!!!
We then went shopping to one of the chopping centres which were numerous stalls all crammed together. Graham was not up for shopping , so we caught a tuk tuk back 2 the hotel and chillaxed for a bit.

Dinner was near the waterfront at a lovely French restaurant. Leah had a chicken breast with mashed potato which was good for her potato fix. Graham had a stir-fry beef. A coupla of beers and then went walking 2 find a massage, which ended up being a mish that didn’t happen.tuk tuk back 2 the hotel 2 end the day.