China - Shangri-La

After 8 hours, 3 car accidents, and 2 stops for strawberries, we finally arrived in Shangri-la....and my god, it was freezing!

As I have mentioned before, I was currently going through the worst weather of the trip so far with it being quite a bit cooler than Laos and getting the odd spot of rain. Shangri-la however was around 3700 meters above sea level around surrounded by snowcapped mountains, thus making it icy cold (around 5C - 10C degrees). So it was lucky I hit up those fake outdoor gear shops in Dali, as my snow jackets came in more than handy...!

Sahngri-la as a town was quite small, with hardly any tourists. It was a really nice mix of Tibetan and Chinese culture as it was not far from the Tibetan border.



We spent our first day wandering around the town and had a look at one of the monasteries in town. This monastery would have had over 1000 prayer flags throughout the complex in all kinds of different colours, it looked amazing. It also had a giant prayer wheel in the middle overlooking the town, which the locals would climb up to and spin around for good luck.



The evening we caught up with some people Sarah had met along her travels, and had dinner and a few beers with them. We ended up going to a small tibetan bar where we ended up singing along with some guys for most of the night!

On our second day we headed to the Monastery just outside of town. Half falling down and half being rebuilt, this Monastery would have to be one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. The Monastery is home to over 700 monks, whose age ranges from 7 years old to 90. As you walk through the monastery you see the monks doing everyday things like building, cleaning, and chatting on there cell phones.

The colours on the outside of the buildings and temples within the complex were a brilliant yellow and maroon, which matched the Monks robes. We spent around 4 hours just walking around the place exploring the different temples.


The following day we headed to Lijiang....

China - Dali

After travelling so much on buses throughout South East Asia, I was rather excited to find out I could catch a train from Kunming to Dali. I automatically presumed it would be faster aswell.

I need to learn not to presume things!!!

The train took 9 hours, which at first was fine. Until I was informed by a guy sitting next to me that the bus only took 4 hours...but the train was more scenic...! I think I would have prefered a 4 hour boring journey to a 9 hour over crowded yet scenic train trip....!

On arriving in Dali, I automatically fell in love with the place. This was the China I had come to see. Dali is a tiny town, with a small population of around 40,000. The town its self you could walk around in half a day, and were all traditional chinese buildings and cobblestone streets. The only thing that was slightly out of place were the minority women, around 80 years old, trying to sell you dope and opium as you passed by the Tibetan Cafe...!

At the hostel I stayed at (The Jade Emu), I met up with Sarah and Andres, who I hung out with the whole time I was in Dali. Sarah as it turned out was heading in the same direction as me, so we decided to stick together through the next couple of weeks.

On my second day in Dali, Sarah Andres and myself headed up one of the Jade Mountains that surround Dali. ALthough you can hike it, we took the easy way of a cable car to the top. From the top you could see for miles and the view was stunning. Like I said before, Dali was really my first proper "China" experience, and from the top of these mountains you got a real taste for the beautiful lanscapes that China has to offer; from the way the montains surrounded the lake, to the hundreds of rice fields that appeared painted on the horizon.

The following day we decided to go cycling, which really was quite a dumb idea considering Andreas was cycling around the WHOLE of asia, and was therefore quite fit. He decided we would do an easy 25klm ride (!!!!) to the port of the lake.

The ride was actually quite easy, but the roads were bad bad bad, which made riding slightly more difficult than orignally anticipated....! However, the views while we rode were just about worth the pain my arse went through on those bumpy roads. We rode past a whole bunch of rice fields and farms where there were Chinese working in all there tradational minority clothing, and through a couple of little villages aswell.

It took around 2 and a half hours to get to the lakes edge, so suffice to say we were all completely stuffed by the time we got there. After a small rest, we went in search of a toilet and food. The toilet we found first, which was probably a good thing, as had we found it after eating, we probably would have vommitted our whole meal up. This public toilet was quite possibly the worse public toilet I have ever seen in my whole life. It was as open as every other chinese public toilet (ie: no doors), but this one obviously was completely blocked, due to the smell that almost made you fall backwards as you walked towards the front door. Unfortunately, it appears a few people had "missed" while doing there "buisiness" and this was the result:

Lovely isn't it??

Then came the food search. We couldn't find any obvious food stalls or restaurants anywhere, but we did come across a youth hostel on the street leading to the port. We walked in there, and after finding aboslutely no body spoke a word of english, we mimed the actions to eating to which the guy at reception nodded furiously and led us into the back of the hostel. After walking for about 10 meters, he led the three of us into the kitchen where we basically just pointed at things that we liked and the chef gathered them up.

We ended up turning this:

Into this:

And in doing so, quite possibly ate the greatest meal I have ever tasted in my life, for a total of $5 per person!

After we finished eating we grabbed our bikes to head back to Dali. However, I so tired and really didn't want to ride all the way back....so I took a tuk tuk back! Lazy person that I am...however in saying that I don't know how many of you reading this could honestly be arsed cycling for 55k's in one day??? Honestly???

The next few days were spent generally chilling out at the hostel, and enjoying Dali's knock off versions of North Face and Columbia jacket shopping for less that $20AUD.....!

From Dali, me and Sarah then headed to Shangri-la....

China - Kunming

I left Laos at 2.30pm on the 26th of April, with China Eastern Airlines to Kunming. The first thing I noticed was that I was the only western person on the flight. Now, the plane was pretty small, however this was the first time in 2 months that this had happened. It was amusing as the flight attendant said all the announcements in Chinese, and then in very broken English, which I'm sure was only really for my benefit....!


Arriving at Kunming, I was then the only western person in the airport! The customs police gave me an awfully funny look as I handed over my passport aswell. I was beggining to realise that this end of China was obviously quite untouched by tourists, which would be a bit of a change after travelling through western tourist invaded Vietnam Cambodia and Laos.


After an early night, I woke up at 8ish the next morning, and decided to go for a bit of a walk around town. A bit of a walk around town turned into 5 hours of getting completely lost and walking hopelessly around the back streets of Kunming trying to find my way back to my hostel! Every single street sign except maybe 2 or 3 are in Chinese, nothing in English. Also, no one speaks English, which was a massive suprise as I thought, quite ignorantly, that China would be the opposite to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. But its not, which makes for some quite amusing situations!

The following day I managed to do the exact same thing again....!

Kunming as a city is probably a good intro into China for someone who hasn't been there before...but it is mainly a buisness town with not a hell of alot to do.

The following day, I headed to Dali...

Laos - Luang Prabang

So after an eventuful two days riding Elephants and Trekking, I decided a couple of days of chilling out were in order....which considering I was in the most relaxed country in the world, quite an easy thing to achieve!

I saw Ville off to the airport the day after we arrived back from the trek. It was sad to say good bye as we had such a cool time for 2 weeks, but I will be catching up with him when I get to Helsinki which will be fantastic.

So I literally did just do nothing for a couple of days. I did climb to the top of Wat Phu Si, which had a fanastic view of Luang Prabang. I also went for a trip out to the water falls, which were very pretty to look at. But thats about it!

What I did see though was some of the most crazy rain storms I have ever seen! One night I was eating dinner and chatting to a french guy called Piere, and all of the sudden out of no where, the rain came down...and didn't stop for 2 days! It was insane! However, for nearly 2 months I had seen next to no rain and had brilliant weather, so it was nice for a change.

All up I spent a total of 6 days in Luang Prabang, and loved every second of it. Such a stunning town to look at, and a very easy place to just sit back and watch the world go by.

On the 25th, I headed back down to Vientiane, where on the 26th, I headed to country # 4...China!!

Laos - Trekking - Luang Prabang

So, after dropping Elephants back at the camp, we came back to the lodge and had some breakfast, before setting off on our trek.

Our guide Souk had told us the whole trek should take around 4 - 5 hours, travelling through the Jungles, fields and Minority Villages along the way.

So we set off, the weather not looking wonderful, but I figured the overcast day might keep the blistering tempretures down a notch. Unfortunately, after around an hour of walking, the clouds parted, and the onslaught of heat began.....

We crossed over the Nam Khan river on a wonderfully safe bamboo bridge, and headed into our first village. The village was home to two Lao minority groups. All the houses were made of bamboo, and for a village holding around 100 people, there was only one tap pumping fresh water for showering and drinking.

As we were walking around the village, all the kids came running out to us to say "Sabadee!" and to laugh at us aswell, as big tall white people are seldom seen in this part of Laos, so we were somewhat of a novelty for them!
I asked these girls if I could take there pictures, which they said yes to. After I took it, I showed them on the screen of my camera, andthey thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. I love how something so simple, that we as westerners take for granted, can amuse these kids to no end. Its little things like that you just don't see at home.

Once we left the village, we walked through the forest for a while, before we began trekking through a clearing. Our guide explained to us that the clearing was once covered in the same trees we had seen previous, but now to make more money, the farmers burn all there land so they can make rice fields to export around Asia. I had noticed alot of burning land on my various bus trips throughout Laos, which now all came together in my mind. It was good but sad in the same way. It was ruining the wonderful forests and jungles of Laos, but building the economy, which Laos is in desperate need of.

We continued trekking through the fields for about an hour, before Souk lead us along a different path towards a mountain. He explained to us that if we went to the right, we could be in the next village with 20 minutes, but if we go to the left, we can get a great view of the country side but it will take longer. It was more of a statement than a question, so considering the trek had been reasonably easy so far, we just followed.

As we got closer and closer to the mountain, I began to realise just how difficult this next part might be. The path was beggining to become non existant, and was getting steeper and steeper by the meter.After almost 45 minutes climbing in a strait line and on an almost 90 degree angle, I started to not feel so great. I had drank enough water, close to 1.5 litres already, but I was getting hotter and hotter, and more and more lathergic as I climbed. I knew I didn't really have much choice but to climb, as they only way back was down. Which now that I was about half way up, looked quite scary!

After another 20 minutes of climbing (which felt like an hour), I finally made it to the top, dripping with sweat, bright red in the face and feeling like a truck had hit me. I basically collapsed on the ground for about 15 minutes, drinking another bottle of water trying so hard just to cool down.

So, as the picture depicts, I sat there, like this just trying to feel better!

After about 20 minutes, I could feel myself starting to come good, and with Souks promise that the rest was either downhill or flat, we set back off again.

We stopped for lunch about half an hour later, but considering I had downed around 2 ltrs of water in the space of 2 hours, there was no way I could fit anything in. So I sat there munching on some sticky rice and the equivilent of beef jerky, only the buffalo variety!

After we finished, we stopped in at a school where Ville showed off his soccer moves with the village kids, and kicked the ball around for about half an hour. The kids loved it! Towards the end, we had produced quite the crowd watching and cheering.

We then set off for another 2 hours of walking back towards Luang Prabang. After about an hour of walking, a thunderstorm came out of no where and brought a welcome relief from the heat, even if we did get drenched.

At around 3pm, we found our ride back to Luang Prabang, and collapsed into the seats of the Van. I estimate we probably trekked for around 18k's all up, which means I had just had not only the most active day of my trip, but quite possibly the most active day of my life! Any weight I had put on in the past 2 months travelling would have all just fallen off!

As difficult as the day was, it was still an awesome experience, and one I would do again and again....however hopefully the second and third time would be a little easier than the first!!

Laos - Elephant Mahot Training - Luang Prabang

The trip from Phonsavan to Luang Prabang wasn't to bad, just really really long....! It's amusing, because when you look at the map, Luang Prabang is infact only about 90k's away from Phonsavan. However, due the mountains, bad roads and the fact there are next to no bridges in Laos, the trip slowly takes up and down these huge mountains, around rivers and towns, eventually turning a 90k trip into a 245k trip. All I can say is thankgod for Ipod's, books and the fact I was on a good bus!



After arriving in Luang Prabang a little after 5.30pm, I found a guesthouse and then met up with Ville at his hotel. Ville was leaving for Thailand within 3 days, so we decided to go find a 2 day trek we could do together before he left. We headed to All Lao Travel Services on the main street, where we picked up a leaflet for a 2 day Mahot Training Course & Trek. It basically consisted of Elephant riding & trekking through the jungle, Elephant Bathing in the river and a 5 hour trek. All for $70US each including all food and accomodation. We signed up to leave the following morning at 9am.


That morning we woke up to pouring rain, which luckily stopped at around 8.30am! We were picked up from the travel center, where we met our guide Souk, and he drove us away from Luang Prabang for about half an hour. We arrived at this river, where there was no bridge and no boat to cross, so we had to wait for about 20 minutes for the boat driver to rock up and take us across to our accomodation! Apparently he was asleep....






Once we finally got over the river to our accomodation (which was fantastic might I add!), we were given our "Mahot Gear", a stunning dark blue denim uniform which was about 3 sizes to big for me! Mind you, I had kind of stopped caring about how I looked when I left melbourne, however in this get up I did feel like a bit of an idiot, yet very gangsta at the same time!



We crossed over the river again, and walked for around 30 minutes. The first evidence of Elephants we saw very giant massive Elephant poo on the ground, which resembled bright green coconuts. For this rest of our time, every time we passed some (which was quite a number of times!) Ville would say "mmmm fresh coconuts for breakfast!".



Then as we walked up a hill, we came face to face with our first Elephant. They were absolutely massive! I had never seen Elephants before, except at the circus once when I was a kid, so I was completely awe struck by them. There size was the main thing that got me....they were huge! The camp was home to around 6 Elephants, ranging in age from around 25 - 50, male and female.

Our first Elephant ride was reasonably tame, we had a Mahot (Elephant Trainer) riding in front, and myself and Ville were on the back in a seat. It was a good introduction into what was to come in the afternoon...! We trekked through the jungle for around 1 hour, which given how slow the Elephant actually moves, was only around 1 or 2 k's. It was brilliant though, riding up through the trees, along streams, up big hills. It was suprisingly smooth the whole way.

Things started to get a bit more interesting as the Mahot lead the elephant into the River for the first time, which was the most bizarre thing I have ever done. The elephant just casually walked through the river, stopping to have a drinking every now and then, which was understandable as he was lugging us three and it was about 40 degrees! Me and Ville then got our first shot riding the Elephant for a little while, to get used to the feel and learning the comands to control the Elephant.




We headed back to the lodge for some lunch and a quick rest, before heading back to the camp for our first solo ride of the Elephants. Well, almost solo, we still had the mahot's sitting at the back just incase we started to fall off! I was sitting right at the front, on the Elephants neck, with absolutely nothing to hold onto....no ropes, no seats, no nothing. Now, when you are trekking on flat ground thats not that much of an issue, but the minute you start climbing up hills its another story! It was a little scary, but lots of fun at the same time.

After about 45 minutes, we dropped the Elephants back to the camp, and headed back to the river, where the Mahots met us about an hour later. We hopped onto our Elephants, and took them into the river for bathing. This is quite possibly the most amazing thing I have ever done in my life! As they Elephant got deeper, the Mahot told her to sit down so she (and me!) would get almost submerged in the water. We then proceeded to spend the next half an hour throwing water all over the Elephants head to clean them, and also cool them down at the same time. The elephants were loving it, Ville's Elephant wouldn't stop diving its head under the water every few minutes nearly throwing him off in the process!



Once we had finished, we walked the Elephants back upto the river bank, where the Mahots took them back to the camp.

Ville, myself, and our guide then spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the river trying to cool down after such a hot day!

We headed back to the Elephant camp at around 6pm, and rode the Elephants back out to the Jungle where they slept away from the camp for the night. After saying goodnight to them, we headed back to the lodge, where we had a fantastic dinner made for us, which we needed after such an active day.

The following morning, bright and early at 5.45am, we got up and picked up the Elephants from the Jungle and rode them back to the camp. So while all you guys were at work or eating breakfast, Ville and I were riding Elephants through the jungle! Just another Monday morning in Laos really!

Laos - Phonsavan

Now, when I bought my ticket for the bus to Phonsavan from my guesthouse in Vang Vieng, the ticket said "VIP BUS" - which means reasonably new bus, aircon, mainly western tourists.

What I got was this:




Not quite what I was expecting!!! All up, the bus was missing 6 windows, the seats were mostly broken, and there was around 16 sacks of rice piled up in the aisle, which I had to climb over to get to my seat. When the bus finally left, they had oversold the bus by about 10 tickets, so people were actually sitting on the bags of rice.....!





However, like I said in the previous post, you really shouldn't come to Laos without a sense of humour, and this was one of those moments when you really needed one!

Anyway, the bus did make it to Phonsavan, after around 8 hours of travel up and down the mountains in the Lao country side.

Phonsavan is a tiny town, the main street is the only street, and its around 4 k's long. The only reason people come here, and the only reason I came here, was to see the "Plain of Jars". The Jars are a bizarre formations situated on three different sites about 10 - 20 k's out of Phonsavan. No body knows where they came from our why they are there or what they are made of. The typical Lao rumour is the were used to make Lao Lao hundred of years ago for Lao New Year parties.....given the size of the jars it would have been one hell of a party!!



I signed up with a tour for about $11US with 3 other backpackers I met on the bus, and a Belgium couple in their 60's who had been travelling the world for almost 15 years.

The first site, and by far the biggest, was probably the most impressive. Spanning over around 6k's of country side, there are around 60 jars on the site, as well as a cave in the middle.



After going to the first site, the last two sites were a bit of a let down as far as size was concerned, however, they were a lot prettier. The view from the last two sites were amazing, and there was a bit of shade, which is always welcome during the hot season in Laos.

We spent all up around 5 hours travelling through the three sites and stopping for lunch. It was an interesting part of the world to see.

Phonsavan is also in one of the areas that was most heavily bombed in the 1970's by the US. So everywhere you walk, there are signs warning you about Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) which still haven't been cleared. The Plain of Jars is one area that has been mostly cleared, but its still not worth wondering of the dirt tracks just in case...!

The next day, I headed to Luang Prabang to meet back up with Ville...