Larrys' Laos

Weel weel weel...bet you taught I'd been kindnapped its beeeen so long since you heard from me!

Well I'm not kidnapped a'tall but I might just as well have been you know left in that horrible old rucksack most of the time in these last 6 weeks!! And the only reason I'm out of there now is so I can tell you all about Laos cause those Heywood's can't be bothered to tell you themselves, treat me like a wee slave I tell ye! Them Heywood ones didn't reallie like Laos that much, they said the people weren't very friendly and that all the food was too expensive and not very nice. But I mean I don't tink they've ever lived in Dublin because the food seemed reallie cheap to me! But I'm only a leprechaun, and I can't comment on the taste to be sure because I'm on a solid diet of lucky charms (me favorite!) and I never reallie try the local delicacies...

You know we travelled all the way up that Laos country, and I tink the Heywoods like self punishment or someting cause there's these here VIP buses which I tink are an ideal way for a leprechaun of me own standing to travel, and i tink John and Louise would be able to get on them too if they paid enough money, but anyway, they always tink it's a brilliant idea to try the local transport....(sigh)....you'd tink they'd know better but they like to “experience” the culture and “travel with the locals” blah blah blah...So anywey, we got on this local bus one day and it was supposed to take like six hours, which is manageable, but did it take six hours?! Noooo no no no, it took eleven!!! I mean, eleven hours! I don't tink there even are eleven hours of roads in Ireland! But it wasn't really that the road took eleven hours it was the stoopid driver! He seemed to tink he was in charge of preparing for a national famine cause we drove for a wee while then stopped to load up the bus with flour sacks. And he put them in the isle of the bus, like tree bags high!

So everyone had to climb up onto them to get out every time we stopped, which was quite often. I tink maybe the bus was special and needed special driving cause I don't tink we ever drove for more than an hour at a time and then every time we stopped the bus needed something added (like flour that first time, then bags of nooodles and one time a scooter had to be strapped on the back too) and even if we didn't add anything the bus seemed to need big rests, like for a hour or so at a time ...so it just took weally loooong! I tink Louise and John taught it was foony for like the first eight hours, but after that they weren't weally smiling so much.

So when we eventually got to where we were going it was dark! It was quite foony weally! Cause the tuk-tuk drivers wanted too much money to take us to a hotel so John set off to find a phone and he went over to these here hotels in the bus station and while he was away this man came over to me and Louise and asked if we were looking for a hotel and Louise was just saying “no no we're fine we have a booking” because sometimes these men try to make you go to their hotel which is weally rubbish anyway the man then said that he had seen John go over to those hotels and he just wanted us to know they were brothels and maybeee we would want to look somewhere else! I tink Louise agreed the way she said tank you and then kept looking over to try and see John and eventually John came back and announced we could get a lift with the hotel owner for a small fee...well less money than the tuk-tuk drivers wanted anyway! So off we went, the tree of us and a pimp to the place where backpackers stay.

After that Louise and John went to this amazing cave on a motorbike! It looked sooo exciting! But I didn't get to go! They said they couldn't get a helmet small enouf for me and anyway they needed me to do a weally important job and stay at the hotel and mind their bags. It was so unfair, they got to zoom off and have all this here fun and they left me behind! I suppose that's just the life of a leprechaun...at least I got to see Luang Prabang in the north of Laos, which I tink was their second favourite place in Laos after the cave...I tink though, as usual, they liked it because it had nice food!

So there you are now! Larrys' Laos...and I'll have to agree wit the Heywood's on one ting, some of it was ok, but I won't be rushing back there anytime soon!

Larry

Motorcycle Diaries – 1 Scotsman, 1 Irish Woman, 1 motorbike and 36 hours.

Let us get one thing straight, we both hate motorbikes. They don't stand up on their own, if you crash you will get some kind of injury from a small cut to an amputation, they are noisy, uncomfortable and we both don't know how or have ever ridden one (bar Louise driving a scooter in Croatia for one day with some Brian O'Driscol loving, curly haired jabbering Irish woman on the back)!

Right, now that that is clear I shall begin.

Deep within central Laos is a place called Kong Lo Cave, a 7.5km section of river that passes through a limestone mountain and conveniently you can take a boat trip right up through it and back down again. The downside is that it is 240km from the nearest big town, local public transport would take about two days to get there and to do an organised day trip would cost approximately £70 each (way too big a chunk of our budget!). The result being if we really wanted to do it in the time we desired we were left with only one choice, hire a motorbike and drive there ourselves.

As per the reasons described in the first paragraph we weren't too chuffed by this thought. We got over it and decided this was all part of the traveling experience and we would have a good story to tell at the end. We proceeded to hire a manual 110cc Kolao electric blue torture instrument (explanation to follow). As I had never ridden one ever before and Louise's only experience was a twist 'n' go scooter we asked the kind Mr Ku who rented the bike to us to

explain how exactly one did ride a manual bike. His lesson comprised of showing us up and down on the gear change and pointing down the lane with an overly cheerful 'OK?' It turned out to be quite a simple affair and we could reasonably manage up and down the lane with minimal fuss. We relaxed a bit when quite comically it ran out of fuel when we tried to drive with both of us on and had to wheel it back to Mr Ku. After a couple of trials on the main road and a run for petrol we decided that we had made the right decision and went in search for dinner. We stepped out onto the side of the road chatting about taking it slowly initially, we have plenty of time etc.. when there was an almighty crash. We both looked up in time to jump, yes jump, out of the way of one of two bikes that had just crashed on the road as it flew towards us. This obviously didn't help our state of mind, especially considering that the accident probably happened because one of the drivers was travelling the wrong way down the side of the road, not an uncommon sight here. Also one of the drivers could not have been much older than 11 years old, fortunately both drivers seemed to be ok but there was enough blood to give us a little too much to worry about. We obviously decided to carry on with our trip but we didn't have the best nights sleep after that, Louise especially.

However we woke the next morning, stored our rucksacks and marched out to meet our destiny..........well not really. We actually nervously approached the bike, working our how we were going to carry our small backpacks. After a little prayer we cautiously headed out into the streets of Tha Khaek and made our way to Route 13 and the first 100km of our trip. We did take our time, to the tune of an average speed of 25km/hr (16mph). Some of you may laugh but I don't care, you haven't driven on the streets of Laos! We did eventually build up confidence and moved up to the heady speeds of 50 kph and managed to finish the first stretch in 3.5 hrs. We were aware that it should have taken about two and a few days later, when we got the bus along the same road, we covered in 16 minutes what took us an hour that first day. We saw it as a little victory and celebrated by having a typically tourist price inflated lunch.

We then set off on what had been described as the most beautiful section of the journey

involving a serpentine stretch of tarmac that took us up into the limestone karsts of Laos. We ascended into and descended out of the clouds before turning south into the mountains, stopping now and again to take in the view and avoid passing buses and trucks.

The scenery is best described as Halong Bay without the water, the limestone mountains shooting up from the ocean of rice paddies as we then drove along one of the straightest roads I have ever seen. We made it to the village bordering the caves with all limbs intact and managed to find a guesthouse with little effort.

From the beginning of the day right though to the finishing point we kept on crossing paths with two guys from the same guesthouse in Tha Keak. Matty, from Germany, was an accomplished biker, owning one back home and quite

often seen by us zooming past with a certain freedom that we were both missing. Job, from the Netherlands, was someone who we had absolute respect for. Not only had he, like us, never ridden a motorbike before, he did not even own a driving license! Apparently a look at his student card was sufficient for Mr Ku to rent him his very own motorbike. Anyway, we happened to stay at the same guesthouse near the caves and decided after a long day and a hot shower we all deserved a cold beer. We took a short stroll along the road and found a suitable place. We were chatting for 20 mins when we were approached by a representative of a tour company who was taking his group to a local ceremony and wondered if we would like to join them. We quickly agreed as there seemed to be little else to do and it sounded like fun.

Basically the ceremony involved the man of the house wishing you good things as he tied a bit of white cotton around your wrist and offering you a glass of beer/lao lao (rice wine).

This process was repeated by other members of the family until the beer and lao lao ran out. Everyone seemed to have a good time and the ladies had a lot of fun when they went to the toilet, quite often knocking on a neighbors door to access the facilities.

We woke bright and early and after negotiating getting breakfast at our accommodation we made our way to the caves. It started well with Matty getting his motorbike stuck and Louise duly

laughing and taking a photograph. We discovered that the boatmen had formed a very organised

committee with a fixed price and two people per boat which scuppered our plans of all sharing a boat. Well, we were paddled across the river in boats that had been submerged 10 minutes

earlier and then walked into the cave to jump onto another slightly submerged boat to head up the cave in. It was a strange thing watching the cave entrance disappear as you are enveloped

in the darkness of the cave. We stepped off about 1km inside and when our guide hit a switch to illuminate the cavern our jaws just bounced off the floor with what we saw.

A cavern 100m high and what can only be described as a scene from Star Trek, stalagmites and stalactites dropping and rising all over the place and the river running all the way through it. We walked among it all and couldn't believe this had cost us £4 each for the pleasure. At that moment we had no doubts about the decision to take a motorbike, it was quite simply worth it.

A jaunt up and down the cave, a quick ride back to the guesthouse to pick up our things, a goodbye to Matty and Job and we were back on the road. It is at this point we would like to share one of our greatest memories of our motorbike trek.....................IT WAS FLIPPIN' UNCOMFORTABLE!!!! Seriously, it was absolute torture sitting on that thing all day, with every stop getting closer to each other as the blood was more and more quickly cut off from our buttocks! It got so bad Louise had to warn me when she was about to shift about and I felt more like a daredevil when I raised myself slightly to allow circulation back into my legs.

We tried to counteract this by having regular stops but towards the end when very little was working we doggedly counted down the kilometers.

We arrived safely back having seen one of the most amazing scenery and sights the world has to

offer, with sore bums, my fingers not really working properly and no real desire to get back on a bike anytime soon. But wouldn't you know it, we did it with very little experience and a whole lot of prayer but we wouldn't change it for the world.

And by the way Matty and Job were brave enough to return to Tha Khaek via “The Loop” a journey involving unsealed and quite scary sounding roads which we just plain avoided...we have given them this blog address, so Matty and Job, if you are reading stick up a comment and let us know how you got on!!

P.S. Any of you who are bikers, seriously get a life and buy a convertible.

The Land of Laughs

If Vietnam is the place of smiles, Cambodia is the land of laughs. Cambodian laughter can be brought on by anything and everything and much of our time here was spent giggling along with the rest of the nation :o) delightful!

Unfortunately our time in Cambodia wasn't all laughter however. Being in Cambodia gave us the

chance to see for ourselves the place whose history has been so powerfully portrayed in the film “The Killing Fields”. As we visited the famous S21 prison in Phnom Penh where the Khmer Rouge imprisoned the people of Cambodia and also the Killing Fields near Phnom Penh and the Killing Cave in Battambang, where the Cambodian people were ruthlessly slaughtered, there was no trace of a smile on our faces.

We could barely take in or comprehend the ruthlessness of the regime which the Khmer Rouge referred to as “Year Zero” and it didn't take long for us to see the pain in the lives of the people who have been left.

We thought about that fact that it was our own generation who lost parents. We met an old man, fluent in French, who described how he as an intellectual was fortunate to survive. As the people were forced into rural labour

this man explained how he kept his head down and followed the lead of the farmers who knew how to work the land, hoping he wouldn't be noticed. He told us that the food they were given was one bowl of rice between 50 people, usually each man, woman or child would have a bowl of water with perhaps 5-7 grains of rice in it. We found it so ironic that at a time when the nation was working the fields that the same people would be simultaneously starved often to to death.

We met Kim in Battambang, a tuk-tuk driver the same age as John, who explained how he spent twelve years of his life in refugee camps across the border in Thailand. His family fled to Thailand in the midst of civil war after the Khmer Rouge fell. He told us of how, during the time of the Khmer Rouge, his two older siblings were separated from his parents and put to work in the fields. He described how his father was allowed to visit them once a year, but not allowed close enough to touch them, and of how his father over a number of years watched them slowly die of starvation, unable to intervene. Kim told us that when his family eventually returned from life in Thailand's refugee camps their home and land had been taken and redistributed and they were entitled to nothing. He now supports his elderly parents and 6 siblings as the only bread winner in the house.

I wish the past was the only thing that broke our hearts in Cambodia, but it wasn't.

Sihanoukville, a naval port and beach resort on the country's southern coast, where our eyes were opened to some of the horrors of the sex trade in South East Asia also caused us to grieve. What we saw...ex prostitutes, no longer wanted, selling pedicures and manicures; all kinds of western men with

young Cambodian women; children walking the beach in tatty clothes selling bracelets; the same children being petted by western men; underage girls scouting for business along the strip of bars on the beach...what we saw affected us so deeply we actually couldn't enjoy the place at all. Of course the facts of the sex industry

worldwide and in particular in Asia are not new to either of us, but to see with our own eyes some of this industry in “action”, as it were, was very different from reading some statistics. I spent quite a lot of time researching online and trying to somehow comprehend what we were seeing. I felt angry, upset, passionate and disgusted as I worked through my thoughts and emotions...to see love, one of the purest and most beautiful gifts we have and are able to give as humans so twisted and defiled.

It really wasn't all bad though and Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat have been one of the highlights of our whole trip so far! Siem Reap was a delight for us, it had a wonderful mix of the modern (wi-fi, cafes, bars, great food, ice cream and milkshakes...)

and the traditional. We loved the food and often ate in the middle of the hubbub of the markets (fresh and fried spring rolls yummy!).

We met up with a friend from uni who is volunteering at an orphanage and had the chance to cycle out to visit the children one morning. And, of course, we saw Angkor Wat.

If you are making a list of things in the world you must see, put Angkor Wat on it. We had so much fun exploring the temples and surrounding area over three days, hiring bicycles for two days and getting a tuk tuk the third.

It seems however that John and bicycles weren't made to be together as on day one John's tyre was slashed in a scam which involved

us being directed to a bike tyre fixing man who was amazingly and totally coincidently just around the corner...of course we stubbornly refused to bow to their attempts to make us part with money and John cycled over 20km with the tyre flat!

Then, on day two, on a different bike, John's pedal fell off leaving him cycling another 20 or so km with the pedal periodically falling off and being shoved back on!

It was actually hilarious! We were glad (and so were our bums) on day three to leave the bikes behind and be driven...

We got up at very early o'clock to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat and were shown a “light

increasing over Angkor” show instead as the sun decided to take a break from showing off that morning. But it didn't matter. We loved every moment we spent in the temples, some very well restored or maintained and others crumbling and overgrown as though no one had stepped foot in them for centuries. We just loved wandering in among the ruins and getting 'lost' in our wee explorations.

At some points we felt like we were in a Indiana Jones movie! It was awesome!

So in the land of laughs we found some of the most wonderfully happy and fun loving people we have ever met and saw one of the most amazing sights we have seen on our trip so far.

It was time to take the seemingly convenient “Cambodia – Laos Express Bus” which in fact turned out to be 4 buses and a boat along with a lot of waiting and a bribe, sorry an overtime fee at the boarder to make our transition from Cambodia to the little known Laos.

Sleep! A man's right, a woman's prerogative and a child's necessity.

We have been on the road for 5 months now and have traveled on bike, scooter, tuk-tuk, bus, train, plain, boat and of course by our very own two fair feet. As you will probably know we are in a rather humid and hot climate. Bar the first couple of weeks in Delhi where it got quite cold when it rained and the sun went down, we have rarely seen lower than 20 degrees unless we are above 2000m. This can have a detrimental effect on one's ability to stay alert and, quite often, awake. We have often fallen victim to this and assumed the fly catching

position (head back, mouth open, eyes closed) while on buses, waiting in train stations and sometimes in a hammock while reading (it's a tough life). However we have been truly amazed at how, when and where the locals do the same thing and have consequently written the following categories.

1.The Lolling Head ­ This can be achieved on most methods of transport but is mostly seen on buses or seat cars on trains. You may be familiar with it if you are a teacher or general observer of people. This is when the person is trying desperately not to fall asleep and is trying to keep their eyes as wide as possible so they stay awake. They inevitably fail and slowly drop their head, accelerating constantly until their chin hits their chest, at which point the head shoots up and they pretend they are not asleep.
2.The Knee Eater – This is really only possible on a bus due to the cramped like position the sleeper is in. Quite often the said sleeper sits down, removes their shoes, hoicks their knees up above head height, leans back and falls asleep in Olympic quick time. This should not be attempted by those who are weak kneed or with any type of paunch due to the available space, otherwise the fire brigade may be called to remove you from your seat.
3.The mobile snoozer – This is a variant of the lolling head and usually limited to children who are being held by mothers or who are squashed between family members on a motorcycle/scooter. Quite often their head just sticks out while they potter along the road, tongue quite often sticking out and oblivious to the world.
4.The Transiter – This has probably us with the most amusement along the way. Within India, Nepal and Sri Lanka we have just mused in wonder at the knack of those able to fall asleep while traveling. We are quite unused to sleeping in the middle of the day, although due to the heat we are really seeing the benefit and philosophy of the seista. What is so surprising is the quantity, regularity and ability some have to do such an act. We have seen those fall asleep in quite normal positions, such as on buses, rains and cars. We have seen Nepali locals fall asleep while seated on small wicker stools in the aisle of a bus traveling at supersonic speeds. We have seen a Sri Lankan lady sleep with her whole head sticking out of a window. However the winner most definitely goes to the Sri Lankan man who, while standing up, managed to fall asleep and even adjusted his position when went round the many turns up the mountain on the way to Kandy. Ah, some of you may say he wasn't asleep and merely had his eyes closed. I too made that conclusion until he started snoring.
5.The shop keeper – We have walked along many shopping streets, through many markets and visited many shopping malls. In most, especially because we have the same habit as mad dogs and Englishmen and are walking in the midday sun, we wake up the shop keeper or walk past the shop with the proprietor fast asleep. Most are sitting on a chair, lying prostate on a desk or in some position on the floor. Some of the more interesting ones have been an old man lying on a

desk, head out the window and legs in the air. Or the fruit seller who woke up and waved their fly swatter in panic as they moved into the conscious world. The winner has to be when we were walking along the streets of Hoi-an, we stopped at a shop and Louise entered. I had a quick look in the shop next door and thought something was odd. It was quickly revealed when the shopkeeper woke and moved their feet which were placed conveniently within the shoe display as she had made herself a comfy bed in the fake Calvin Klein underpants adjacent to them. What topped it off was she looked up, saw me there and just turned over and went back to sleep, now that is true dedication.

So, I hope that clarifies our definition of what sleep is to those in more humid and warm climates.

Right, I'm off for a kip!

Vietnam – The place of smiles.

We were both happy to be moving on from the Indian sub-continent to South East Asia and Vietnam. We had spent almost four months in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka and to be honest we didn't want to see another curry for a long, long time. We were up for about 30 hours straight due to the flight being at 1 am and a 3 hour stop-over in Singapore and were dreading the visa, which we had arranged over the internet, either not being valid or taking a long time. As we waited

patiently for the very communist uniformed immigration officers to sort through our forms and stamp our passports we were pleasantly surprised when all was completed within 30 minutes. We proceeded through the doors of the airport, made ourselves instant millionaires at the ATM(1,000,000 Vietnamese dong = £30) and hopped on a mini-bus to the centre of Hanoi.

What we were greeted with when we arrived was a sea of faces flying past on motorbikes and full of smiles. Everywhere we turned someone was smiling at us, saying hello or just having a wee giggle at our look of sheer terror at the potential crossing of the road!!! This turned out to be a universal constant throughout all the Vietnamese people we met and it seemed to reverberate through their whole personality. We went on a 2 day trek in the northern highlands near Sapa and our guide, a lovely lady called Sho, would talk as if her whole body was smiling. We would walk over the crest of a hill and she would shout 'Yes!!!' with arms spread out in starjump formation. We would all rush up to see what caused such a reaction and when nothing was evident we asked what it was, her reply 'a breeze'.

We both came here not knowing what to expect. Our limited knowledge of Vietnam and it's history was sourced from the guide book we were carrying and my (John's) watching of Vietnam war movies.

So it was a surprise to be in a very modern city with wifi in most cafe's and hotels, shiny new cars and scooters filling the roads and iPhones and iPads galore. We understand now that Vietnamese people are fiercely proud of their country, often talking of their traditions and particular customs. It is also one of the most open economies in the region and, something which I did not believe at first, is the second largest exporter of coffee behind Brazil??? I consider myself a bit of a coffee connoisseur and I have not once seen Vietnamese coffee for sale, it also is one of the largest exporters of pepper and various other things so the Vietnamese people really do have a lot to smile about. During our travels we visited the War Remnants Museum in Saigon and were struck by two things. One was the very blatant propaganda

approach by the Government, painting the Vietnamese as victims on all accounts with no mention of the atrocities that were committed against the POW's that have become infamous in our society through countless films and documentaries. The second was the viewpoint of the Vietnamese people. We saw a huge photographic display from photographers on both sides which, again very biased, showed some awful scenes and stories that were committed against the Vietnamese people. It makes you think about when we say that we are whiter than white how sometimes we have been stained red by the past. When you remember that a lot of people within Vietnam were affected by the war in the 60's and 70's you could completely understand if they would be resistant to us as westerners, yet we are received with a smile.

As we traveled south through Vietnam we knew we had definitely hit the tourist trail. We had been very much the minority in the sub-continent, quite often being the only white people on the bus. We were now traveling on tourist buses, although with some locals, we definitely were not the minority. This brought with it a few difficulties like being charged large amounts for water, food or just about anything. This left a bad taste in the mouth at times but to be

honest we could almost guarantee that within the same day something would happen to make us smile, and it quite often was the locals that made it happen. We were sitting waiting for breakfast one morning and had both ordered scrambled eggs on a baguette. We were enjoying some lovely iced coffee, well we were enjoying it for quite a while, when a guy drove up in a scooter, whipped a bag of fresh baguettes off the handle and sprinted past us with a big grin and a very cheerful 'hello!' Our eggs arrived promptly afterwards, we both turned to each other and said 'at least we know they are fresh'.

It has been the lasting impression we have had of Vietnam. Having traveled the length of the country and spoken to many locals we have found that even if they meet some awful tourists who treat them with such disrespect or rudeness they still have the ability to smile, something which we westerners really struggle to do. We were sitting in a cafe in Hanoi one day and two Spanish girls lent over the counter and with quite stern voices pointed and ordered the girl behind the counter to give them what they wanted. They also sent back a coffee to be re-heated by shoving it across the counter and shouting at the same girl. It was the first time I saw a Vietnamese person seem disheartened and not smiling. It made me very angry and told Louise what happened. When we were leaving she went over to the counter next to the Spaniards and said, with a slightly raised voice, said 'Thank you very much for the lovely food.' The girl behind the counter just burst into the most wonderful smile and gave us a cheerful wave as we left filling us with a sense of happiness. This is just one of the reasons we will remember Vietnam as the place that smiled.

Sri Lanka

We have just had a wonderful three weeks in the wonderful country of Sri Lanka (that's Ceylon for all you oldies who struggle with the country's name change!).

This is a beautiful country with a bit of everything, from the ancient cities and the hill country to the lazy beaches of the south and east. And we have done it all!

We spent our first few days in Sri Lanka cycling around the ancient remains of Anuradhapurna and Polonnaruwa with perfect blue skies, sunshine and the magical experience of an ancient treasure round every corner.

(Mind you our cycling skills are nothing like the locals!)

Larry has a chat with Buddha.

We have climbed Sigiriya rock for sunset and the famous Adam's Peak for sunrise (on a full moon day!).

We thoroughly enjoyed traveling 3rd class in the train through the hill country from Nuwara Eliya to Ella through endless tee plantations worked by the Plantation Tamils brought from India to Sri Lanka by the British and spent some time in Kandy, home to the tooth relic of the Buddha. After two weeks of constant moving with only one or two nights in any one place we were pleased to reach Mirissa beach on the south coast where we stopped for a week and did nothing!

Highlights here have included the incredibly shy friendliness of the local people including a comical moment when we briefly became an exhibit in Colombo National Museum to a group of school children who were definitely showing more interest in us than in their own history (we were surrounded and shyly asked “where you from” - cue mass giggling). Rickshaw drivers take top place for getting your attention in the hopes that you will need their services! It's quite funny when we are just walking along and an auto rickshaw glides up beside us and moves along at walking pace, then the monologue begins “you need taxi, good price, tour 100 rupees, can I help you?.....etc.”. Then there are all the randoms who, as they cycle/drive past, shout “hello! welcome to Sri Lanka!”.

After a brief stop off in the Dutch colonial town of Galle we are now in Colombo, we have exhausted the city sights and are wasting away a day or two in a good coffee shop with good food and free wifi and look forward to our next flight which will take us to Vietnam.