Laos - for Beer Lao we are truly grateful...

As with most people on a bit of a tight budget we made our way to Laos via a 3-day-2-night slow boat from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. From speaking to a few people who'd done it in previous years I was expecting hell on earth but it wasn't half as bad as we'd feared. For once we didn't go on the rip the night before and parts of the trip were really nice - floating down the Mekong river, sun beating down, Beer Lao flowing, tunes being belted out on the guitar. The second day was a bit of a drag (due to large hangovers & the lack of any seat other than the wooden floor) but it's definitely a cool way to see a lot of the Laos countryside (...not quite sure what qualifies as countryside though as 75% of Laos is officially forrest!) and meet loads of people that we've been running in to again in other parts of Laos.

Luang Prabang was our first stop in Laos and despite the 11:30pm curfew (we heard rumours of an all-night bowling alleys that serves booze but we never managed to actually make it there) it's a really nice town with a strong French influence in the architecture & local cuisine. One of the highlights was a trip out to the Kuang Si waterfalls which are really nice but the best part is a really cool rope swing that you can use to launch yourself into the air (and eventually the water). We made a stab at it but were shown up massively by a 12 year kid who was pulling off some crazy moves that wouldn't look out of place in a circus...I'm trying to track down a video of it & if I can I'll post it..the little fella is a legend. Aside from getting drunk Walshy & myself did muster up the courage to scramble up to the top of Mount Phousi (the dirty-minded amongst you may find the name amusing) in the 35 degree sun and were rewarded with some amazing panoramic views of the city. You'd get a good idea of what I'm talking about in the photo below if there wasn't a gimp in shorts in the way...

After 3 days in Luang Prabang we ventured on to Vang Vieng, which came highly recommended by a load of people from home & random people we bumped into along the way. It's a quality spot with the highlight without doubt being tubing. An activity which basically consists of hopping on a huge tractor tube and floating down the river...stopping off at countless bars along the way for pints of Beer Lao, buckets of whiskey and free shots of the local brew Lao Lao (tastes pretty much like chlorine...avoid it like the plague)...by the time you realise that you're really boozed you've already done a load of the quality rope swings like in the video below & you now need to make it home in the dark without drowning. Usually this 30 minute trip home takes about 2 hours and you have about 3 near-death experiences on the way..great way to spend a day though

Tubing Rope Swing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjgw1MGH4eM&mode=related&search=

Vang Vieng was the site of some serious boozing sessions despite the 11:30pm curfew. Rumours of bottles of Whiskey being devoured and reproduced (via the medium of puke) within 90 minutes are not wide of the mark. I also managed to sneak into a nearby (...what I hope/presume was a) guest house and gave them a blast on the drums at 3am...I thought it was quite thoughtful but they saw fit to chase us all the way back to our guest house..some people have no eye for talent!

We are in Vientiane at the moment and to be honest there's not a whole lot to do so we've decided to fly up to Hanoi on Thursday morning, the 22-hour bus to Hanoi sounded horrible so we are taking the easy way out...although we are worried that Laos Airlines are one of the few airlines in the world who refuse to publicly release their flight safety record, good thing I packed my parachute!

It must also be noted that Beer Lao is by far the best beer known to man. It's criminal that this beer is only $1 a bottle. It's quality.

Thailand - Bangkok and Chiang Mai

After 6 weeks in China, a country where you can wander endlessly in a city of 6 million people and not find a single bar, I think we were entitled to go a little bit nuts when we hit Bangkok. Although we did manage to head to the mammoth MBK market (over 12,000 shops!) and venture across the city to Sukhumvit & Patpong a few times the majority of our 8 days in Bangkok was spent getting rotten drunk on buckets of whiskey on the infamous Kohsan road, and rightly so!

By our second Saturday in Bangkok our livers screamed for mercy so we decided to head north on a 14hour sleeper train to Chiang Mai. In Chiang Mai we went to a Muai Thai fight night (billed as "Ireland Vs Thailand") & managed to secure some front row seats. These boys were as tough as nails and even the 12 year old 70kg fighters would probably give us a bit of a beating. The highlights of the night were:

(1) When they wheeled out 4 of their less impressive "athletes" for a blindfolded free-for-all fight, there were air punches galore in this one and

(2) The John Hayes look-a-like from Dublin fighting a guy pretty much have his size. The poor little fella had to get a few doses of smelling salts before he could be helped from the ring!

In a bid to get vaguely healthy we signed up for a 3 day trek in the jungle where we swam in waterfalls, rode some elephants, played footie with some locals, did some bamboo rafting and did a hell of a lot of trekking up & down some serious mountains. In preparation for the trek we decided to get absolutely loaded and fall into bed at 6am the night before (ahead of an 8:30am start). While we slept in our room some tool decided to relieve us of both our wallets, my mp3 player and Walshy's camera. If we weren't still loaded drunk we'd have been raging!

While our local opium-smoking, whiskey swilling guides were motoring up & down without breaking a sweat we just about made it back in one piece...our decision to try riding on the elephant's neck as opposed to the safe/secure seat complete with seatbelt nearly saw us take a plummet from about 15 feet in the air a few times...

...as I type we are gearing up for a horrible sounding 3-day, 2-night slow boat (complete with wooden benches to sleep on) trip to Laos, can't say we're looking forward to it.