4000 islands (don khong)

got a bus from pakse at 8 in the morning for 50,000 kip to the port at the side of the river, then payed 15,000 for the boat over the river.While the island was big there was very little on it to do. I spent the afternoon walkingabout taking photos, which was entertaining enough, but It would get A little boring If I had to do that the next day too. Luckily I didnt need to worry about the next days entertainment as I spent the whole day recovering from the previous nights drinking. The previous nights drinking started because The Island was empty, there were several guest housesbut only about 5 tourists. Two of them (a young danish couple) were eating in the same place and just invited me over to drink, one drink lead to about 5 others and I became pretty drunk. At this point the resteraunt was closing but we heard noise in the distancewe went to check it out and it turned out to be a party for one of the locals, It looked like about half the islanders were there, about 30 large tables were set out with people drinking on each of them. It was fairly late in the evening and after a few seconds we were lead to a table and had more beer thrown infront of us, while this was what we were hoping for it probably wasnt much of a good thing. I missed the boat in the morning, which meant another whole day on the island. I managed to get the boat after the 2nd night on the island.

Pakse

took a night bus from vientien, from the pictures I saw when booking the ticket the beds looked the same as the ones on the night train.When I got on the bus I found this to be correct, however I didnt realise that you were meant to share the bed with someone else effectivley cutting the bed size in half.
Luckily the bus was only about half full so most people got a bunk to themselves and those who didnt seemed to be friends.
Pakse is another boring town. If you look on the lonley planet website the "things to do" list is almost entirely drinking coffee at coffee shops. There is the bolivian plataou about30k out of town which you can loop on a moped, but all I could find were manuals and I dont know how to use an automatic. All that was there was a waterfall anyway so i wasnt overly botherd about missing it.
In the evening I stumbled across the australian guy (oscar) who I met in vang vieng along with an english guy he was traveling with (who I also saw briefly in vang vieng). Sat and had a drink with them for a couple of hoursand discussed a range of stuff along the lines of fate, paralel universes and dowsing rods. Both Oscar and the english guy both seemed to be the cleshe stonner hippie type (probably something to do with why they were traveling together). Apparently when he was in england the english guy had a market stall selling crystals and dream catchers and stuff. The australian Intended to spend a 2-4 weeks in a meditation course run by monks, back home he was a carpinter but quit his job, sold his car and chose to travel. So far I think he had only seen thailand and laos on this trip, but he has been away for about 2 months. He said he was hoping to travel for about 1/2 years before needing to work.

Vientien again

Took the bus to vientien during the day, The views were great though. I also managed to get a glimpse of the Cement factory (the pride of laos) that is printed on their money.

So now I'm back in Vientien again, yeah...

Phonsevan

Boring town, but I only saw one westener the entire time I was there, possibly something to do with the landslide up north, but I doubt it would be full of tourists even if the road was fine.The plane of jars is the main atracction and I'm glad I went to see it, but I wouldnt go again. It was a little expencive.for the bus to get to phonsevan I paid 180,000 kip, for the hotel I paid 70,000 kip but for the tour of the jars I had to pay 350,000 kip. This was because I was practicaly the only tourist. I had to pay for the whole minibus and the tour guide all by myself.It was about 27 quid for a 6 hour trip to see the three sites, a russian tank and get lunch. After getting a 10 hour bus trip to get there I could hardly go back without seeing the jars.I would have rented a bike, but I couldnt see any.

Vientien

the capital city. It was a dramatic difference to anywhere else I had seen in laos, it was built up with large shops, resteraunts and many many hotels.There Is almost nothing there to do though. I expect The hotels are almost purely for foreiners making thai visa runs. The center was plesant and almost had a feel of the old city in chiang mai, but without the walls or temples.There was one thing that is worth doing though, this is the buddah park. I was told about this buy the australian guy in vang vieng (he seemed to know about everything) and he said it was good. He said to get the number 14 bus from the bus station and it would take you there after it droppedeveryone else off at the friendship bridge (birdge to thailand).
The buddah park had hundereds of statues, some were knee height while others were a good 20 meters or so. The highlight was one where you gould walk into it and climb up it onto the roof past three layers of hell (I didnt know buddists had a hell but WE).

Tubing in Vang Vieng

115,000 kip to rent a tube. 60,000 for a deposit if you lose the ring. Though if you brought the tube back late (after 6pm) there was a 20,000 kip fine.Apparently it normaly takes about 3-4 hours to float down the river without stopping, but while i was there they thought it was about an hour, due to the heavy rain.you could see the river was running fast. I was also told that about 12 people had died so far this year. It sounds quite bad, but it is understandable. Tubing is about getting intoxicated on a river.When you have hundreds of people a day drinking like theyre at a night out back home and then swimming in a strong current It would be more surprising if there werent any deaths. Vang vieng is also known to have a not so underground drug culture too. Because im verry sensible I stuck to just a couple of beers.
The atmosphere was good though and even in low season there were at least 50 people within sight at any time. The bars buy the river had anywhere from 10-100 people in them. The bars with the slides stole the most people from the water though.Tubing wasnt exactly what i expected. I thought it was going to be a more relaxed affair, just floading down the rivver with beer in hand. but In reality the floating down the river was just to get to the next bar, where you stopped, got out your ring and danced on their platform for 10-20 minutes before geting on your ring again and going to the next bar.It might be a bit different when the rivver is slower, but I doubt the change will be significant.
We finished tubing at 7pm just as it was getting dark (and cold, which I think was the first time I have felt cold in asia other than in the AC busses) but most people were happy to stay. We went back to the hotel and then went for food. You could watch a slow stream of people returning their rings untill quite late (about 12pm). Some of these people were obviously smashed.It will also be pitch black on the rivver from about 7:30 as it was not well lit. It is Interesting to see how much of a difference there is in health and safety between a country like laos and western countries. In the west tubing would have been stoped before anyone even thought about creating it.

vang vieng

I arrived at about 2am in the morning, In laos there seems to be a curfew at midnight for tourists and as a result all the guest houses were closed.This is other than one aussy owned guest house (possibly called pans place) that one of the guys on the bus knew about. I tried my ATM card In an ATM to try and pay the guy back for the bus, but it wouldnt work, I showd them I had travelers cheques and they also payed for my bed for a night.
In the morning i went to the bank and got my TC's sorted, payed the guys back and got breakfast. one of the guys recomended seeing a cave with a lying buddah in itso we all shared another tuk tuk and went to see it. It was huge, and probably the best cave ive been in. You walked in to see the lying buddah, this area was huge and impressive, but this was just the mouth. The cave went much further. The australian guy who told us about it said it was about 4k longbut that he had never been to the end of it. We only walked into it for about 15 minutes untill the light from outside was all gone. we used phones and keyring torches to see. there was a river outside that was also cool with a bunch of ropes swings.
On the way back we the tuktuk got stuck in a mud puddle and wouldnt start, but luckily there were six of us in the back and managed to push start it after a couple of minutes.after getting back we got ready for tubing.

Luang prabang to Phonsevan (but really to vang vieng)

An 7am wakeup was the start to a bad, but insane day. Took a tuktuck to the bus station, bought a ticket and got pointed towards the most rough and scratty bus in the station.the first hour went smoothly, but then the bus stopped. I thought we were waiting for people to eat at a services, but we were there for two hours, then another bus pulled up behind us and i was pointed in the direction of that bus.I checked my pockets to make sure I still had everything ande i did. another 2 hours passed where I was half asleep. I woke to find the bus wasnt moving, we were in a huge line of lorries and minivans. The bus sat there with everyone on it for about 5 hours.
After waiting for a while I got up to get off the bus and try to see what was happening, checked my pockets, and my wallet was gone. I expect that it fell out my pocket and through the seat as there was a big gap, but when i looked on the floor it was gone.I expect someone just took it from the floor, but everyone I asked either didnt speak english or chose not to. They must have all aware that I was looking for something though. There wasnt much, I could do about it, its not like i could strip search them all and I couldnt know who it was becauser everybody was walking up and down the bus to try and see what was going on. meh...
anyway, afterv a long time waiting at the landslide I was told by the driver (and the help of two girls trying to translate) that there was a bus wating on the other side of the landslide. I was given the bus number and I took a walk with a few others through the landslide.Most of the people stayed on the old bus though, I assumed it was because we were closer to luang prabang.
The landslide itself was huge, about 600 meters across. It was safe to walk across as the diggers had arived and leveld out most of the surface so it was stable, but the mud was thick. one 4x4 tried to cross the slide but got stuck. It took about 30 guys to push it out of the mud back onto the real road.
After walking through the landslide and finding the bus after walking right to the end of the line and then walking back on myself, I tried to get on. I showed them the ticket for the previous bus, but they asked for 50,000 kip. I assumed that The bus the driver told me to get would be part of the same service.I didnt expect to have to pay the whole fair again. I didnt have any cash as all my cash was in my wallet. I steped down off the bus and walked back to find the origional bus in the hope it wasnt able to turn around. The roads were so thin that i think the odds were in my favour. However, I walked past three western looking guys who were walking onto a busand told them my money was stolen and if I could pay them back at the town they get off at with my ATM card. Luckily for me one of the guys agreed and I got on. It wasnt to the destination I wanted (phonsevan) but I was happy to go anywhere. It was starting to get dark and If I went to the origional bus I expect i would have slept on it for the night.

Luang prabang

The town was cool, Lots of little shops and resteraunts scattered between several temples. A night market filled the main street every night and sold the usual market stuff along witha few bottles that were a little more interesting.
after ariving I got a room for 40,000 kip, then went out to eat korean food in a korean resteraunt with two koreans, a swis guy and a girl from the US who I shared a tuktuk with. Fried rice with a fried egg on top, same as I tend to eat everywhere else, but with some seaweed in it.Afterwards went for a walk to see some temples.In the evening met up with the US girl and the korean guy who were in the same guest house, went out to eat then drank lao lao untill about 1am on the roof eating authentic korean instant noodles.
The next day I rented a pedal bike and attempted to reach a waterfall that was 30k away. I only got about 15k before I gave up, It was hot, but it was mostly because the bike sucked. If I had a better bike I'm sure I could have done it. I got back to the main town and hired a tuck tuck to go back to the waterfall after i had a slow lunch.By chance saw the korean guy walk past and asked if he wanted to go too, he agreed to go and split the cost. The waterfall was huge and had many different steps, It was made cooler by the fact it was flooded and the water was flowing through the trees and picknick area. There was also a center that said it looked after auphined black bears.
Later in the evening more lao lao (50%) was consumed along with a couple of bottels of rice wine, the standard one and the black sticky rice wine (both 15%).

Getting to laos

Got a bus from chiang rai in the morning to the boader for 170 bhat, took about 3 hours and got to the boarder at 2. Crossing the boarder into laos was fast and easy. It took about 20 minutes including the 5 minute boat trip across the river. The laos visa costs 35 dollars or 1500 bhat, I payed the bhat because it was the only money I had, it cost a bit more this way though. It seems that everything costs more in bhat than if you pay in kip or dollars.The bus through laos to luang prabang was 600 bhat, .but i think it was about half that if you paid in kip. The bus was meant to take 12 hours through the night, but it took a little longer.In laos the roads have a habbit of dissapearing. Our bus stopped at 4am. at first I thought it was to swap drivers, but then we started reversing. We went back for about three seconds and then the wheels were just spinning with no movement.we were stuck in a ditch untill about 8am later that morning. We all exited the bus through the back window into the road in the pitch black dark. we walked for 3 minutes to get to a small hut that we sat under. It wasnt fully obvious what the issue was at this point. But when the sun came upyou could see that a mudslide took the whole road into the rivver below.
took a good few hours to get moving again, and drew a big crowd of locals.

chiang rai

Got to chiang rai from chiang mai in three hours for 170 bhat at the main bus station. arrived at about 7pm at the bus station, but it turns out it was the wrong bus station.I got off at chiang rai main bus station, but there is also a centeral bus station in the middle of town. This problem was solved with a 50 bhat taxi fare for a 10 minute trip into the main town.there are only a handfull of cheap hotels but it was easy enough to find a room.
chiang rai isnt as interesting as chiang mai, but I think it is worth a visit for a day.
The white temple (wat rong khun?) was really good. A modern, unfinished temple with a simple colour scheme a few kilometers out of town.What makes it interesting (other than the obvious design features) is that It has a few interesting tributes to pop culture that could be missed, and I expect there are a few smaller tributes (I saw one) that the vast majority people wouldnt notice/recognise (Hint: Its one of the hands). Though the most obvious is a wall full of film references on the back wall of the temple.It is covered with images of star wars, comic book characters and charcaters from films, such as Neo, spiderman, jigsaw darth vader and michal jackson.
There is also a gallery of realy cool images and sculptures opposite the front of the temple. Many of the images were for sale ranging from 10,000 bhat to about 40,000 bhat. The most impressive items werent for sale though. I bought a 10 bhat postcard.I walked outside the gallery and the guy who created/is creating it was walking about the temple grounds meeting visitors and signing books and taking photos, He said he was on his lunch break. I got my 10 bhast postcard signed, but i felt a little embaraced because everyone else was getting huge books signed.He was very plesant to talk to, and after I asked him he told me that He thinks the temple will be finished in about 60-70 years. As an estimate I'd say the guy was about 50-60 years old.
There is a gold clock in central chiand rai. First time i saw it I walked past by chance at 9pm and It started flashing in many different colours while playing some thai pop music. it was fairly surreal.
There are a few temples in the centeral town too, but I think the bamboo temple Is the only one worth mentioning. It holds a replica of the emerald buddah (also made from jade) inside a wooden temple. There are also many sculptures of the buddah made from marble and the usual metal/gold leaf.

pai

small town. About a 3 hour drive from chiang mai. It has a reputation for being located in a verry pretty area, but I dont think its quite as nice as people make it out to be.This is probably because It has changed quite alot over the last few years. I heard somewhere that it is popular with thai people because it was used as a location in a sucsessfull thai film.Anyway, since then there has been an explosion of guest house construction. This means there are lots of cheap places to stay as they are all fighting for customers. One tactic some of them use is to create huge entrance signs and abstract building designs.One of them is a huge pink building with huge pink cows at the entrance, one lookes like it belongs on tatooeen (planet from star wars) while another is in the style of a traditional english cottage.apparently this sort of thing is done because the thai people like to get their photos taken next to the guest house signs. Its a way of thinking that has been adopted from the japanese.
The town has nothing special, a couple of small temples, a couple of markets (day/night) and a few small shops and resteraunts. The main attractions seem to be a japanese bridge from WW2, an temple on a hill with a good view, a chinese village, a canyon, some hot springs, a cave about 40k away and the general scenery.I saw all these things (other than the cave) in one day. I cant comment on the cave but other than that I think the pai canyon is the only thing worth going to pai for. It is basicaly a natural walkway with a drop of about 30ft on either side, It is quite interesting. The japanese bridge is.. a bridge. The temple has a good view of the valley, but the temple itself is nothing special.The chinese village is a collection of gift shops selling tea, chopsticks and fans. It looks like it was built 2/3 years ago just to attract tourists. Its only worth visiting to see how amazingly pathetic it is. The Hot springs were ok, but didnt compare to the ones in krabi. The general scenery can be quite nice for small sections along the roads and as a rule, the further away from pai you are the nicer the landscape is, but you need your own transport to apreciate this.
Overall, pai is nice. The canyon is worth seeing if you are in the area (and possibly the cave) but its not as nice as you would expect. If you are in chiang mai for several days it might be worth visiting, but its not worth traveling great distances for.

2 day/1 night trekk in chian mai

The treck was 1200 bhat for 2 days and 1 night, but I asked a few others in the group and they all payed different amounts (900-1300) so it is up to the broaker.
It started with an orchid farm that was pretty awfull. If your into flowers it might have been interesting, but it was small area with only a small selection. Next we were taken to a "long neck tribe village", It was the definition of fake. The "village" was a row of market stalls selling various tat, and the long neck tribe had very avarege length knecks. They even had a set of rings for tourists to try on, it was the same length as the ones the "tribe" was wearing.The adults were shouting at you to look at their stall while the kids in the corner looked bored to death.I bet they take the "neck stretchers" off at the end of the day.
The "treck" started after a lunch break (cold fried rice), we walked up a hill to a bat cave which was ok, It was small, but interesting enough for the 10 minutes we stayed there. We walked back down the hill then walked for about 3 hours through forest and rice fields, the scenery was quite good. At one point nearly all the vegitaton was bamboo.I would have taken a few photos, but my camera battery died. Pro tip: If you think you might need to charge and you have the oportunity to charge DO IT!
Then we arived in a "hill village", it wasnt a village, but there were people living there (even if it was just because they earnt money from the visiting "trekers") It was still interesting though. There were dogs and chickins running about everywhere and even a few small childeren who were genuinley happy to meet us.In our group there were 5 koreans, 2 italians and an american. Most of the group drank whisky and tried to play guitar infront of a fire untill late. The adults from the village mostly kept to themselves. (I expect they get people staying there every night so cant blame them)but one of the kids was keen to join in with us and even sang us some songs, the tour guide said that she learnt them at school. One was about learning maths and another was about her pets. They werent much longer than 60 seconds and she forgot the words to one half way through, but it was entertaining.
The 2nd day was for the activities. Firts thing in the morning we "washed" elephants and sat on them as they walked through the river. Later we did bamboo rafting, zip lining, swimming under a waterfall and white water rafting. The "treck" started badly, but overall it was very good, especialy for the price. To be honest the white water rafting on its own was worth the 24 quid by european standards.

Chiang mai

Chiang mai old city it good. probably about 3/4 square kilometers with several temples within that area. Some of them were quite impressive.The temple on the hill is also good but not unique. The giant monk and the huge gong ar good but the location is the main attraction as you get a good view of chiang mai from the hillside.The hill palice is only really for the thai people (thai people love the king). There is nothing much to look at and the buildings are closed. The palice is fairly modern and is like a summer house for the king.Its probably still worth going to (but not in) if you have your own transport (bike/scooter) just for the journey. The road is relatively pothole free, smooth and great fun to ride up/down. There is also a really cool waterfall along the road hidden behind some trees.you cant see it from the road, but it is sign posted. I also took a trip (13k) to see a temple called sabatee (or something like that), I couldnt find it but saw some rice fields up close for the first time.
I also met, went out for food and got drunk with some french people (I had already met one of them in Bangkok), They critisised my choice of food and my cooking skills (I didnt even cook anything).

BKK to chiang mai night train

Train was 600 bhat for a fan coach and a lower burth bed. Left at 22:00 and arived at about 13:00 the next day. We had to take a coach for 40 minutes at the end of the trip because apparently there was flooding that damaged the tracks near chiang mai.The scenery along thev way was very good though. Unlike when you take a bus the landscape is not built up the whole way there and you get to see jungle, fields and mountains with nothing but a wooden shack for for man made structures.The food was fairly expencive though, 200 bhat for food in the morning (rice soup). But Its a captive audience so if you forgot to bring your own snacks from a 7/11 before the trip, you pay it. Its a good idea to ask the price of things before ordering though, a small chang bottle was 150 bhat which is very expencive.For an overnight trip I much prefer the horizontal bed in a slightly rough condition train than an effectively upright seat in a high quality bus.

Kanchanburi

I went with my dad and friends/family of chi to kanchanaburi. went to see the bridge on the river quai and a museum with various WW2 stuff.then went on a boat trip to see some monkeys and more of the railway. The "monkey school" was really funny to see, but not for the reasons the trainers intended.The mnkeys were made to perform tricks, but they looked bored to death. They failed most of the tasks and it looked like they were thinking the monkey equivelent of "for fuck sake, why am i doing this again?"
On the way back we also saw thailands biggest... Well I cant remember what it was, but it was big.