Smuggled into Laos

When we last heard from our intrepid explorers they were about to embark on a 24 hour bus trek from Hanoi in Vietnam across the border into Laos. Suspicions that this wasn't going to go smoothly were aroused straight away when all the luggage areas of the bus were full with strange, well wrapped packages by the time we arrived. The guys running the bus then proceeded to squash our rucksacks around the edges. We were basically camouflage for whatever they were smuggling across the border!

During the middle of the night they stopped the bus and turned off all the lights and air conditioning so the driver could have a nap for 3 hours. I should mention that one of the side effects of the anti malaria tablets we are on is very vivid dreams. This combined with the heat and long journey proved too much for Conor. He imagined a truck was careening towards the parked bus and woke the entire back seat shouting "NO, NO" in his sleep. I was convinced somebody was trying to rob me through the window and spent 5 minutes "sleep elbowing" empty air.

Crossing the border was fine until the bus suddenly stopped and all the packages were hurriedly dispatched to smaller vans with tinted windows. I have never seem the normally relaxed locals move so fast. A short while later we found out what the rush was about because we went through a police checkpoint! I would love to know what was in those bags.

We spent one night in the Laos capital Vientiane (where we watched Leinster play in some final, not really that important a game) before moving on to Vang Vieng to go tubing. Tubing is basically floating down a river in inflated tractor tyre tubes and stopping at various pubs (which are basically shacks) along the way. There are water slides, ziplines, mudbaths and swings dotted along the river too. We met up with some South African guys from the boat trip in Ha Long Bay and spent two days on the river. It was amazing, see Conor's audition for the Spiderman 4 below. We all left Vang Vieng covered in bruises, unable to lift our arms above shoulder level but happy.

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Special thanks to Gary O' Donoghue from Killorglin who owns the The Rising Sun bar for all the hospitality. If you are ever in town drop in for the chicken and mushroom pie, epic!

North Vietnam

It’s been over a week now since the last blog entry and to be honest, it feels like a month. We’ve been moving pretty quickly and seen 3 new spots. First up was the city of Hue. Lovely little city on the river. The Nuygen dynasty made this their capital in the mid 1800’s and built themselves a fort based on Beijing’s Forbidden City. Their defense system was quite impressive – a moat, then a huge perimeter wall, then a no man’s land, then another moat, then another huge wall. Unfortunately it didn’t stand up too well to the American bombers in the war, so it’s in a bit of a mess now. The following day we rented a boat and went for a trip up and down the river. Nice day out. That evening we went out for a few drinks for Micheal’s birthday and met another 4 Irish people – Shane, Ciaran and Brian from Ballina and Sarah from Meath. They were with us for a week, but we left them now for “safety reasons”. So after that it was back onto the sleeper bus to head to the Northern city of Hanoi. Of all the places we’ve chatted to people about, Hanoi’s Backpackers Hostel was the most highly recommended. It didn’t let us down. Happy hour was 5-6, which seemed a bit early, but was good fun. Very easy place to meet people. The main nightspot was an Irish bar, which has been something we’ve tried to avoid so far, but in fairness it was a nice spot. Good mix of local and home specialties.

The main attraction of Hanoi is as a base for a trip to Ha Long Bay, so the following day we set sail on a ship out to the bay. Absolutely sensational scenery. Lots of tall islands sticking out of gorgeously warm water. The first day on board we went kayaking to a cave. The bay has about 1,000 locals, who live on boats, many who claim to have never been on the mainland. When typhoons hit the area, they use the caves as shelter.

That evening we stayed on the boat, and the 9 Irish quickly mixed with South Africans, Scottish, Canadians, and Aussies to make quite a party. Started off with a few drinking games, onto another danceoff, and then eventually some Olympic diving off the 25ft boat in the middle of the night. The following day we headed to Cat Ba island. Here we went for trek up a mountain. Sounds exciting but found out pretty quickly that "trekking" is just another word for "walking" and walking up a hill in midday heat here is pretty tough. The island is a bit quiet so we just sat on the pier for the evening and sang a few tunes.

So after a 3 day trip, it was back into Hanoi and time to end the Vietnam leg of the trip. Next up is Laos which is very inaccessible. The only alternative to flying was a 24 hour bus journey, which we have been warned is absolutely horrendous.

Hoi An - Suits You Sir

It's finally here, the post you've all been waiting for?!@#!


Well as Mick said last night on the beach was the perfect way to start our 12 hour bus journey to Hoi An. We took a sleeper bus overnight (save some dollars on accommodation). The bus journey itself was pretty uneventful, apart from the terrifying driving which made it hard for any of us to sleep. Drivers here really are insane. Overtaking on the inside of bends, going up a hill, in fifth gear. Basically, Size really matters out here!


So we arrived in Hoi An at 7:30 AM. Hoi An is a pretty small, tranquil place. Situated in central Vietnam, it is the gateway town for North and South Travellers alike. Hoi An is now a World Heritage site by UNESCO which basically means is a really cool place with lots deadly architecture. Inset is a picture of the Japanese bridge. No one is allowed to drive or cycle over this bridge. All the buildings have this East Asia influence. Without harping on, very very impressive.


Hoi An is a very popular location for suit making boasting over 160 tailor shops on the streets, every employee beckoning you in. We knew we'd have our work cut out to find the right place. Having checked a number of Tailors for price, we decided to go with the recommended "Peace" shop. Tailored suits of High Quality cost us $125 each, including shirt and tie. Fitting was impressive, 4 ft girls trying to reach the top of Darragh's head. By the end of it we all had dates with middle aged, sisters/cousins and even the dog. Some even had a promise of Marriage and the prospect of opening a Tailor shop back in Ireland and bringing the entire family home. (In a year from now we will discover that this is never going to happen. IT Skills meet Suit Tailor. It'll never last!)



When we finished the fitting we stopped for some food and came up with the bright idea that we would each pick the design of another "Party Shirt". Drawing the names from the hat, see the results inset.


After the exhausting suit fitting a night on the town and a few cold ones was a must. The town is relatively quiet at the moment, so we decided to hit the local beach party/bonfire. Free bus there and back was enough to persuade us. Bonfire on the beach was class.




I spent the night challenging the locals to pool and losing miserably. The rest of the lads dominated the dance floor with moves that have never been seen this side of Irish Sea.

Back to the Tailors the next day to try on the suits and get a few adjustments and we're ready to head off again. Waiting for bus now at 7am (what's it with these early buses) to continue to Hue.

3 weeks almost down and the bodies are starting to get upset. We've definitely knocked a few miles off these (arguably) once well oiled machines.

Nha Trang - Life's a beach

....As Mark said previously we got 3rd class train tickets to Nha Trang. 9 hours on wooden seats and no Air Con...This might not be good!...in fact it was excellent! We woke up at 9am to get the train for 10am. A small bit late as everyone slept through the alarm. Off we set with bags on our backs still half asleep. We suddenly got a good idea to purchase a few alcoholic beverages to ease the pain of the journey...which in our half hungover / half asleep state it was the best idea ever! We finally found our wooden seats but we were all split up and sitting with Vietnamese families. Then the craic started! After a couple of drinks with the locals on the train a sing song was kicked off by none other than Mark Canning. We had old trad songs to westlife..to Garth Brooks....again good man Canning! We were in full flow up until dinner time came around...then things got interesting for me. The Vietnamese family I was sitting with started buying me food...obviously because of my brilliant singing...ah ya! Half fertilized duck eggs were on the menu but I couldn't refuse this "delicious delicacy" (as the locals call it!) as it may be taken as an insult. 4 eggs later and we were still going. It actually tasted fine its just the thought of it more than anything really! Again a good experience but probably will not be having a half fertilized egg again.





We finally arrived at Nha Trang. Off the train with the lads (merry out) and got ourselves a hotel right on the beach...Quality! only $4 a night too which was excellent. It didn't take long for us to head straight to the beach. We needed to work on the tans....this pale Irish look isn't the best. We spent 3 days on the beach just relaxing as there isn't much else to do in Nha Trang but we didn't mind. We needed a few days of relaxation...this year off traveling is stressful! A few of us joined the local beach soccer team for a while....meaning about half an hour as the heat nearly killed us! We Irish lads were not made to run around in that heat so we sadly retired.







The nightlife was quiet in Nha Trang. We went to a number of different pubs such as The Shamrock, Why Not, Crazy Kim's and The Sailing club where everyone seemed to end up. We are getting a bit better at the pool but half the pool tables in the pubs are like an 18th green on a golf course...you would want to be Tiger Woods to put some of the balls in the hole. We will be professional pool players at the end of the trip...I'm sure of it! We ate at a few street vendors for lunch and dinner. You could get a roll with ham, lettuce, tomato, and onion or soup and a roll for a dollar a meal which is pretty sweet. I know its not up there with the half fertilized duck eggs but it will do! On our last night in Nha Trang we had a few drinks, gr abed food at one of the street vendors and watched the sun rise on the beach....not a bad way to spent a night! Nha Trang was a nice place to relax and go to the beach...but after a few days of this we were ready to move on again and buy some tailor made suits in Hoi An...

Travel tip #0.00001 sub section a

Bring an iPhone or iPod touch. I'm writing this from the comfort of my hotel bed on my ipod while the lads are snoozing (side note: kevin eddie snores like a bull elephant with a chest infection). The iPod touch is brilliant especially because most of the hostels have free wifi. It's really handy for checking email and if you have an iPhone with skype you can ring home for practically nothing. I also downloaded a Spanish app off iTunes for brushing up before we hit south America. This morning I woke the lads up by streaming today fm through the iPod over the brilliant travel speakers work got me as a leaving present. It was nice to hear what the traffic was like on the N11 before heading to the beach for the day.

Goodnight Saigon!

So I realise this is my thrid post, and that we were supposed to rotate the writing of this thing, but the blog has fallen a week behind so I said I better update it. In fairness, one of the rules of the blog was that we were going to update it with photos and videos at every opportunity, but a week in and we've had a bit of misfortune on the camera front which hasn't helped. First off, Conor forgot to bring the USB cable for his two cameras, then in Bangkok my camera, despite being waterproof and shockproof, didn't hold up to the Thailand heat, and stopped working. Finally when Micheal was trying to free up more space on his camera, he tried to look under "Format", which actually meant to reformat the memory card, meaning all the photos so far were lost. Just bought a new cable for Conor's camera tho so we should be back in buisness soon to keep you entertained! For the meantinme I just robbed some photos from the internet

So back to the story. Ho Chi Minh City is the capitol of Vietnam, although the locals still refer to it as Saigon, so that's what we used. I must say, we were very economical with our time here, and somehow managed to get everything we wanted to do in less than 2 days, knowing that our next stop was going to be a beach, so it was a bit of a quick stop off. Landing in about 2pm, we were greeted by easily the heaviest rain we have ever felt. Literally crossing a one lane road soaked us. It was like walking under a waterfall. Thankfully that only held up for about an hour, so after that we headed to the Vietnam War Museum.

We came here not knowing a whole lot about the history of South East Asia. Well, in the past week, we've learnt quite a lot. Between lonely planet and the museums, I reckon I've finally got my head around the war. Basically, Vietnam was divided between the North and the South, which were battling it out for supremacy. The yanks reckoned that if the North won, it would lead to a communist country, and alos they would have to pay more for supplies from China. They brought everyone, and bombed the whole place. In the end the Vietnamese were a lot smarter. We saw a lot of the weapons used by both sides, and the Americans were far superior in most ways. The Vietnamese were a lot smarter tho used a lot of ambushes in the jungle to beat them back. The Americans got fed up of these ambushes, so decided to used chemicals (called Agent Orange) to kill all the trees. Unfortunaltey this also killed and messed up a lot of the locals. The Americans left, the North won, and Vientam ended up a peaceful, republic country. So long story short, Americans went to war, for something the "thought" was gonna happen, lost, and left eventually, tails between their legs. I'm sure it'll never happen again!


So after a quite moving afternoon, we hit the local hotspots. Having gone a bit overboard on the budget so far, we decided to try the kerbsirde eating. Lovely stuff. Pretty much anything you want for a dollar. Lovely food. I'm sure the health inspectors wouldn't agree, but we're still alive anyway. Then we found a bar with a buy one get one free offer on beers. Darragh, with his Applied Maths leaving cert pointed out that 5 people don't fit in well to these schemes, so we decided to buy 6 every round, and someone would have an extra beer each time. We were quite giddy after a few hours of this arrangement and wandered into a nightclub. What followed, is something that nobody who was there will ever forget. 5 pasty white Irish lads, hit the dancefloor and start a danceoff that lasted 3 hours. The moves pulled out were ridiculous. In no particular order, there was:

• The Worm
• The Homer Simpson
• Limbo
• Congo Line
• Around the World
• Rolly Poly
• Polishing the floor
• Riverdance
  

The following day we were actually feeling quite good. That much dancing means ya can't buy beer, and that much dancing clears the system quite well. So we went to the Cu Chi tunnels. These were one of the main reasons the Vietnamese won the war. They started during the earlier Indochina war, and by the time the Vietnamese war ended it was a 250km network of underground tunnels around an area. The locals were nifty enough to scatter around them, but the Yanks hadn't a hope. We crept 100m through them and we were in bits after them. I can't imagine anyone ever invading them to be honest.



Saigon was a lovely city actually, although the traffic was manic. I could definately have spent a few more days there, but with our time being quite limited, the sights done and the beached of Nha Trang waiting for us, we were more than happy to hop on the next train out of here. Unortunately we got 3rd class tickets which means 9 hours on wooden seats and no Air Conditioning. This might not be good....

Phnom Penh - nice to have been but nicer to leave

So I said I may aswell give this blog some semblance of literary credibility by posting on the Phnom Penh leg of the journey. Apparently requests for more posts are coming thick and fast so either everyone is bored or Darragh and Mark did something right.


Anyway, our journey from Siam Reap to Phnom Penh was pretty bad. The first 4/5 hours consisted of a game of chicken along the main road with cars, trucks, cows and motorbikes coupled with an a/c breakdown (the driver had to fix a pipe under Mark and Ed's seat so you can make your own mind up on who broke it). After that it started to get interesting when the road started to look like the surface of the moon. Rookie mistake by us sitting at the back of the bus! We landed at the bus station to literally a scrum of tuc-tuc drivers offering hostels and spins into town. This kind of set the tone for the next two days whereby you cannot walk by someone without having something shoved into your face or being harassed for a tuc-tuc. Us Irish are sceptical at the best of times so now we thought the entire city was trying to rip us off. The road system there is mental. Everyone just drives until they can't go any further, stops and heads off again. We saw about 6 sets of traffic lights in 2 days.


We ended up staying at the Capitol hostel for about $3 a night in clean but not exactly luxurious surrounds. They took care of our Vietnam visa for us which was very handy and saved us a lot of hassle. That night we headed into Sisowath quay which is the area with the most pubs and restaurants. We found a couple of nice bars and settled in for the night and we ended up in a club called Heart of Darkness about 10 blocks away. Whilst Kevin Ed did clean up at pool we wouldn't be recommending the club or that general area.


The next day we decided to go to the shooting range. There were only four of us as Darragh was suffering from a less than compliant digestive system. The range is an actual army barracks, not that it makes it any less mad. Just outside the entrance there were a load of swans, ducks, geese and chicken running around which we thought slightly odd but nevertheless we proceeded to peruse the "menu" handed to us. The guy then asked us if we wanted to shoot one of the chickens. We declined but plumped for the AK-47 in the end. As you can see from the video, Mick got a little carried away.

We went out that night again but after talking to some locals they directed us to a better club called Emerald. Quite expensive but we were able to relax and watch Man Yoo destoy the Gooners in comfort. The next day we hired a couple of tuc-tucs and headed for the first museum of the trip - the Toul Sleng museum. It was used as a detention and interrogation centre before the detainees were transported to the killing fields. Fairly harrowing stuff if truth be told. No one knows quite how many people died as a result of Pol Pot's genocide but it's between 2 and 3 million. After that we headed out to the killing fields which are about 15k outside Phnom Penh. The memorial building in the picture is full of the skulls of all the victims exhumed here. They were taken from a truck, knelt down over a pit, had their throats cut and pushed in with the rest of the dead bodies.

That night we booked the early bus out of Phnom Penh for the next morning to Saigon and went out for a very tasty meal in a Japanese restaurant called Gingha for $3 a head. As the title of the entry suggests, Cambodia and Phnom Penh in particular is somewhere I'm glad to have seen but I wouldn't go back. Still it could have been worse........I could have been in work!

As that old saying goes "You wait ages for a post and then you get two..."

I thought I'd better put a post together while the rest of guys enjoy a well deserved Sunday snooze. I think Mark told the story up to leaving Bangkok (doing a great job of it I might add) so I'll pick it up from there. Crossing the border into Cambodia was horrible! I never met so many people trying to scam you. We had to be wary of everyone which is pretty tiring. The guidebooks had tipped us off to be on guard and it was a good thing we were. We got a local bus to Aranyaprathet and then a tuctuc took us to a travel agency that would "assist" in getting us a visa (and over charge us). We dodged this one and went straight to the consulate. After crossing we got a three hour taxi to Siem Reap

Siem Reap is beautiful, small and lively (like Mick Cahill). We're staying at a great hostel, just outside the town. Yesterday we did a tour of the local Angkor temples. These are amazing temples which were built by Khmer empire between 900 and 1200 AD. The largest is Angkor Wat, which is a massive temple surrounded by a huge moat. The locals are rightly proud of this and even have it on their national flag. Of course, being the novices we are, we decided to visit at noon in the hottest month of the year. We are sporting 5 farmer tans this morning that Prender would be proud of! The place is breathtakingly beautiful. It was "rediscovered" by a French botanist in 1860. Imagine the shock of stumbling through the forest and finding that.

Last night we treated ourselves to a Cambodian BBQ (near pub street). We played it safe and ordered kangaroo, snake, goat, alligator and ostrich. I would eat them all again except snake. My favourite was definitely kangaroo, I'll never watch Skippy the same again.

Following our cultural afternoon we decided to get the 7am bus out of Siam Reap the following day. And then we reverted to our usual selves by playing a game of kings with everyone in the hostel joining in. For those of you who don't know kings is a drinking game where the point of it is not to draw the last king. If you do you have to down a mix of everyone elses drink. Guess who lost, or won depending on how you look at it. Yours truly, ouch! Interesting rule for anybody who picked an Ace - eat a cricket. Disgusting! Mark had the guitar in his hands soon after and was belting out Angels to the delight of the crowd.

We made our way into town to watch Munster get stuffed by Leinster. Hats off guys, the better team on the day won. A bit of humility is good for the soul.

Bangkok - No museums

So the first port of call was Bangkok, and having worried that we would suffer jetlag, we found the perfect cure - live on Irish time. It meant sleeping through the day, waking at 4, doing a few things, hitting the pubs about midnight, then a club, and falling in home at 7am. I suppose the first few days were always going to be like that until thinks settle down.

Having settled into the Asha Guesthouse, in a quiet district, we went for our first night out to Koh San Road. KSR is an absolute jungle, a little corner of Bangkok that is made for backpackers. We ordered some buckets (the local speciality - E6 for 300ml of hiskey, red bull and coke), played some pool and listened to a local rock tribute band. All going very well at this stage until some locals approached myself and Conor at the pool table and challenged us to a game. First game wasn't too bad, second game they destroye us. Pretty sure they were jut preying on travellers to make a little bit of cash. Ah well, lesson learned. A few hours later, Mick had the microphone in his hand singing AC/DC. Quiet night.


The second day we hit the shops. You can literally buy anything in Bangkok, but it's difficult. Takes a lot of effort to get the prices down to an acceptable level. That evening was the Manchester United V Arsenal game, so we settled into a bar with prime seats for the game. Kickoff was at 2am, and just as it started a few Manchunians stumbled in and joined us. After hearing we were Irish, they declared their undying love for John O'Shea. From then on, every throw in, header and mention of his name resulted in an almighty cheer. When he scored, the place went bananas. A round of buckets was swiftly ordered to toast the Waterford man.

The following day we made the trek to the Vietnam embassy to sort out our visa, but it was shut for some local holiday. That meat there was nothing keeping us in Bangkok so we swiftly organised an escape route. Cambodia was the closest so we decide to head out the following morning. For our final night we went to a small local bar that had live music. Usually when they hear that there are Irish in the bar they play something like U2, or Thin Lizzy. No, this guy decided that the most traditional song that we'd like to hear was My Love by Westlife. Don't think we're missing home that much just yet!

I know we promised some museums, but unfortunately the jet lag interrupted our cultural plans.