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 114 – Koh Rong.

Seeing as we missed our boat yesterday we got the first fast boat of the day, which was at 8am. We arrived in Koh Rong about 9am but had nowhere to stay. There was a welcome talk at Cocos so we listened to that and looked at their breakfast menu at the same time. We crashed upstairs whilst a couple of people went out to find somewhere for the 8 of us to stay. There was room in Bunna Place a few doors down. We all had double rooms and although this island is beautiful it does mean that there isn’t a lot of running water and electricity is only on for a few hours a day. The bed was comfy so I was happy!

We went straight to the beach and into the water, which was needed, April is the hottest month here and it was bloody boiling! Stayed in there for a lot of the day, came out around lunchtime for a milkshake in Monkey Island, then went back in again until late afternoon. We also met two guys from Porsmouth, small world! Obviously we couldn’t shower, so we just dried off and changed for dinner. We were going to go to the old village for dinner but we didn’t make it that far before settling down at cocos. Our stranded bus crew came together for the evening playing games and chilling on the beach. Survived the evening without getting bitten, yay!

Day 107 – Mui Ne bike adventures and Tyler’s birthday.

I didn’t sleep very well so didn’t join them for the early morning activities but joint them for second breakfast at 9am. The curtains don’t really do anything in this hostel so when the sun rises about 5.30, that’s what time you wake up. We discovered at breakfast that our new friends had had pretty much every meal in the popular family restaurant since they’ve been here and why wouldn’t you when it’s right on the beach front and is the cheapest place to eat in the whole town. It’s even the cheaper to buy a bottle of water here than it is in the shop next door to us.

After breakfast we hopped on the bikes and went to visit fairy springs This place is made of sand and the colours are just amazing. We trekked through it for about half an hour before finding a waterfall and then walking back to the bikes. 

Our main excursion for the day was to find the Big Buddha at Ta Cu Mountain. We thought it was closer than it was, after just over an hours worth of driving and asking many different people for directions we had arrived! It was a bit more expensive than we thought it was going to be but seeing as we had now come all this way we obviously had to go in. It was 120,000 dong for the cable car and then another 20,000 just to enter the place, so it was only £4. We got in our cable car, which was quite cool as it took us up and over the mountain. 

The views were amazing but we didn’t realise as we got out of the cable car we still had to walk another 100m or so up to the Big Buddha. It was quite a good work out and they’re not lying when they say it’s big! It’s called Thich-Ca-Nhap-Niet-Ban and is 49 metres long and is the largest reclining Buddha in Vietnam.

When we left here we made the long journey back to Mui Ne through rush hour traffic and obviously went for dinner in the popular family restaurant as it was Tyler’s birthday after all!

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 105 – Vinpearl Amusement Park, Nha Trang.

I can’t say no to an island of fun and a chance to take a trip on the longest cable car suspended over water in the world (apparently). We got up early to make our trip worthwhile and oh was it! We left our hostel about 9.30am and didn’t get back until 10pm. 

We were told to get a local bus down to the ticket office but seeing as we’ve been here 3 whole days now and not seen a single one, we decided to get a taxi instead. He dropped us at the ticket office and then took us down to the cable car entrance and said we didn’t need to pay him, as it was all included in the price, which was sweet! Your own food and drink aren’t allowed on the island but obviously we managed to sneak some in and were given a complimentary bottle of Pepsi to enjoy on our cable car ride over.

The cable car took about 12 minutes and we had our own car to ourselves. This island contains quite a few things and this is the order we enjoyed them in: Some rides, Dolphin Show, Underwater World Aquarium, Water Park, Alpine coaster, repeat of the rides, light/water show and then repeat some more rides. This is also where we sampled Vietnam’s other fast food chain ‘Lotteria’. Chrissy had never been on a rollercoaster before but I managed to persuade her to go on this one and she enjoyed it so much we went on it three times! Success!

It was an awesome day and we definitely got our moneys worth and obviously took the cable car back to the main land instead of the boat, who would do that?