ALL DONE :-( GoodBye Bangkok

So here we are, 3 fantastic months and we are now at the end..... :-(

We have enjoyed are adventures and we have appreciated you all following us along the way.

Its been a real treat to have contact from the other side of the world !! We hope you guys have enjoyed our antics ;-)

Cheers, and all our love

Until next time,

Charissa AND Kieran

Last Day in Koh Toa--

Kieran bobbing with his snorkel off shark island

Michelle, Coral and Jessica in their snorkel gear, off shark island

Charissa and I at the top of a look out on the island next to Koh Toa

Charissa, Jessica, Coral and Michelle on the snorkeling boat (Charissa's cousin and her friends)

Michelle (Charissa's cousin) and Charissa on the snorkeling boat

Sunset Sairee beach

So here it is the end is finally upon us, its been on hell of a good run, unfortunately though all good things must come to pass.

Koh Toa has been absolutely amazing. We finished our dive certification two days ago, both with flying colours. I think we are now hooked on the underwater world, the dives were absolutely amazing. There is so much diversity of life with in one square foot of coral, you could literally spend an entire hour under just looking at the same patch of coral.

The last couple of days we have spent hanging out with Charissa's cousin Michelle and her friends, its been a real hoot. Yesterday we went for a full day of snorkeling around the island, we saw black tip reef sharks and whales (a real rarity on the island).

Kier

Last night the 5 of us spent some time chilling on the beach, having drinks, listening to music and enjoying the warm evening water. A really nice way to end a good day.

Today, we are about to head out for breakfast buffet with Michelle and her friends. They are heading out this afternoon to Koh Panang (not quite sure how you spell it) to go and par take in the crazy full moon party. It was really nice to be able to meet up with family here, especially since its been so long since we've seen each other.

Today we enjoy our last full day and evening in Koh Toa. We will probably be beached until the sun goes down. It has been so... 'ridiculously amazing and special'.. to end such a fantastic trip in the most beautiful place we have ever been. Although we are sad to leave we feel blessed to have had the opportunity to travel and experience such surreal places.

So we drag our sorry bums to Bangkok tomorrow. 'Hopefully' the social unrest will be stable while we are there, we plan to make a quick entry and exit.

Looking forward to seeing you all, we will probably make one more post before our trip back home..... Cheers.

Charissa

--Koh Toa-- A huge slice of Heaven

Sunsrise taken off the Night Boat to Koh Toa

Sunset off the Sairee Beach Bungalow Restaurant

Empty tanks of air on the boat

Me getting my gear together to ascend to the water

Kieran in his scuba suit...looking rather dashing

So here we are at a week and a bit to go of travel. Its crazy how quickly its gone.

We fled Chang mia on the 17th, after a wicked new years week. Where we even managed to get in a Thai cooking course with a famous Thai t.v. Chef... very fun ;-)

The boat ride in to Koh Toa was good, (we caught a night boat after our plane flight in)... a 8 hour trip from 11p to 7 am, laid out on the boat deck floor with a lot of other foreigners ;-)

We arrived yesterday morning groggy but in good spirits. Found a guest house but had to wait until 11 am to get into a room. They we advertising a special for Songkran (the new years festival)... where you book a diving certificate package and get free accommodation for 4 nights, so we decided to go for it.

Our first class started yesterday and we had our first logged dive this morning, finishing with theory this afternoon. IT WAS CRAZY! We had such a fun time. Our handsome ;-) British instructor Dan, has been diving for 7 years and thus is very experienced (he even does technical deep water diving, crazy shit!...60 meters plus) Our class today covered basic open water skills, we never realized breathing could be so challenging! It really takes on a whole new meaning underwater.

Overall though, the entire experience today was awesome, even the wet suit tan lines later. We were taught how to assemble and suit ourselves up as well as how to take apart the gear. Just so you know, we looked very cute in our scuba gear ;-)

Tomorrow we get to have our first 'deeper dive' hitting 12 meters below water level. The following day we will go as deep as 18 meters, "sketchy". (in kiers words;-)

Should be fun though and at the end of the week we will be certified SSI open water divers, allowing us to recreation dive anywhere in the world ;-)

That's about it for now, its a hard life soaking up the rays and taking it easy but somebody (US) has to do it ;-)

Yes we know that a few of you out there are counting down our days till the end of our adventure, but rest assured we are still LOVING the 35+ degree heat and 31 degree water. We may just not come back ;-p


CHEERS! HOMESLICES!

Charissa and Kieran

A wet and wild new year!!!!!

Charissa soaked!! ;-p

Soi 1 Chiang Mai, the heart of the water fighting

Further down Soi 1, it just kept getting crazier

Flight to Chiang Mai

Charissa and I at the waterfalls in Luang Prabang

Water fight on the main street of Luang Prabang

Tourists and local children soaking passing vehicles on the main street Luang Prabang

So here we are in the middle of the biggest water fight either of us has ever seen. The starting of the Loas new year in Luang Prabang was nothing compared to what Chaing Mai has in store for us.

Our last few days in Luang Prabang were nice and relaxed, we just bummed around town getting soaked occasionally by the locals and tourists. We did some last minute shopping in the night market as they had so much nice stuff to buy, we ended up with a fare load by the end of the night. The next day we tried to send our purchases back by mail but were forced to bail on that idea due to the price. We will now have to buy an extra back pack to carry all our stuff, a box just isn't cutting it.

We went back out to the waterfalls the day before we left to seek reprieve from the heat, it was so nice even though it was much busier than the last time we had been. It was totally bazaar, we ran into garlens friend geoff on the way out. Its a small world.

We flew to Chiang Mai yesterday, a quick 1 hr flight apposed to 20+ hrs on the bus. We got our free visa with out a hick up, got through customs with a little convincing due to our large box off stuff from Laos and then got a cab with another couple.

The cab ride into town was absolutely ridiculous, our cab driver took us on a wild goose chase through town. He kept humming and hawing about where we were going, trying to convince us to take a look at his friends guest house and telling us that it might take 1,2,3 hrs to get any where. The catch behind the time was that after ever hour we had to pay 200 baht more. We finally managed to get him to drop us close to where we wanted to be, jumped out into the madness of the giant water fight and headed for a guest house. The first guest house was full so I headed off to get soaked and find one while charissa watched the bags, thankfully it didn't take me to long.

We got settled into our guest house, which is very nice. It is definitely worth the extra money as it is not a cheap dive. We got geared up to get wet and then set off into the madness, grabbing squirt guns to defend ourselves in the chaos. We spent the afternoon and early evening getting soaked and looking for a ATM that would work, finally finding one just before giving up. We had mexican for dinner and then packed it in too dry out.

The next couple of days will be spent wondering around town soaked, which is bearable in this heat as it has been around 35-45 c the last little while.

Hope you are all still doing well, can't believe that we will see you all in less than two weeks. The time has really blown by. Hope the weather is good for our return otherwise we might have to wear parkas for the first couple weeks ;-P.

All our love,
Kieran and Charissa

(p.s. charissa may just stay behind and make kieran send money ;-) oh to be a kept asian bride ;-p if only!)

**Good bye Laos is soon coming**

A little boy digging a hole in the Akha village

One of the grandmas in the Akha village, cross stitching under a shaded grass hut

The water fall in the NPA "Nam Tha protected area", our guide made a food offering to the waterfall spirit before we ate our lunch.

Me having a shot of freshly distilled rice whisky at 9 am ... Yuk ;-)

Kieran 150 meters up from the bottom of the NPA waterfall



Kieran and I sitting in the center of the bus on the ride back to Luang Nam Tha

Well Muang Sing was definitely off the beaten track. Farther north of Laos, it was only 3 km from the China border crossing and closely skirting Burma.

We hit the beat right away to try and find a guesthouse after getting off the local bus. Viewing most of what Muang Sing had to offer, we dropped our preference scale and booked in to Phu OI guesthouse, a cute rattan bungalow set up.

Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent looking for a decent, cheapish trek company to take us into the Jungle and show us some of the local villages. After some trial and error, we settled with our guesthouses company and booked a more expensive trek for just the two of us. (it was hard to find other travelers to join up with too make it cheaper)

The evening started with a quiet mis-ordered dinner and was finished at the local club where we shared a beer Laos and chatted with a couple local young men. (Kieran now has facebook buddies from Laos ;-p lol)

We awoke the next morning yearning for another hour of sleep, but after a cup of sweet milk and tea we headed off (chicken sandwiches in hand) to start our day. Our guide was ready and waiting for us, so after loading into our tuk tuk, we checked out the whiskey village straight off the bat.

Apparently whiskey is made in every house hold here, thus the name whiskey village. The set up was rustic; Big wok like pans boiling the rice into mash, bamboo mats on which mash was drying, forementting vats of mash in one corner and large vats distilling in another corner.

Back into the tuk tuk we were dropped off on the side of the road forty minutes out of town. The trek started intense off the bat, hiking forty minutes to the top of the first mountain (1,020 meters above sea level). Caring on from there, we decended into the valley to take in the water fall and eat lunch. After lunch we hiked to the next mountain top, 1640 meters above sea water, before making our way down through the desiccated burnt jungle below.

On our way down we past local villagers plaining wood and farming gum tree and sugar cane fields. In the villages, Kieran and I felt uncomfortable, almost as if we were at home on one of the poor local Indian reserves.... but with bamboo/grass huts. We quickly walked through, not stopping to take many pictures and waited to go back into town in our tuk tuk.

The hike was amazing, around 10-11 km in alot of steep terrain, for about 6 hours. We were pooped by the end of it. On the way back in to town, we were doused with buckets of water by the town kids.... the Laos New Year water festival is just starting to begin. LUCKILY we were able to dry Kier's camera quick enough. We went for a quick beer with our guide before settling in for a sloth like night. (We couldn't get out of dodge that day, so we were forced to spend another night.)

Despite posted bus schedules in Muang Sing, we made it to the local bus depot at two minutes to eleven to see our 11:30am bus starting to roll away. After some quick negotiation, and my savvy skills, we hopped on to the over crowded bus just before its departure.

Amusing, needless to say, because we had too maneuver our backpacks in between jute bags of farmer "stuff?", to find a place to sit in the center aisle. (.... FINALLY our first real locals experience) After finding a direction to sit and put our feet the bus ride chugged along smoothly until our brakes started to go on the hillside down from over heating.

After a hellish local bus ride, but overly amusing at the same time ;-p, we made it back from further north, to Luang Nam Tha, in one whole piece. (or rather two ;-)

So we are settled in at a new guest house now and have already booked our tickets out for tomorrow to Luang Prabang. Four more days to go until we say goodbye to Laos ;-)

Cheers and take care,

Charissa and K

P.S. "Jennifer", Kieran wants me to note that its hard to be gramatically correct and spell words in the appropriate manner when your three big beer Laos in, That's like 2 lts of beer!! ;-p

Northern lao

stuck on the high way to Luang Nam Tha, road work held us up. The smoke in the background is the locals burning the rain forest to clear land :-(

On the way to the less than impressive waterfall outside Luang Nam Tha

The lowest water falls outside Luang Prabang, they got even more impressive.

So here we are in Louang Nam Tha in northern loa. We arrived yesterday after a few days in Luang Prabang. Our trip up through the north has been a welcome change from the madness of Vang Vieng.

On the 31st we fled Vang Vieng for Luang Prabang, our trip across was the most hairy bus ride that we have had yet. The bus snacked on the ridges of mountains over looking valleys that didn't seem to have a bottom for 8 hrs. The lack of guard rails and the threat of on coming dump trucks left us both a little tense. Several close calls left us holding our breath and clenching our seats as we waited for the bus to shoot over the cliff.

We arrived in Luang Prqabang thuroughly exhausted from the emotional roller coaster, a tuk tuk swiftly loaded us up and dropped us in the middle of town. We took about an hour to find a guest house, as they were all over priced for what they were. In the end we settled on a place for the night for we had seen enough and were very hungry. The next day we switched guest houses because there were bugs in the other one and that wouldn't do for the price we were paying. We spent the day putting together an itinerary for the rest of the trip and booked tickets to fly for some of the longer legs.

The rest of the trip looks something like this, some time up here in the north, return to luang prabang for a few days, fly to chang mai, fly to the south of thailand to spend a week on ko tao and then return to bankok for a few days before coming home :-(.

Our second day in luang prabang we headed out to some waterfalls in the area, it took us awhile to get there but was totally worth it in the end. The cascading pools of whitish blue water were breath taking, like nothing either of us had ever seen. We hiked to the top of the largest on and explored the many smaller pools, enjoying a swim on our way out.

The next day we headed out via mini bus to oudomaxi, totally worth the extra five thousand kip. The bus ride went pretty smooth for the first leg of the trip. Along the way I started to do some further reading into our proposed route of return to Luang Prabang, as it turned out there was not really anything of interest in either of the towns we had chosen to stop in so I pointed it out to charissa. When re got to oudomaxi we talked it over and decided to pay the bus driver some more money to take us with the rest of the travelers to Loung Nam Tha, he agreed and we were on our way. The next leg of the journey was a little rougher on every one in the bus as the roads were crap and there was lots of construction being done. We had to stop twice for road work delaying our arrival by an hour.

We got into town around 6 found a guest house with no troubles and set of for food in the quaint little town. We ended up eating at the night market, which rewarded us with a whole roasted chicken and papaya salad ( so good). While we were enjoying some beer we made a friend with a very drunk thai man who insisted on talking to us even though neither part could understand what was being said, it made for a good laugh for all of us. We kept going with the beer drinking and ended up landing ourselves in a night club after some searching. The rest of the night was a hoot, charissa ende up dancing with the ladies while I chatted up a young man. All in all we probably stayed to long and had one to many beer but we enjoyed ourselves thuroughly.

We nursed some minor hang over this morning while doing laundry, so much fun and then set off on bikes to find a water fall 4km from town. It turned out to be a little trickle down a rock face, nothing much to write home about. The ride through the villages was very fun for us. Charissa enjoyed the constant hellos from the local children as we road by. We explored a bit more of the townbefore calling it a day.

We will eat at the night market again today as the food was so cheap and tasty. The next few days are left open so we will see where we land.

Hope you are all well, hopefully not to cold and wet.
Can't beleive that we will be seeing you all in less than a month :-( Boo Hoo!!!!

All our love
Kieran and Charissa

Vang Vieng -- What a place

The Blue water at the Blue Lagoon (kier jumped off the top of the big branch ;-)

Kier in Phu Kham Cave

Kier Climbing the slope to Phu Kham Cave

Sunset in hazy Vang Vieng

Our Bands Tour bus to Vang Vieng

The bus ride from Vientianne went windy, but well. It only took around 3 hours, so we got into town mid afternoon.

The guesthouse search was quite easy, we were happily surprised that it is much cheaper here than it was in Vientianne. (So expensive in comparison to the rest of S. East Asia)

We have taken it fairly mellow the last four days, absorbing the heat and taking in the beautiful mountains surrounding us. The first evening we got a little bit carried away with free buckets of rice whiskey and red bull across the river at the BucketBar. Needless to say my almost healed infection came back to bite me in the butt and we lost most of the next day wallowing in our own self inflicted misery ;-)

The following afternoon we finally made a go of exploring. We caught an overly expensive tuk tuk across the bridge and found a little slice of paradise at the Blue Lagoon and Phu Kham Cave. A steep 200 meter climb put as at the mouth of the cave, where we were astonished at the shear size and depth of the chambers inside. After a nice humid climb down we chilled by the Lagoon, talked to some locals and refreshed ourselves with a dip in the crystal blue water.

Yesterday we decided to go 'tubing', something Vang Vieng is quite renowned for.

WELL.. what an experience. We decided not to get tubes, for various reasons, and caught a tuk tuk to the first bar with another couple looking to get there.

To give some quick clarification to those who don't know... Vang Viengs river is fairly slow and there are numerous little shanti pubs and bar spots all along the river. The workers at each pub happily rope you in if you want to stop and drink. Every place has free shots and or something or another. Yesterday it was Ladies night and Lady boys night. So there were a number of men in drag, spray painting people with decals and obscenities (in car paint) on too their bodies. Pretty much the tubing experience includes the following: car paint, free shots, jiffy markers, hippy bandannas, lots of drunken people in swim suits (all mostly covered in paint) and numerous places to rope wing and or zip line into the river. (A bit sketchy might I add because there were quite a few surface rocks)

We ran into a couple we crossed the Vietnam border with and combined with the people we arrived with, spent most of the afternoon talking, dancing, (drinking a bit) and taking dips in the river. We only made it about 50 yards down the river, I can't see how some make it all the way down. Kier and his new friend Gareth went off the rope swing together... It was pretty cool and about a 40ft drop. ( I can see how easy it would be to injure ones self here, with alocohol and a touch of stupidity.)

We ended up leaving at the 5th bar after a young woman fell off the platform and split her forehead open.. There were plenty of people to administer help and first aid, so all went well.

The rest of the evening we hung out with our newly aquired friends and retired early this morning.

Today we booked a ticket out, to Luang Pra bang and bummed around for the day just taking it easy. We are definetly ready to be out of this town. Its a bit of a drunken sleeze of a tourist hole. Geez... and to think some people get stuck here.

CHEERS!!

Charissa and Kieran