Vang Vieng: My New Favorite Place

We were exhausted after our day of travelling on less-than-ideal roads when we arrived in Vang Vieng, so we got a cheap hotel and just chilled out for a bit.  For dinner, we discovered our new favorite hangout, a restaurant we dubbed “The Friends Café” because they had three big screen TVs that constantly played episodes of the TV show “Friends.”  We ended up eating there multiple times during our stay and befriended a couple of the waiters.  We explored some of our options for activities for the next couple of days and decided to go tubing on the Nam Song river, which runs parallel to the town.  So the next morning, we grabbed breakfast (and I had my millionth fruit shake) at a local café and took a tuk tuk down to the river.  The only problem is, you’re supposed to rent the tubes BEFORE you head down to the river.  So, we sent the boys in (naturally) to go rent six tubes for us while we bathed in the sun and chatted it up with the locals by the river.  Tubing along the Nam Song is very popular because the locals have built cool tiki bars that line the shores on either side of the river.  They serve Laotian beer, free shots, and have cool rope swings to swing out into the river on.  The atmosphere was really fun, and we had a great time stopping at bars along the way and meeting backpackers from all over the world.

The next day, we decided to rent scooters and go explore the caves around the area.  After some troubles finding the actual roads that lead to a couple of the caves (“Legitimate” roads look like dirt tracks and maps are not drawn to scale. Perfect.), we came upon a deserted cave that apparently had a Buddha statue in it.  Using only our cell phone lights and the hand-holding system, we ventured into the cave to find the Buddha.  Luckily, it wasn’t too far into the cave!  We grabbed some pictures, went swinging on some vines, and ventured on to find the next cave, Tham Phu Kham.  The trip to Tham Phu Kham led us on a bumpy dirt road through a couple of villages and herds of cattle on the road.  However, the best part of the trip was the absolutely breathtaking scenery we encountered!  We were surrounded by gorgeous mountains and pristine fields.

Once we got to the cave, we were surprised by the amount of people there!  We found out they were having a New Year celebration, complete with a live band and lots and lots of vendors selling suspicious looking meat products.  We rented a light to explore the cave with and started the extremely treacherous hike through the woods up to the cave. (The path was nearly vertical, I swear.)  The inside of the cave was cool and cavernous and we spent the next hour or so exploring it.  The cave had no definite pathways or lights, so it was up to you to find your own way.  My friend and I started following a guy who looked like he knew what he was doing (and he had a light… a definite plus), but we found out too late that he actually had no idea where he was going.  We ended up on the wrong side of a large ravine and had to go through some painful (and slightly scary!) measures in order to be able to get out of the cave.  A couple of foot cuts, some dirty clothes, and a pair of ripped shorts later, we finally got out of there!

At the bottom of the path leading up to the cave, there is a lagoon that all of the local children were swimming in.  It was the perfect way to cool down, and we had fun jumping out of trees and swinging on the rope swings with the locals.  That night, we returned our scooters and checked out a local restaurant owned by an Australian man.  We had fun chatting it up with him and enjoyed the Thai/Australian food.  The next day, we shopped for souvenirs and reluctantly hopped on a bus back to Vientiane.

Here are the links to my Facebook photo albums of Bangkok and Laos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012576&id=1177830018&l=82389c2644

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012668&id=1177830018&l=8cf77b6848

Bangkok Was... Interesting

We quickly realized that it was not just a typical weekend in Bangkok.  After being doused in water multiple times while attempting to find our hostel, we soon learned that it was Songkran, the Thai New Year.  To celebrate the new year, the Thai line the streets with water buckets, water bottles, water guns, and any other imaginable container that holds water.  They then douse anyone and anything that passes them with the water.  In addition, some kids had a curious colorful clay substance that they wiped all over the face and arms of any unsuspecting victim.  We finally found our hostel, changed into dry clothes (a futile action, we realized), and decided to go to the one thing that looked familiar to us: Subway.  After we indulged in some delicious Subway sandwiches, we headed to the MBK, a popular shopping center in Bangkok.  We had to barter hard for a tuk tuk, a three-wheeled motorized open-backed vehicle used as a taxi in SE Asia.  It was frustrating to us knowing that the drivers charged us WAY more than the locals for a ride. 

It was on our way to the shopping center that we saw our first communist demonstrations.  We didn’t think much of it until we were on our way home from the mall and the tuk tuk driver said we’d have to go the long way around the city back to Koh Sahn Rd. because the communists had basically taken over all of Bangkok’s major roads.  I was honestly pretty freaked out riding in the back of an open-aired vehicle on the dark side streets of Bangkok knowing there were communist demonstrations going on all around the city.  (But no worries Mum, I survived!)  We were planning on staying two nights in Thailand before we headed to Laos, but because it was Songkran, many of the sightseeing attractions around the city were closed, and the communist demonstrations made transportation around the city a difficulty.  Additionally, negative press and warnings about the communists made our decision to get the heck out of Bangkok very easy!  We booked an overnight bus ride from Bangkok to Laos for the evening and spent the day getting soaked, eating Thai food, and chilling on Koh Sahn Rd. before our bus headed out.  While we waited, we also checked out a really cool bar that was 3 stories up from the street.  We were able to try some genuine Thai beer, watch and laugh at the people down on the street getting wet, and listen to a very talented musician (he was on the first season of American Idol!) play some live music for us.

Before we headed out on our 20-hour bus trek from Bangkok to Laos, we decided to try out some really cheap Thai whiskey for the ride.  Needless to say, it was absolutely disgusting, but it made the ride go a bit more quickly!  We arrived at the border crossing between Thailand and Laos in the morning, bought our Laotian visas, and hopped on another bus to Vientiane, the capitol of Laos.  From Vientiane, we took another bus to Vang Vieng, a fun backpacker town about 4 hours away from Vientiane.

It's Time to Perfect My Bartering Skills

Once we arrived on Koh Chang, we caught a taxi to the beach we stayed on, Klong Prao.  We got a bungalow for $9 a night and decided to grab some breakfast.  At breakfast, we discovered the joys of fresh pineapple pancakes (They might even rival your pancakes, Dad) and fresh fruit shakes.  In fact, when I ordered a watermelon fruit shake, the guy had to go down the road to the fruit market to grab a watermelon to make my shake with!  After breakfast, we explored the local shops a bit and decided to go on an elephant ride. The company provided transportation for us from our bungalow and we were able to ride an elephant through the rainforest for about an hour!  Although the tour guide’s English wasn’t very good, we did learn a bit about the elephants and the rainforest plants during our ride.  After our ride, we got $5 massages from a little place right next to our bungalow.  This was enough relaxation for us to realize that we were absolutely exhausted from our non-stop travelling, so we crashed on a resort’s private beach a short walk from our bungalow for a long afternoon nap. (It had padded lawn chairs!)  We grabbed dinner in the evening at a delicious seafood restaurant and shopped and bartered for souvenirs from the locals.  The bartering process goes a bit like this: you grab an object and ask, “How much?”  Then, the shopkeeper grabs their calculator and puts their initial price in.  You then glance at the price, laugh incredulously, and shake your head.  The shopkeeper asks, “How much you give me?”  You then type your counter offer into the calculator and continue the process until you seal the deal.  We got so good at bartering that we were afraid we’d try to barter for items once we were in Australia too!

The next day, we grabbed a taxi to a fishing town called Bang Bao on the southern tip of the island.  We grabbed another bungalow for the night ($8 a night this time!) and headed to the boardwalk and pier, where they have a ton of souvenir shops and seafood restaurants.  We bartered for some more souvenirs and enjoyed watching the fishing and touring boats come into the pier from the Gulf of Thailand.  That evening, we found an adorable seafood restaurant along the water and enjoyed some delicious seafood and Thai cuisine.  Sunset on the water and the incoming boats’ twinkling lights made the view from the restaurant a gorgeous one!

            In the morning, we grabbed a taxi all the way back up the coast to the northern pier and rode the ferry back to the mainland.  We took a taxi from the ferry to the bus station and bought tickets on a VIP bus from Trat back to Bangkok.  The use of the term, “VIP” is grossly overused in Australia and SE Asia, so we laughed at the idea of taking a “VIP” bus.  However, we were pleasantly surprised.  The bus had slightly hideous pink frilly curtains, and free blankets, candy bars, and Coca Cola for the passengers.  (All the makings of a proper VIP experience!)  However, our experience was kind of ruined when they turned on obnoxious Thai “comedy” on all the bus TVs and blared it through their surround sound system.  So much for a quiet and pleasant VIP ride!  We met an English woman on the bus ride, so we shared a taxi with her from the bus station in Bangkok to Koh Sahn Road, the backpacker district of Bangkok.

I'm not sure if this is going to work, but here is the link to my Facebook photo album of Koh Chang (Just copy and paste it into your address line!):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012426&id=1177830018&l=ee876fb0da

Just Getting There Was an Adventure!

So, I’m FINALLY getting around to reporting about my trip.  You’d think that because of the delay, it wasn’t a good trip.  However, the complete opposite is true. We had so much fun and did so many things, I’m not sure how I’m going to write it all down and come out with anything short of a novel!  As a result, I'm going to blog in installments/chapters. haha

We started off our trip with an 8-hour flight on from Gold Coast, Australia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Let the travel problems begin.  Our plane was really late leaving the airport in Gold Coast, meaning we were late arriving into Kuala Lumpur, meaning we were cutting our layover from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, Thailand extremely short... like we had less than 10 minutes to get to our next plane short.  So, we sprinted out onto the tarmac, sprinted through customs, sprinted through security, and sprinted to the boarding gate.  Unfortunately, we didn’t make it in time and they wouldn’t let us board the plane, so we were out of luck (and out of breath!).  We had to buy another ticket to Bangkok (there goes my travel budget) and luckily, we got the last few seats on the last flight to Bangkok that night.

However, that was not the end of our travel mishaps. When we boarded our plane to Bangkok, we noticed that there were people assigned to the same seats we had on our boarding pass too. We contacted the stewardess, and imagine our surprise when she exclaimed, “Oh! You’re supposed to be going to Bangkok!  This is the plane to Bali!” EEEEKKK!  We had gotten on the wrong plane… and worse yet, they let us get on the wrong plane!  Luckily, there were people in our assigned seats because the plane wasn’t that full, and we wouldn’t have known the difference if not for the discrepancy in seating!  So, we again found ourselves sprinting across the tarmac to our plane to Bangkok.

When we arrived in Bangkok, we got a taxi from the airport to Ekamaii, the bus station.  We bought tickets for the midnight bus to Trat, a town in SE Thailand, and the gateway to Koh Chang, the island we were travelling to.  We killed some time exploring the area, bought some delicious Pad Thai (for less than $1!), and chilled at McDonald’s until our bus came.  The bus ride took around 4 hours, so we slept most of the way.  We met a Thai boy on the bus who was an exchange student in Florida for a year, so his English was really good.  He was from Trat, so he told us where we should go, and lined up a taxi to the Koh Chang ferry for us.  This was so helpful because nobody else really spoke English… and it was 4:30 am.  So we caught the taxi to the ferry, but on the way we stopped at a market full of fresh fruits, vegetables, seafood, and… hog heads.  It was only about 4:45 am, and the market was absolutely bustling with locals!  It was cool to be completely immersed in their lifestyle after less than 12 hours in their country!  Oh, and to top off our initial culture experience, we asked to use the restroom in the 7Eleven only to find that it was a hole in the ground with a bit of porcelain around it for you to stand on. Fantastic.

Finally, we arrived at the ferry and hopped on for the 45 minute boat ride to Koh Chang. Our timing was perfect to watch the beautiful sunrise over the Gulf of Thailand.

I'm Off to Asia!

So, I've had some complaints that I haven't updated my blog recently, so I'll give you a REALLY short update on what I'm up to for the next 10 days over my Easter break.  In approximately 7 hours, 5 friends and I are heading out of Australia and traveling to Malaysia, Thailand, and Laos!  We'll be staying in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Bangkok (Thailand), an island called Koh Chang (Thailand), and Vien Vieng (Laos).  We're planning on going to the markets, riding elephants, hiking in the jungle, white water rafting and tubing, touring the temples, and soaking up the Malyasian, Thai, and Laotian cultures!

I'll share my experiences and pictures as soon as I get back on the 19th!

Just Settling In...

I've officially been in Australia for one month!  I'm finally getting settled into some sort of a routine, which is comforting after a month of traveling and exploring a completely new place.

I started school on March 2nd, and it was funny how familiar my first day at Griffith University felt to my very first day at Mizzou.  I didn't know a soul, had no idea where my classes were, and was nervous for what the teacher and other students would be like!  We're now into Week 3 of classes, and I'm happy with my schedule and the variety of things I'll be studying.  I'm taking Popular Music and Cultural Context (analyzing music and its effects on individuals, taking into account cultural and personal preferences), Introduction to American Politics (exactly as the name states, but from the viewpoint of Australians...), Love, Sex, and Truth (a philosophy class examining the interpersonal relationships between humans), and Epidemiology and Population Health (the study of the spread and prevention of disease within populations).  It's quite the conglomeration of classes, and I'm so excited to be able to be studying such a variety of interesting topics!

Disclaimer on the photo from campus: I wanted to wait to get pictures while it was sunny out... because it's almost always sunny here, and it would make my campus look that much more beautiful!  However, we had a cyclone come through last week, and it was cloudy and windy for a whole WEEK!  (yeah, miserable... I know :-P)  

This last weekend, a group of us headed up to Brisbane for a rugby match!  It's only about a 45 minute train ride, and when you buy a ticket to the game, your train ticket is free.  It was great to be able to get out of Gold Coast and explore a new city... Brisbane has a population of about 1.9 million people, so there are tons of things to explore!  Rugby is quite a bit different than American football, so the poor guys sitting next to me in the stands spent a large part of the game explaining the rules to me.  It was a really fun atmosphere, though, and we're definitely going to be headed back up there a couple more times to go to the games and explore the nightlife a bit more.

Although I'm loving it here in Australia, there are a few things I miss from home.  March Madness is now in full swing, and two of my favorite basketball teams, Mizzou and Northern Iowa, have made it into the tournament!  I actually "watched" the Big 12 Championship game between Mizzou and Baylor via ESPN.com's score and commentary updates every 30 seconds.  It most definitely wasn't an optimal situation, but it gave me a chance to cheer on my Tigers from across the ocean!  I also got a package from home this last week, and it was jam packed with my favorite American candy, pictures of family, suncreen, and items that reminded me of home. Thanks Mum and Dad!

Down by the Bay!

This weekend, a group of us went down to Byron Bay, a cool hippie town along the coast in northern New South Wales.  We started off the weekend with a trip to a wildlife sanctuary where we saw everything from an absolutely MASSIVE crocodile to dingoes to endangered cockatoos to extremely poisonous snakes.  We learned a lot more about Australian wildlife, which was really cool.  For instance, something like 9 out of the 10 most venomous snakes live in Australia... eek!  (Don't worry Mom, they also told us what to do if we ever see one!)

After the wildlife park, we arrived at our hostel in Byron Bay and then went for a long walk along the absolutely breathtaking coast.  The walk took us up to the Byron Bay lighthouse, which sits on the most easterly point of Australia.  It was a tough walk, but we got some beautiful views and spotted a pod of dolphins, so it was definitely worth it!  After the walk, the group went for dinner and out on the town to mingle with locals... a fun-filled day and night!

On Saturday, we got up early and went to the beach for surfing lessons.  (You could definitely tell I was from the Midwest with no access to the ocean...)  Although I kind of maybe  sort of got up a few times (okay... only once), it was fun to be able to spend the morning in the water trying something completely new and challenging.  In the afternoon, we went sea kayaking... what a workout!  The wind was blowing toward the shore, so it was really hard work.  However, once we were out there, it was pretty intense to be able to feel the strength of such an immense and powerful body of water.

On Sunday, we had a free day to explore Byron Bay a bit more.  On the first Sunday of every month, they have this huge market featuring clothing, jewelry, glassware, soaps, food, and artwork from local residents.  I feel so fortunate that our trip was timed perfectly to be able to catch it... it was so cool to be able to peruse the vendors and admire the artistry of the merchandise.  For lunch, a friend and I went to a cool sushi restaurant and then hit the beach for a nap and a dip in the ocean before we left for home.  (You could tell we all had had an exciting weekend... everybody was passed out for the entirety of the bus ride!)