I made it very safely to Hanoi after a long but uneventful 24 hours in my bus

The difference between Hanoi and Laos is immense. Hanoi is truly mental, with endless scooters & traffic, noise, and smells. It was pretty overwhelming.

I had a day to kill before my friend Beth was due to arrive so I took the opportunity to wander round the city. I saw St Joseph’s cathedral, the most important catholic building in Vietnam. I also visited the Hoa La Prison, nicknamed the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ by American soldiers during the Vietnam war. It was very interesting, albeit incredibly biased. (The french are “brutal oppressors” whilst the American soldiers were treated with nothing but care and respect… I have my doubts).

Other sights included the Opera house, and beer street (a street that exclusively sells beer). In fact one of the coolest things about Hanoi is the how certain streets only sell certain goods, so for example there is shoe street, silver street, I even saw a grave street.

When Beth arrived we spent some more time looking around the city, and visited train street. It’s a very narrow street that has a train track running straight through it. We grabbed lunch and waited for the train to come. Turns out the train is both massive and fast, see if you can spot me jump when it comes past in the video.

Having had our fill of Hanoi, Beth and I booked on to a 1 night 2 day excursion to see Ha Long bay, which is about 5 hours away from the city.

There’s not really much to say about Ha Long bay other than that it is beautiful but hard to capture on camera.

We stayed on a private island for the night, went swimming at midnight to see the bioluminescent plankton, had fantastic seafood cooked for us, and kayaked in the morning.

We are now in Phong Nha, a national park famous for its caves, and are slowly making our way down south for the next 2 weeks

-Eleanor

Luang Prabang is an absolutely gorgeous, I loved it. I only stayed 3 nights but regret not staying longer. I visited beautiful waterfalls, woke up at 5 in the morning to see the monks’ alms, and spent every night wandering round the night market.

The highlight has got to be the stunning views of the sunset you can see from climbing up to the top of the central temple. 350 stairs in the searing heat was definitely worth it.

Also, due to curfew laws, the only place open after 12pm was a bowling & archery centre, which also served as the local nightclub. Very bizarre and definitely would not be allowed back home

Safe to say, Lao’s internet availability is not on par with Thailand’s. I’ve booked a hotel for a night however and now have a lot to share, which I’ll split over two posts.

Pai in northern Thailand is a small town which was taken over by hippies sometime in the 80s and is now the very definition of chill. I loved it. I was there a week, and was gutted to leave, but knew I had to as I’d started unironically talking about people’s energy and spirit.

In all honesty I didn’t do much there, but was with a great group and we just pottered about, went to some hot springs, but mostly just spent our time enjoying the scenery and hanging out in hammocks in our incredible hostel.

I really truly loved Pai, its somewhere where you can slow down and forget about the world, and many of the people I met regularly went just to escape the stress of their 9-5 for a while.

Moving on…

After a week, it was time to leave, and take the slow boat to Luang Prabang in Laos.

Laos is not an easy place to get to, and all options involve multiple days of travel. The cheapest and best way is the slow boat. This involved a day bus journey from Chiang Mai to the border town of Huay Xai, a night in Huay Xai, a day by boat to a very tiny town called Pakbeng and then a final day on the boat to Luang Prabang. Thankfully I had good company.

Me and a friend left Pai together to go to Laos, and picked up a couple more people on the bus, so the boat experience was fine and not the lonely 48 hours it could have been.

The boat is primarily a local boat, but of course, tourists have found out about it. We were very lucky to have been on the boat with a Dutch family with 4 young daughters. They had come prepared with entertainment and let the rest of the boat join. The first day saw the boat, westerners and locals, transfixed with making scooby bands (a craze that was very big when I was in year 4)

Childhood fun aside, the best thing about the boat was the scenery and brief insight into life along the Mekong river

It was a long 3 days of travel, but really worth it, I’ll admit I was a bit too busy chatting and just enjoying myself to take enough photos, but I hope this gives a bit of insight.

As for Lao, it is even more beautiful than Thailand, and I’m really enjoying myself so far.

I left Chiang Mai 4 nights ago now, clearly consistent posting is not my forte.

Chiang Mai is a small city in northern Thailand, full of temples and surrounded by mountains.

Day 1

When I woke up after my less than relaxing sleep on the night train, I was greeted with views of the jungle that were a world away from the concrete jungle I left behind in Bangkok

I arrived at my hostel at about 8am and was able to shower and nap before meeting back up with Morgan, who I’d met in Bangkok. We decided to jump straight into activities and organised to go and see the “sticky waterfalls” with incredibly poreous rocks allowing you to walk up the water fall. I managed not to get any photos which was silly but I was exhausted.

I should say that everything I did in Chiang Mai was organised by my fantastic hostel, which is why it was so easy to do everything (and also spend way more than I was expecting)

That evening, I went to see a lady boy show that everyone I spoke to had recommended. This was not like the seedy lady boy shows in Bangkok that I actively avoided but instead was much more similar to a drag queen show. It was completely ridiculous and over the top, but a lot of fun, and the only price was that of a compulsory mojito.

Day 2

The next day, me and two of the girls I met in Bangkok – Morgan and Laura – went to get the best recommended Khao Soi in Chiang Mai. Khao Soi is the regional dish in the north of Thailand and is a really lovely noodle soup which I am very keen to try at home. Anyway, this restaurant was packed with local Thais which was precisely what we’d hoped for, and the Khao soi was truly fantastic, and only 50 Bhat (£1.25)

Next we visited Chiang Mai’s main temple: Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. I’ll be honest and say that to me, on temple in Thailand is much like another, however, the reason for visiting this temple was not so much for the temple itself but for its location and stunning views, plus it’s really quite challenging staircase

We then finished up the day wandering round Chiang Mai and I even managed to get a good cup of English breakfast tea

Day 3

Elephants!!

So, I initially had no plans to go and see elephants, being hugely sceptical of the ethical implications of “keeping elephants” no matter how well.

However, I decided to go after speaking to the guys at the hostel, and looking up online to try and find out what I could, and I’m so glad I did. The sanctuary I visited was called ElephantLand, and it was a very bumpy 2 hour ride from the hostel.

ElephantLand is different from many of the hundreds of sanctuaries because the elephants cared for there are allowed to roam throughout the national park that the village is set in. The villagers have been caring for the elephants for generations and there was an obvious affection between the elephants and their humans.

We did a bit of banana feeding to the elephants (and one very sweet dog), before following them on a 3 hour trek into the jungle. Then we (the humans) returned for a lunch before stripping off for a mud bath.

One of the more horrible aspects of Thailand is the sheer number of Elephants that are kept in pens on the side of the road or boxed in while hundreds of tourists ply them with food. It’s hard to reconcile this with the genuine kindness of the Thai people, and their treatment of other animals.

The elephants I met were as free as possible while still being protected and compared to the images of other elephants I’ve seen people post, healthy, and happy. I had a fantastic day and was really happy to be able to support a sanctuary that actually cares for its elephants.

Day 4

Unfortunately, I got a mild bout of food poisoning the evening of day 3, which meant that the cooking course a did on the 4th day was a bit underwhelming, as I was too sick to eat anything. Despite this, I’m really glad I did it, because British Thai cooking and Thai Thai cooking are not the same. I now know how to make a proper red curry, and discovered a new love for coconut sticky rice and mango. Plus, I got to see what I was promised was the best toilet in Chiang Mai.

Day 5

My last day in Chiang Mai was lazy, we went for late breakfast, and then hung around waiting for our bus to Pai, which is where I currently am.

I’ll update with what I’ve been up to in Pai when I leave in a couple of days but here’s snapshot of how hectic it’s been the last week (barely left my hammock)

I meant to stay in Bangkok for two nights before heading north, but ended up staying longer because I met so many cool people and wanted to hang out. I haven’t had the must cultured start to my trip, but that’s okay I’m finishing off here too. (Plus it’s been too hot to go anywhere, even for the locals!)

The view from the back of my hostel

What I’ve missed in culture I’ve made up for in socialising, I’ve met so many awesome people some of whom are now home, others I’m meeting up with again in Chiang Mai in 24 hours. A special shoutout needs to go to Tessa (Australia) for being the first person I properly met and hung out with after bonding at my hostel’s welcome drinks the first night

This is Tessa

I have eaten a scorpion, had an insane Thai meal in a night market helped a friend get a tattoo, tried the adopt a dog, seen the grand palace, and got more mozzie bites than i ever thought possible. I’ve had the best start to my trip and cannot wait for Chiang Mai, where I’ll be tomorrow morning after taking the 13 hour sleeper train to get there

I’m just going to finish up with some photos of what I’ve seen and done

The grand palace (from a distance)

Also the palace