The Whit Show: 2012

Back when I lived in Florida (which seems 5 years ago but in reality it has only been 3 months) and I planned my travels abroad, I had high ambitions to blog every other day, if not daily. Well, those ambitions of mine were a little too high and traveling has gotten the best of me. The past month or so has been a whirlwind and I am currently running 4 countries and about 10 blogs behind. I guess that's what falling in love will do to you. Yes, I am in love; with Indonesia. SO, it’s time for a blog revamp which will consist of short, and more than likely, run on sentences, bullet points and of course pictures... until I am caught up and then I will go back to my rambling, long winded blogging self.

Pardon my grammatical errors, time to fill you in (briefly) on Northern Vietnam.

Just what I like to see, locals charging to weigh yourself. I'll save my 5 cents, thanks.

Upon arrival in Hanoi, Northern Vietnam we took the 1.5 hour bus ride to our hotel. As you might remember from my last post, Mike and Katie were quite miserable and still recovering from the previous day of tubing down the Luang Prabang. Due to their sickness/illness/hungoverness/whateverness, I was on my own for exploring the deadly streets of Hanoi while Katie and Mike basked in their...varying issues. Fun fact: Hanoi was formerly the capital of Northern Vietnam, prior to the re- unification of the country, once the Vietnam War ended.

Frogger, inspired by Vietnam.

There isn't must exciting to report from my Hanoi, traveling solo, excursions. The first night I attempted to go for a run, but quickly got deterred once I realized the streets of Vietnam are like living in the real life Frogger game. I decided it would be best if I walked so I could watch out for the death traps, otherwise known as drivers. Literally, to cross the street you just cross. You don’t look left, you don’t look right, you don’t look anywhere, you don’t put any thought into it, you just walk. You might as well wear a blind fold. Every time I crossed the street I held my breath and prayed I wouldn’t be the next bug on someone’s windshield. That night I found myself taking a leisurely stroll through the night market and eating pizza, my second favorite activity (night markets, not the pizza) after harassing wild animals.

The next morning I went down for breakfast and in true Mike fashion, he had picked up a lovely lady breakfast date. Long story short, Katie and Mike laid in bed all day, still recovering, so I spent the day traveling with my new friend, Jacqueline.

Day goes as follows:

We rode in a push bicycle, we toured Hoa Lo Prison, we ate lunch in the park, we went to a Vietnam water puppet show, I bought myself a new camera, I ate 5 ice cream cones (I know, I know, but in my defense, it was hot AND I’m on..Vacation?), and then I went for a run around Hoan Kiem lake. Day over.

First date.

Thang Long Water Puppet Theater - A Vietnam tradition.

Last day in Hanoi: Mike felt better so we went for a 5 mile walk in the heat, uphill both ways (well it felt like it anyways) to a the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Ho Chi Minh Museum that were both closed. So we rested our legs, pouted about our defeat, and walked the 5 miles home. We ate ice cream at Fanny’s. Mike bought about 5 pens. We went in multiple book stores, my guilty pleasure, and Katie finally measled her way out of bed to get a pedicure with me.

Heatstoppers. Walking sticks. Potato. PaTAto.

And that my friend is Hanoi in a nutshell. I wish we would have scheduled ourselves more time In Northern Vietnam because unfortunalty we didn't make it to Sapa or Halong Bay, two of Northern Vietnam's must-dos. But after our fresh pedis it was time to head to the airport and make our way down to Ho Chi Minh, which deserves a blog of it's own

Ho Chi Minh ready.

Blah blah,

Whitney

I could definitely entertain myself in this position for hours if it ever came down to it.

Prison Tour

Hanoi City View

Yes. Harder than it looks.

I wish I could witness this in action... on watermelon maybe.

Some Cathedrals we thought we should get a pic with. (The proper name would be St. Joseph's)

Finally, I bought a new camera. If this picture could speak it would tell you, in a 1000 words, it was quite a process.

Mary Poppins, is that you?

If "best receptionists in the world" was an award, these two would tie at first place.

Smoke break with the locals.

Now that is ice cream.

Trying to run off those ice cream cones when I encoutered a massage train. Obvi, the best seat is the driver.

Mausoleum. He wouldn't let us by.

For my history buffs... And thank you google.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is the historic place where Respected Uncle Ho read the Vietnam Manifesto on September 2nd, 1945. There are always two guardmen dressed in white uniforms standing at the main entrance every day.
You may have to wait in a rather long queue to enter the mausoleum. The Mausoleum is closed on Monday and Friday but open the rest of the week. It is also closed to visitors during October and November, allowing only pilgrims to visit to pay their homage to Respected Uncle Ho. The dress code for entry is very strict. You must wear shirts and long trousers, no shorts. Also, no cameras, hats or bags are allowed.
Visitors must keep silent and you will only have a minute to stop in front of the glass enclosure where Uncle Ho lays. He is dressed in his traditional khaki clothes and rubber sandals, and looks as if he is just taking nap.

After a month in Thailand it was time to move on to bigger, and probably not better because truthfully I didn’t think this trip could get any better than Thailand, we were headed to Laos. Katie had done her research and found out the best scenic and most touristy route to take was the slow boat down the Mekong River. Your options to get down to Luang Prabang are either fly, bus, fast or slow boat. The slow boat is a 3 day, 2 night excursion and two of the days are spent all day on the river. The first day was spent traveling to the Thailand/Laos boarder from Chiang Mai. After a 6 hour bus ride we arrived in Chiang Kong. The next morning we woke up early, stamped out of Thailand, took a small boat across the river and stamped into Laos. From here we hopped onto the overcrowded, hot, small, loud and extremely slow boat for our first of two 8 hour river rides. What an adventure. The slow boat is just that, slow. From small villages on the river, children playing, women washing clothes, large limestone rocks and the wildlife, the first few hours were actually quite enjoyable with all the scenery. It was nice to slow down our hectic travel schedule and take a breather. But after the first few hours, boredom, uncomfortable-ness, and a sore butt set in. We pulled into port at a small town along the way for an overnight stay just to wake up and repeat the previous day. I wish I had a good slow boat story for you, but it was rather boring. I just read the whole time. I did meet a few guys and take a breather from my book to exchange some "I'll teach you my magic tricks if you teach me yours". Let's just say they came out on top of that little deal.

2 days, 8 hours each day. No problem.

Lao Yachts

Upon arrival in Luang Prabang we immediately ran into solicitors all competing for our business to stay in their hotels. We agreed on a hotel called Spicy because the guy showed us a few pictures of the place and it seemed do-able; and after all it did have AC and Wi-Fi, the only two things I care about on this trip. As soon as we pulled up at the hotel we ran into a group of guys standing outside the gate that said don’t go in there, it's terrible! So, we hiked around for about an hour to find another suitable accommodation. About 5 minutes into unpacking our luggage there was a power outage. Everything was black. After sitting in the dark for 30 minutes we decided to ask the hotel people if they expected the power to come back on anytime soon. They informed us that there was a power outage in the whole city! All of Luang Prabang was pitch black. We whipped out our flash lights and decided to venture out into the streets. We blindly ordered dinner, street stand sandwiches, at the night market and scarfed them down. It was the first bite of American food I had had in a month. About this time the city power finally decided to power back up so we perused through the street night market and then headed home. Mike went out that night to meet up with a few of the pretty young ladies we met on the slow boat and Katie and I stayed in to plan the rest of our Laos trip.

We woke up the next morning and went for a bike ride around the city before catching our 3:00 bus down to Vang Vieng. Katie and I shared one bike and that was the worst decision I have made this entire trip (well second to playing with that dang monkey that bite me). A lot of people over here pedal around with a friend (usually a young, light pal) on the back of their bike and they make it look so easy. Of course I was like oh yeah Katie, I can pedal around with you on the bike. So we set off to sight see and I could barely pedal more than 1 mph. Not to mention every time we came to a slight incline I made her get off and walk. We didn’t make it very far on the sightseeing adventure before we returned our bikes.

Dont that that smile on my face fool you.

Now onto the 6 hour mini bus ride down to Vang Vieng. It was the most horrible, terrible, mortifying bus ride I have EVER been on. And I have been on a lot of bus rides. I can't even put this trip into words. Laos is incredible beautiful. Mainly because it is a country surround by rivers, limestone cliffs and mountains. It is also an extremely poor country that is not built up at all, no tall buildings, no fast food places and no paved roads. So our trip down to VV was through a windy mountain on a rocky road. I had to hang my head out the window the entire 6 hours just so I wouldn’t throw up. I also had to keep my eyes closed for 90 percent of the ride because I literally thought we were going to die at any second. Our driver was flying through the mountains, passing ever vehicle that was slowing us down and we were literally drifting around the turns. It was terrifying. I motioned to him a few times that I was nausea and might throw up and I’m pretty sure he laughed and went faster. Also, by the time we finally left Luang Prabang the sun was setting, just to add in another mortifying factor to the death equation. When we finally arrived in VV around midnight I was all halleluiah, praise Jesus, and kissing the ground.

The bus dropped us off right in front of the place we were staying for the next few nights, Mr. T's organic farm. We got a few hours of sleep before it was time to get up at 6 am to milk goats! At the farm stay we had the privilege of being able to clean the goat pins, feed the goats, milk the goats, help make goat cheese, play with piglets, pick mulberries, and eat mulberry everything. For breakfast we had the most delicious mulberry pancakes and organic mulberry tea. Also Mr. T told me he would sell me a piglet for 50 bucks! I almost took him up on that offer because I thought it would be a small price to pay to have a pig show up on the doorstep of a special someone back home, but upon my research I found it’s not possible to ship a piglet from Laos to America. Bummer.

My hidden talent.

50 bucks? Ill take 10.

After our morning of farm work we took a Tuk Tuk into town for dinner and to hang out and watch friends. All of the restaurants in VV play reruns all day long of Friends and Family Guy. After dinner Katie and I treated ourselves to a Laos massage before heading home for the night.

Our lovely massage get up.

Classic.

The next morning we woke up early and took a Tuk Tuk to explore some caves and go swimming before it was time for the event which we came to VV for, the infamous tubing down the Luang Prabang river adventure. There is a portion of the LP river which is lined with bar after bar. You basically rent a tube and float from one bar to the next. There are people standing at each bar who throw the tubers a line and reel you in to party. Backpackers from all over the world come to tube down the river and drink at all the bars. It is a year round party, all day, every day. This is probably a given based on the description I have already given you, but sadly, a few people actually die each year. The worst thing that happen to us was Katie ended up losing her camera and all of our memories…so we thought. The camera resurfaced in the hands of stranger who found her on Facebook and ended up mailing it to her. Lucky dog.

You guys must have tubed yesterday?

Tubing got the best of Mike and Katie and it made for a long day of traveling to Vietnam the following day. We originally had booked a flight from Luang Prabang to Hanoi, Vietnam, but due to the trauma we suffered from he mini bus ride the first time down, we switch our flight for a small fee to avoid that same bus ride up that we had taken down. Instead, we took a 4 hour mini bus ride down to Vientiane, Laos, which was almost just as miserable. The only thing that was different is that it was daylight this time and we didn’t go through quite as many mountainous unpaved roads. But, there were 14 people stuffed into one small minivan and Katie, Mike and I were to the only tourist. I was the fortunate one who got to sit beside the little boy that threw up. Luckily, I was able to keep my breakfast down.

MIS.Er.ABLE.

We arrived at the Vientiane airport around 2:00pm and the nice lady at the ticket counter moved our 9pm flight to Hanoi up to 3:00 so we didn’t have to wait in the airport all afternoon.

With the snap of our fingers and click of our heels, we were in and out of Laos just like that. It was honestly one the most beautiful countries I have ever been too and I hope to go back in the future to soak up more of the natural beauty Laos has to offer and stay away from the touristy spots that are killing the environment.

Lao town down,

Whitney