One Week in Laos...

Laos would be our ninth and final country before heading back into Northern Thailand for a planned week of adventure and on to the south for an inviting party and relax combo. Unfortunately this is where Praddles had to leave us due to an emergency at home.

Vientiane is the capital City, I say city; it’s a small town with nothing. I repeat: NOTHING! It doesn’t even have a cinema ffs!

The only reason anyone would ever go to Vientiane is to visit the Thai Embassy to get the 60 visa which you cant get upon arrival. That’s why we were there, however getting this coverted stamp isnt as easy as walking in, paying a fee and walking out. OOOOH NO! you must arrive there between 8:30-12, fill out an application and pay, then collect the next day 1-3pm. So I will highlight our stay in this CAPITAL CITY

Day 1: Arrived after 12pm so did nothing.

Day 2: Arrived at Embassy to discover it is closed due to some bank holiday or some shit so did nothing.

Day 3: Arrived at Embassy at 8:50. Handed in application at 12:30 after hours of Queuing. Did nothing after. (Ate a lush pizza)

Day 4: Received visa at 3pm. This is after the last bus out of town. We went to the Buddha Park, it was ok.

Day 5: Left Vientiane with the world’s biggest smile!

The Buddha Park by the way is a mini field full of statues and monuments devoted to Buddha and some Hindu stuff also.

They weren’t amazing but fun enough, plus I would like to say sorry to all the monks who were knocking around. I know I wasn’t supposed to jump the rope and climb up this Buddha but please understand that I had had some of the most boring days of my life in that town. Anyway, F U you’re mum Bashy I get reloads!

 
We had arranged a really good way to get to Vang Vieng from Vientiane which was to stop of on the way and boat along the river and trek up the jungle to do some zip lining. Before we left, the tour organiser which was some environmentally friendly eco-bullshit company said there were going to be 6 others on the trip. Jack and I wondered if it was going to 6 really fit birds, well we were half right.

So anyway Jack, I and these 6 rough birds headed to this sky walkway zipline outfit. One of the girls was harping on about how it was brilliant that the trip was really good for the ecology and whatnot because we won’t be trekking through any endangered species, I thought she was a mug! It’s all a con love, grow up!

Zip lining was good, bollocks got completely squashed but it allowed me to continue my fantasy that I was James Bond as I swung through the jungle taking out imaginary militia.

We finally arrived in Vang Vieng, the town famed for tubing. The act of floating down the river on rubber rings (or tubes) whilst bars posted along the route pull you in for mushroom and opium infused alcoholic beverages combined with rope swings and diving platforms!!!!!!!!

Except, hang on… THEY HAVE SHUT THE FUCKER DOWN. That’s right, following 30 deaths last year, the president visited VV and said “right… everybody stop having fun!” so since August it’s kind of like a ghost town. Even the bars shut at 12! It’s communism gone mad!

As those of you reading this who have been to VV in the height of tubing madness are undoubtedly crying at the thought of never being able to enjoy the experience again; spare a though for little ol’ T Berg who ever since he saw a YouTube video of the antics has only ever wanted to that exact thing!

What it means for VV is that now the town has been transformed into a quiet desirable chill out spot. With the river bars gone and drugs limited to the odd “happy pizza” but the travel down the river is an incredibly relaxing and therapeutic venture as groups of random drifters inevitably join forces to form a giant raft of like-minded floaters. The tranquility is only disrupted by the chaos of an army of 5-11 yeas old boys who stop lobbing rocks and an abandoned house and dive in the river to try and claim your tube in order to cash in your £2 deposit or however much it is. The whole occasion was very much like the Pirates 4D ride at Thorpe Park. Obviously the kids weren’t hard enough to take our tubes but they did rob a Zach Galafanikis look-a-like. And when I say look-a-like I mean someone who looked 99% the same as Alan from the Hangover, I had to be deliberate.

During our float down a conversation started between with Alan, some Canadians, an Indian-American (not American-Indian) called Rishi and a German called Richie. Rishi was explaining to the Canadians and Alan how there had been a huge Maple Syrup Heist which had sent the maple syrup market off kilt and it was still trying to recover today. Odd chat for the situation but more odd was how after that Richie (the German) was going on about how he was going to use that phrase: “Maple Syrup Heist”. No one knew what on earth he was on about but it transpired hours later that he thought there was a phrase “maple syrupised” and was an ultra-specific saying for when something happens to you involving maple syrup, mongtard!

Of course outside of the tubing remains the calming restaurants with their 40+ page menus; rarely will you get past the “fruit shakes” before some little geezer is standing over you asking for your order. All these restaurants are armed with large flat screens playing Friends all day, it is unavoidable. I had forgotten how good Friends actually is and how is and how I am so completely Ross.

In VV we ended up getting matey with some internationals and headed out. We had heard lads had been arrested by the police for having some weed, and this girl we were with was certain it was her French mates based of the tiniest of piece of information. So as a force to be messed with we headed about the town to try and find them and break them out, kind of like Ocean’s Eleven; this started with just 5 and this grew as we bowled down the street looking for clues and recruiting other idiots. Anyway here’s some of the crew: Matt Damon, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Bernie Mac. I’ll let you decide who is who.

Bizarrely we actually managed to find the Frenchies and it was them who had been arrested but they just needed to hand over a 600 euro bribe each to get their passports back.

We left VV and onto Luang Probang, then out of the country into northern Thailand.

And of course heres a video to summarise:

The Journey was advertised as a quick 17 total trip, 12 hours on a “VIP” bus and a 5 hour minibus. This would turn out to be the worst bit of travelling ever experienced by a human. Jack and I were separated at this stage but stayed in contact to see how we were getting on:

I had plenty of time to think up this festive delight

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One Week in Bangkok...

Bangkok; where you can do anything. Jack and I got there and we wanted to sleep. So we did; for 17 hours.

Essentially Bangkok is like any other big city. Well developed, plenty of amenities, massage parlors and ladyboys knocking around.

Taxi drivers are also massive nob’eds. They don’t know where anything is, and it’s not a language barrier thing because you show them Google maps and they are baffled. When they do know where something is they tend to not want to take you there because of the bad traffic which is unavoidable and GAY!

Another issue is that when you do you will often be faced with a difficult decision; which of the following would you like to see?

We choose neither and elected to move hotels 3 times to soak up the city living. Our third hotel was half way down what Jack and I referred to as “Prozzer Street”. This meant that every time we walked to or from the hotel we were solicited for massages by beautiful women who may or may not have been beautiful men. Sometimes it is really obvious, for example stubble and built like a brick shithouse; other times its less obvious, big fake tits and genuinely looks like a bird.

We headed out that night to the Khao San Road which is where you find the tourists drinking buckets and general “Bangkok night out” stuff you would expect from reading around or watching films. Including fake clothes and crass wristbands (if you are able to zoom in take a look at what you can wear on your arm.)

At one stage Jack was getting the drinks in and three Thai teenagers strolled past, they were munching on a bag of mushrooms. I could see through the clear plastic bags and fancied some of the sautéed shrooms. So I asked one of the girls, “Are those mushrooms?” she looked perplexed, so I rephrased the question “those? Mushrooms?” She understood and quick as a flash popped one in my mouth. (a mushroom that is)

This was by far the worst tasting mushroom of my life, crunchy and sour with an awful consistency. The group laughed, hard. They tilted the bag towards me so I could have closer look… fucking fried grubs. I had eaten a bloody fat worm thing and to top it off I was a laughing stock for these little idiots.

Jokes on them though, they had a whole bag of that shit! Which I later realised, they sold all over the place.

Jack returned with the buckets and explained that there had been a confusion at the bar and as way to say sorry the manager had made his drink super strong and I had to try it. Now, Jack has previous of making a bigger deal about things than they are. So I took the bucket, thinking to myself “oh yeah, bet this is nothing” took a huge sip through the straw… and insta sicked into an empty bucket on the table. Jack laughed. I was sick again. Although this seems like a bad thing, in the rush I did manage to break a decade long habit of throwing up in my hand that has plagued me on nights out over the years.

J Bird headed off to get me some water but I could hear laughter from across the other side of the street, I looked over and a woman shouted “you have puke in your beard!” One of my lowest moments.

Next was time for P Money to arrive and to welcome him we had booked a fancy hotel, this ended up being at the end of Prozzer Street by accident which meant we were to walk past even more massage parlors. There were three with the prefix Dr BJ’s but one was called Dr BJ’s Bargain Bangers, we are still not sure if that meant that the birds were rougher.

When we checked into the hotel, the welcome pack made interesting reading:

We went out again, set up a kitty, lost Jack, which meant lost the kitty but still had a good night:

Bangkok was a great experience and we reveled in it before moving to Laos. The highlight however was when J Bone needed to buy some new earphones and inadvertently bought 5m long ones, what a spazlord!

Typical video summary below

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One City & 1600 Islands...

NOTE: This post is pretty long so to save time just scroll to the bottom and watch the suammry video.

We headed to our final stop in Vietnam; right in the north is the capital Hanoi.

Hanoi is a super ramo idiot town, where walking from A to B is made incredibly difficult by the fact that the pavement is not allocated to walking. Instead pedestrians must walk along the road with the minimal cars and ample mopeds weaving in and out of women and children as they hustle about to go and get their next awful meal – probably chicken feet covered in pork semen wrapped up in a squids scrotum, or something equally unappetising to anyone who shits sitting down.

The pavements are reserved for restaurants to display their miniature stools and to cook unknown piles of mess; or used for shops to display their generic wears and piles of unknown mess; or for moped drivers to park their mopeds in a mess.

The streets of Hanoi are quite obvious, I realise that that doesn’t make a lot of sense but bear with me. Each street sells something different which makes them easily identifiable and means that if you want something specific you know where to go. If you were to go do a Sunday Big Shop however you would be in a lot of trouble.

Specific areas include: The men’s clothes area, the women’s clothes area, the children’s clothes area, the children’s toys area, the baby products area, the bank area, the cigarette corner, the sunglasses area, the hairdressers area, the shoes area, the flip-flop area, the motorbike parts area and the door locks and handles area. There are more areas but I suspect you get the idea.

Still though within these areas no one shop is different from the other, they all have exactly the same stock and this has been true across Asia and Mexico. What is the USP here? What is Vietnamese for “diversify”? How can I make a street vendor realise that if I said “no” the first man selling a shoe shine for my trainers that 10 more vendors down the line I still down want (or need) my trainers polished?!

To top off Vietnam before flying to Bangkok we had one last trip planned to Ha Long bay. A soup of a billion islands or so in the sea. If you have ever seen the Vietnam Top Gear episode then it’s the end but in the water.

To do this we went on the “Castaway Tour” organised by one of the hostels which promised to be a fun filled romp amongst the islands. After a 4 hour bus we boarded a boat for another 4 hours. As the boat set off a few ground rules were set for the boat.

“Rule #1: No drinking with your right hand. If you do and someone shouts buffalo then you have to neck your drink.”

Oh right, I thought, what a funny joke and it’s one of those trips. I’ve never really been a fan of this sort of drinking game; it always seems to me that the people who are most keen to play are also the ones who seek attention by getting caught the most and then going “oh what, me? Oh well” with a stupid look on their face saying “silly me, I guessed have to drink this drink now” and then only take like a couple of sips. Gay douchebags. The lack of people actually downing their drink was pitiful, especially considering they were serving drinks in such tiny cups filled with ice.

“Rule #2: You cannot say the word T-E-N. If you say the word T-E-N then you must do T-E-N press-ups”

How this improved the speed of drinking and getting people drunk, I don’t know? nether the less this was quite a funny rule in hindsight

“Rule #3: You cannot say the word M-I-N-E. If you say the word M-I-N-E you must do T-E-N press-ups.

Similar to Rule #2, but a welcome addition.

Those were the rules so once the guide stop talking we hit the bar (LOL) on the boat, 3 for 2 drinks, and to avoid getting caught in the games we utilised our natural left handedness and used words like TENt and MINEfield.

The group got settled and were mingling but before people could get too acquainted and have too much of a laugh everyone was called upstairs for some forced fun, generic ice-breaker shit that everybody hates. Whats your name? Where are you from? Tell us a fact about yourself.

It went round in a circle as people told us where they were from in as broad a sense as “Australia” and “England”. The facts were also rather tame with examples like “this is my sister”, “my favorite colour is orange”, “I am a homosexual” and “I’m an alcoholic (in a jokey sense)”.

Hang on a second… everyone looked round at each other… did that guy actually say he was gay, and is he gay? He said it so nonchalant that it could be a joke or that he is very comfortable. I would later refer to this man as “Batty Twat” because he was an idiot.

After a swim en route we were about to arrive at our beach residence for the next two nights situated on one the numerous islands, but not before more forced fun. Our guide (still can’t remember his name) said that the group from the day before were already on the island and would be planning a welcome for us so we should do the same on the boat.

The ideas were flying; “everyone do a moony” one person said, “Gangnam style” said another, “sex positions” said a third. Finally the group settled on a human pyramid… oooooh what a great idea. Except there were 40 of us. I’ve never seen anyone even attempt one so big on land let alone of a boat. Low and behold after 12 people were involved there was no space so me and Jack sat at the side and leant into make the pyramid look more slopey.

To top it off the other group were brilliant and didn’t even plan anything, well they sort of hid, so they completely did us as our pyramid was all for nothing.

On the island the drinking continued.

It continued much later for many others including Batty Twat who had unfortunately ended up in our hut along with 8 or so others. His bed was located around my head and next to the side entrance allowing him to enter and leave his domain approximately every 5 minutes, I guess to seek attention and be a bell end, making a racket and trying to talk to people.

The next morning the group arose and one of the camp called “ladyboy”; due to a story he told about a night in Thailand, asked “what happened to my mosquito net." It had been completely ripped from the 8 foot ceiling… oh look Batty Twat was using it as a pillow.

Batty Twat also complained about how there was mud on his bed and that people had been walking on it, when I told him that he had caused it all himself, he ignored me and carried on being a dick. Jack made sure that every time he entered the hut he was sure to wipe his shoes all over it from then on. It was completely coated by the end (LOL)

That day was a bit wasted really, I went wakeboarding and stood up for approximately 3 seconds, but enough to get a picture making look like I’m a pro. I asked Jack if he wanted to go wakeboarding and he said “Do I Fuck”.

In the afternoon we went kayaking for about 2 hours, shattering and insightful. All the floating fishing huts had dogs on, as if they expected you to board and steal the copious plastic baskets of shite. Also underwater were tied down plastic boxes of mold, like tones of them.

 

That night was very subdued with the next group arriving being quite sparse in number. A mass drinking game with 50 people was alright and got everyone involved but the guides were being a bit gay asking for absolute silence as they took their turns, no one cares lads just get on with it.

Anyhow we left the islands, it was a good trip and everyone was shattered, myself included. From too much alcohol and far far far too many press-ups.

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