Team pool

Its a hard life

Pool chill

View

As it was another gorgeous sunny day, we decided to hit the swimming pool just outside of town! We did try and find bicycles to ride up there, but as it was already midday, trying to find a cheap one was impossible as all of the early-rise tourists had already grabbed them, so we haggled a tuk-tuk to take us the 3km out of town. Once there we met up with some other people staying at our guesthouse, splashed in the pool and played cards all afternoon.

Behind the temple

The Mekong

All of the tourists enjoying sunet too

Gorgeous!

Almost sunset

The Mekong

Crazy clouds

View of Luang Prabang

The sunset

Me with a big bomb behind me!

Amazing from from hill

Dinner at GH

Then at 5:30pm we headed back and walked up a huge hill with 300+ steps to watch the sunset with a hundred other tourists who decided to do the same. Then in the evening, we all went out for a few drinks and food at the market and stayed up chatting the night away.

written by  chrischarly on July 26, 2011 from Luang Prabang, Laos
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Me stood by our broken-down bus

Trying to fix the bus

Well the bus journey continued to get worse during the night as we guessed it inevitably would and we broke down about 2 hours short of Luang Prabang and we had to wait for a sawngthaew to take us the final stretch.

First view of Laos

Our bags on top, but no room for us!

Worst of all was our bags got loaded on the first one and there was not enough room, so we had to wait 1 hour till the next, with our bags on their way. Very worrying.

The mekong

Beautiful Laos

In the beer garden

Local kids stole a boat!

Locals jumping in the Mekong

An old bomb made into a plant pot

But after 28 hours of travelling, the rest of the day did brighten up as we found a cool guesthouse with a lovely room for a bank breaking £6.15 a night and Luang Prabang really is a nice place to be!

written by  chrischarly on July 25, 2011 from Louang Namtha, Laos
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Tom Set - like tom yum but with pork

718 steps to temple

View from the start of our climb

View from Temple, nice!

Temple and Charly

Temple

Temple guards

Arty shot from within Temple

Me and Patricia

P.S. Happy birthday Nan!! xx

written by  chrischarly on July 21, 2011 from Ban Ho Mae Salong, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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View from our guesthouse

Our nice room

Charly chilling outside our room

P.S Happy birthday Victoria!! xx

written by  chrischarly on July 20, 2011 from Ban Ho Mae Salong, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Nice view

Charly had a bad night with upset stomach and in the morning was still bad. I was a little rough but my consistency is a tad stronger, must be all the beers and chilli I eat that kill everything.

Pretty nice smelling flower

After nursing her for a while, she told me to go for a wander and I did, heading along the undulating road through the village to the day market – not much here, but some nice stalls selling veg and many local teashops. It started to rain so I ducked into a local coffee shop and enjoyed a nice brew with 3 Italian ladies who were passing through.

Nice produce at the local market

Heading a little further down the road, I was called over by a crazy looking German fellow, Ulrich, who asked me to join him for a beer, hmm, tricky decision. I went and sat down with his crazy drunk Thai girlfriend (Pim) and he disappeared on his moped, returning 5 minutes later with a crate of Leo (an ok local beer). I chatted with them for a while and enjoyed some beers and after a while a French guy, Sebastian, who had spent the night there after too much beer and whiskey, joined us. (Exactly my kind of people!)

After an hour with them I realised that whilst very nice people they were complete pissheads and a bit crazy too, so offering the excuse of needing to check on poor Charly I decided to head back. My offerings of some money for the beer was turned down with a simple, “you come back later, drink more beer!”

Local tribal village

I strolled back and checked on my poorly sick girl who was very much ‘getting it out of her system’, and had no intention of being further than 10m from the toilet. After a few hours of more nursing she told me to go out and have a good time, so I made my way back armed with a big bag of Leo’s. We spent several hours chatting about travel, Germany, France, England and anything else that semi-drunk people ramble about. Pim made some tasty soup and Uli made a fire and some pork BBQ. It was very basic but helped soak up the beer.

Crazy German and Thai couple Chris met

Time flew by, and soon I realised it was nearing pumpkin time; I made my excuses and left returning to cuddle up to my poorly girl for the night.

written by  chrischarly on July 19, 2011 from Ban Ho Mae Salong, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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The bus

We set off for the bus station by Tuk-tuk, it wasn’t far, but 2km with backpacks and the humidity of Chiang Mai made it a worthwhile £1 spent. On arrival at the bus station, our very nice driver toured around until he found the bus to Tha Ton – the Indian tuk-tuk drivers should take a leaf out of the Thai book of tuk-tuk service. The conductor was there and waiting to take our bags and load them under the bus that was plastered with Chiang Mai to Tha Ton signs,so we thought to ourselves, this is really easy, but wait….
He then directed us to the ticket counter and using my best English I requested two tickets to Tha Ton, the response I got was not eligible, but I could have sworn she said something about Elephants?! A kind lady behind got involved, and translated that what I heard as “Elephants” was in fact “Only Fang”. Still slightly confused I grabbed the Lonely Planet and realised that Fang was in fact a town 30km short of Tha Ton, it all becomes clearer….. The kind lady said that she was also going to Tha Ton and she would help us get the right sawngthaew (a covered pickup truck with two benches in the back) onwards to Tha Ton. All good, I purchased the tickets.

On the bus

The bus ride was pretty standard and we immediately got a sawngthaew on to Tha Ton. We spoke more to “kind lady” and told her our ultimate destination was Mae Salong. She told us that we need to get another sawngthaew from Tha Ton, no problem we thought. When we got off at Tha Ton, we spoke to some sawngthaew drivers who said that we needed to get a sawngthaew to a junction 13km from Mae Salong and then another up the side of the mountain to the village. Ok we thought, maybe we might break the record for the most sawngthaew trips in one day, but at least we would get there.

In the sawngthaew

As usual, I requested a price from the driver and got back a response of 130Baht, or I thought and gave he some bemused abuse that it was too much, only to realise that he actually meant 1 person = 30, oops, he seemed ok – or so we thought – and we got on our way. He stopped at a layby by a junction with a sign to Mae Salong and as driving away smiling said ok, sawngthaew here……

A really cute kid

We again spoke to some drivers and people, none of whom could speak English, but the general laughing and shaking of heads was not a good sign – NO more sawngthaew to Mae Salong – oh bugger. After 10 minutes or so, some crook offered to take us for 400Baht and I politely laughed at him, and decided it was time in our travels to try hitchhiking. We set off up the steepest of hills with our bags and 13 km of mountain ahead of us, showing the internationally recognised (I hoped) sign of a thumb out. Car number one, two laughing people.

Crammed in the back of the pick-up

Finding this very funny!

200m in to our journey, Charly had nearly passed out and requested a stop, it was going to be dark in 6 hours, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. At that moment a chariot was sent from the skies to rescue us, I say a chariot, more like a mini pickup with about 15 kids in the back. They pulled up and asked us where we were heading, and quickly got all the kids to move up to fit in all our clobber and us. We travelled about 8 km and it started to rain, why wouldn’t it, no problem they pulled over and told us to wait in a shelter while they run the kids back to their home village, promising they would be only 10-15 mins.

Chris drenched from the rain

Waiting for our lift to return

Loads of locals behind us travelling like us

As they said, they came back sans kids, and loaded us up and drove us all the way to Mae Salong, and to the doors of the guesthouse we wanted. I’m pretty sure they weren’t even heading this far, but were extremely kind and generous people, who would not take 1 Baht from me for their trouble. We thanked them profusely and they were on their way. The guesthouse was lovely with the friendliest happiest owners and once again realised that getting away from the tourist hoards is definitely the way to go!

written by  chrischarly on July 18, 2011 from Fang, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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