Day 126 – Arriving in Chiang Rai.

We stopped 5 minutes from the border for 20minutes for no reason. We eventually arrived at the border about 9am and were told we had to pay to leave Laos… I paid $35 to get in, I’m not paying to leave as well, we told them we had no money and walked through anyway. They had already stamped our passports and it worked! To get to our next destination, Chiang Rai, it took about a 2 and a half hours.

FINALLY we have made it! To bus terminal 2, which was no help. I knew from terminal 1 it was a 5 minute walk to our hostel but had no idea where we were from 2. Chrissy and I walked over to the tuk tuk drivers because I thought we might be able to negotiate a deal, they wanted 100B and no way were we paying that, so we walked over to the taxi driver who said 100B too. We decided to go with him but made him put the meter on. What a surprise, we turned up to our hostel and it cost 52B! You can’t make money out of me just because I’m a tourist!

We were absolutely knackered from the journey but finding some food and a drink was more important than having a nap right now. We made it part way down the road before collapsing in an air-conditioned café. I think it was called the Golden Triangle and it was an awesome choice, exactly what we needed! We then walked back to the hostel and chilled out. I decided not to nap so I’d sleep really well later. We didn’t really do a lot and ended up having dinner in the hostel too because we were too lazy to go anywhere else. We are staying in Fun-D hostel and it has been the most welcoming in a long time. I really do love Thailand!

Day 125 – Luang Prabang to Chiang Rai, THAILAND BOUND!

The only thing on today’s agenda was to book our bus to Thailand. When we went asking the other day we discovered most buses were in the evening but found one place that did a day bus so we went on the hunt to refind that shop. We were unsuccessful, well we are pretty sure we went in the right shop and they said evening so we think we were given duff information the other day, which isn’t surprising! So we had two options, do we leave today or tomorrow? As you already know from the title we went with today. We grabbed a quick lunch and went back to our hostel. I was all ready to haggle our way out of paying for a whole night because we were checking out now instead of tomorrow but the guy didn’t seem fussed and checked the book and said ‘2 nights?!’ I said yes and that was it. We only paid for 2 even though we didn’t check out until 2pm… sweet deals!

We were originally told we were going to be picked up at 6pm and then someone turned up and said it would be 5. Either way we were staying in the hostel until our pick up so it made no difference. 6.15pm and still no one has turned up… we got someone to ring them and eventually someone appeared. They didn’t seem happy we were late but it wasn’t exactly our fault! I already feel like this journey is going to be terrible…

There were only about 10 people on this bus but we knew from previous experience it would stop a million times, pick up and drop off random people (probably family/friends) and just take forever to get anywhere. We were handed a snack, which was a surprise and it was alright. Chrissy and I watched a few random things on my laptop and then decided to try and get some sleep about 11pm, so I moved a few seats so we had two each. This journey was suppose to take 12 hours, it took 18. Some guy decided to sleep on the floor behind my seat (I was at the back) and open the windows and generally just be rude and annoying (he was the man who was angry at the station too). I couldn’t find a good way to sleep and overall I was just very happy it was our last bus and we were finally leaving Laos!

Day 117 – Siem Reap.

I didn’t sleep that well as the aircon was so overpowering I was frozen, which is the complete opposite to the last 3 nights sleep. We arrived in a dumpsite just before 7am, obviously meaning we had to get a tuk tuk into the city to our accommodation. I’ve got to hand it to them, these bus companies know how to make money, it was a dollar each but still! Like in Phnom Penh we’re staying at the Mad Monkey hostel, which nearly every person I’ve met has told me to stay in, it’s got a pool so why wouldn’t we?

We couldn’t check in until midday but that didn’t matter as we just lounged around sunbathing and chilling in the pool until we could. This hostel was slightly weird though, as a private double room was cheaper than a dorm, in a way it was quite nice to have our own space seeing as I haven’t reorganised my bag in a while and I had acuminated quite a bit of washing. Our hostel wanted to charge us $2 per kilo, which is expensive, so we went around the corner where they wanted to charge $1.50 but I knew I had seen it for $1 so we started to walk off to find somewhere else when they called us back and accepted our offer of $1 a kilo. I knew you haggle for a lot of things in Asia but I didn’t realise I could barter for laundry as well!

After our strenuous day we decided to explore the local area. We found pub street, an ice cream parlor to hang in for a bit and a cheap massage. We went for a neck, shoulder and back massage, which was alright, it was funny experience for us 4 girls to partake in. We then wondered back to get changed before going out for dinner and meeting the boys for drinks in pub street.

Day 106 – Nha Trang to Mui Ne.

The bus to Mui Ne was suppose to leave at 7.30am but we’ve learnt that Vietnam time is very different to most other places in the world. We eventually left at 8.20 and arrived earlier than expected which makes no sense at all. First port of call was for lunch, when do we not go and eat? We went to what felt like the slowest serving restaurant ever. After this we made our way back to our ‘Backpackers resort’ and jumped straight into the pool. Any pool is better than no pool but it did feel like you were just chilling in a massive bath because it was so warm, the only advantage was feeling cooler when you eventually got out. We ended up talking to the other people around us and got invited to dinner to the popular family restaurant 2 doors down. We spotted this place after we had eaten earlier and planned to go for dinner there anyway. It was a fun evening getting to know 2 Australians and 2 Americans who invited us to join them on their adventures tomorrow.

Day 101 – Hoi An to Nha Trang.

We were being picked up around 8.30am for our cookery course so checked out just before. As we got downstairs we discovered there was free breakfast that we didn’t have time to eat, probably a good thing in the end!

Our first stop was a trip to the market to buy our ingredients for our courses. We made 4 dishes, these were; Vietnamese salad rolls with peanut sauce, Vietnamese crepes, beef vermicelli and rice noodle soup with beef.

 After the market we took a boat trip along the river where we prepared the beansprouts and just enjoyed the view. We even sailed past a petrol station in the middle of the river! We then got moved from this boat to a smaller boat and got to wear those little triangle hats and sailed through some water coconuts.

We booked our course with Thuan Tinh Island and it was really good. Learnt a lot about the millions of ingredients they use and we didn’t get back to our hostel until half 2, so that’s 6 hours of cooking fun! I was going to choose a favourite dish but I don’t think I can, they were all so delicious, I’ll have to try them out when I’m back home!

We didn’t do a lot with our afternoon and were picked up for our overnight bus around 6pm. This journey was around 12 hours, we watched Tangled and chilled out right at the back of the bus.