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domhovasse · 6 years

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We'll wish we could come back to these days.

Laos was incredible. I had heard amazing things going into it, and it absolutely did not disappoint. We caught an overnight bus from Chiang Mai to Nong Khai, a city right on the border of Thailand and Laos, got our visas on arrival, and took a bus across the border to Vientianne. Once there, we bartered with a tuktuk driver (we were becoming professional at bartering), who took us to the bus station. Our timing was impeccable - we got the last 2 seats on the bus, and it took off about 10 minutes after we boarded. We arrived in the beautiful town of Vang Vieng around dinner time, checked-in to our hostel and then went for a little walk. We ended up at Smile Bar, a tranquil, outdoor bar, where we spent the next few hours sitting in hammocks along the river, watching the sun set behind the mountains, with a beer and a baguette sandwich in hand. It was the nicest little “welcome to Laos.” That night we walked around town a little, and stopped at a bar for a little game of beer pong.

The entire following day was spent on a scooter, exploring the countryside, going into caves, and jumping into lagoons. It was so magical, and felt amazing to be surrounded by beautiful mountains again. That evening, we walked around town some more before getting dinner, and then returning to the same bar as the previous night. We ended up sitting at down at a table and making friends with this couple from Paris, who were super sweet! The next day, we partook in a tubing/river bar crawl. Vang Vieng is pretty well known for it, although the government had to crack down a couple years ago because the yearly death toll among travellers was at an all time high. We essentially spent the entire day floating along the river and stopping at a couple bars along the way. The rest of the evening was spent eating, socializing, and trying to recover from our long & very crazy day. Alyssa’s phone took a little swim during our tubing adventure, so she was mourning its death and we were hoping it would make a full recovery after a few days spent in a bag of rice. (Fun fact: a dry bag does not serve it’s purpose if it isn’t sealed shut.) Both of us had already purchased tickets to the famous “Jungle Party”, which neither of us were too keen on anymore. We went anyways, just to check it out, but left not too long after, as we were exhausted from our crazy day, and not big fans of the deep house music being played.

The following morning, we checked out of our hostel, hopped on a minivan bus, and began the long journey to Luang Prabang. Laos doesn’t have proper highways so a 200km drive took almost 7 hours. We finally arrived in the evening, checked-in to our hostel, and went to get some drinks at Utopia, a nice bar along the Mekong River, and walked around town for a bit before sitting down at a restaurant to eat dinner. Before heading to sleep, we took a walk across town to a bar, where we ran into 2 australian guys from our hostel room. Our second day, we slept in, and then spent the majority of the day walking around, eating and exploring. In the evening, we walked up to a temple and lookout spot as the sun was setting over the valley. It was so so pretty and honestly made me fall in love with Laos.

The following day, we woke up quite early, ate breakfast at our hostel, and went on a half day excursion to the Kuang Si waterfalls, which was easily one of the prettiest things I’ve ever experienced. Thanks to our tolerance to cold BC water, we were brave enough to jump in and spend some time swimming in the falls. There was also a bear rescue sanctuary, so we spent some time watching them. We got back to the city in the early afternoon, got some sandwiches for lunch, and Alyssa decided to hang out at the hostel, while despite the scorching heat, I went to check out Wat Xieng Thong, since I hadn’t visited a Laotian temple yet. That evening, we took it easy again, wandering around the market area to grab some food and souvenirs. On our last morning, I woke up early to catch the Alms Giving Ceremony (a sacred Lao tradition) before sunrise, and then we got a tuktuk to the airport, where we caught our short flight to Vietnam.

Next up was Vietnam. We had pretty high hopes for Vietnam, and I can fully understand the hype now. The only regret I have is not planning our days/transportation better, because we had to skip a few places that were highly recommended by several friends. Oh well - you can’t do it all, and I definitely plan on going back hopefully one day soon! We decided to begin in the north and make our way to the south, stopping at all the major stops along the way, starting with Hanoi. This was a super cool, bustling city, with an old city center where I could walk around for days on end. The shops in the center were all grouped together by category for example there was a bamboo street, a lantern street, a stationary street, etc. and there are so many great museums to visit. The French influence in this city was pretty visible, even in the way locals sat outside of cafes/restaurants, creating a sort of ‘terrace’ - which obviously made me love it even more. The coffee scene was HUGE here, which Alyssa and I fully embraced, although their traditional coffee is served with condensed milk, which Alyssa found way too sweet. Our first day, after arriving, Alyssa went out to buy a new phone while I stayed back to catchup on some TV shows and social media. We met up for lunch and the went to Maison Centrale (Hoa Lo Prison), an old prison used by the French colonists in French Indochina for political prisoners, and later by North Vietnam for U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. In the evening, we got dinner on this street with tons of bars and restaurants, and then participated in our hostel’s pubcrawl. On our way home that night, we got introduced to the most life-changing Banh Mi sandwiches ever. My life actually has not been the same since.

The following day we went on a waking tour, which brought us to all the major sights, giving us an overview of the city and highlighting some important history, including the turbulent relationship that Vietnam has had with both the French and the Chinese over the years. Considering my heritage, I had a nice little awkward laugh at this information. We then visited the Women’s museum, which taught us about everything from customs/rituals, to the role of women during the war, to their role in modern day society. It was so well curated and ended up being one of the highlights of our trip. In the evening, we decided to check out a water puppet show, which originated in Hanoi, then got some delicious bun cha for dinner, before participating in our hostel’s pub crawl (again). The following morning was quite slow, first switching hostels, and then we spent the entire day on foot, between Alyssa wanting to do a bit of shopping, and me stopping at every single bank, trying to withdraw money. In the afternoon we stopped to take some pictures at ‘Train Street’, a very narrow, residential street with a train track running through it. We were there for a while, but unfortunately weren’t lucky enough to see a train pass by. Eventually, we made our way back to the old city center and got dinner at a hole in the wall restaurant filled with locals and non-English menus, before getting to bed early.

We spent the next 2 nights and 3 days on a Ha Long Bay cruise, taking in the beautiful scenery by boat and kayak, with a night spent on Cat Ba island. It’s a bit of a touchy subject, because essentially we got scammed, but in the end, we made some awesome friends and made a good time of it. (And we ended up getting a partial refund, after much arguing.) After arriving back in Hanoi, we grabbed our luggage, got dinner with some cruise friends, and then caught our overnight bus North to SaPa, to spend 2 days trekking through villages and rice fields with a local, & staying the night in her family’s home. We hiked a total of 20km over 2 days, with our personal Hmong tour guide, learning about her life and the lives of the Hmong people. This was definitely an experience I’ll never forget, and one that taught me a lot! We spent an extra evening and night in SaPa, which was spent visiting the market, wandering the streets, and freezing our asses off. (It was -2 degrees!) In hindsight, we should’ve taken an overnight bus back to Hanoi instead of wasting a day in transit, because our bus back to Hanoi the following morning ended up being quite delayed, and then we got scammed by a taxi driver who had a rigged meter. It was another one of our low points on the trip, and put us both in a terrible mood, but in retrospect, it wasn’t that much money.

Next was Hoi An, where we spent most of our days walking the cute, lantern-filled streets, taking pictures, browsing the markets, and getting clothes custom made. We also got manicures one day and spent the afternoon at the beach. It honestly was one of, if not THE cutest city I’ve ever been to! It’s not very big, but I could’ve spent days on end walking around. The city’s even prettier at night, and one evening, we went on a nice little romantic boat ride along the river; it was soooo cute! There were also some of our cruise friends in Hanoi at the same time as us so we all went out to a bar together one night. On our last day, Alyssa and I split off and went on separate excursions: Alyssa a cooking class, and I, a tour of the famous My Son ruins. We met back up at our hostel in the evening, and spent the rest of our last night getting dinner, and socializing at our hostel before getting to bed early.

We woke up bright and early the next morning to catch our flight to Ho Chi Minh, which was both an eye-opening and very educational stop on our trip. We spent most of our time in museums, and walking around, learning about the history, and eating A LOT. I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to live in Saigon in the 70s when GongGong (my maternal grandpa) was living there. After checking into our hostel in Ho Chi Minh, I wandered around a little, and went to the market to get some lunch, while Alyssa got some extra sleep since she was feeling sick again. We met up at the Independent Palace, which was the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and then spent some time at the War Memorial Museum, which was quite a heavy, sobering experience, especially the exhibition on Agent Orange. We spent the rest of the evening walking around, down the rich shopping/hotel street, then to the river, and eventually returning home to get dinner close to our hostel.

The following day was super chill. After breakfast, we headed across town to Chinatown and the Binh Tay market, which was actually under renovation and therefore relocated into big storage containers. We wanted to get lunch there, but we saw a huge rat run past us and immediately squealed & turned around. We ended up going back into town to get a late lunch at Ben Thanh street food market, before doing a bit of shopping in the area. From there we went to a sky bar for some rooftop drinks and watch the sunset over the city.

We also spent half a day on a trip to the Cuchi Tunnels, and actually got to crawl through them, which was also quite eye opening. I’m not someone who easily gets claustrophobic, but I was starting to feel anxious after a minute; I really don’t know how people stayed underground for hours on end. The rest of the day was spent walking around and browsing markets for cheap finds. We got our final Vietnamese dinner at the market, and then spent our last night together going to a bar and dancing the night away with one of our roommates.

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travelexperienceblog · 6 years

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After thoroughly enjoying our stay in Hong Kong, it was now time to head onto the second country of our tour of Asia. Malaysia was the next country and we didn’t really know what to expect. However, when we landed in Kuala Lumpur we instantly fell in love with the city and ended up staying for what some people might say, is way too long.

We arrived in KL late at night and took a taxi from the airport to our hostel ‘Sunshine Bedz’. Little did we know this hostel would be one of the highlights of our entire 3.5month trip. As soon as we got there we decided to go to bed so we could wake up early and start exploring. We began our day by eating at Dragon’s View Restaurant (DVR) where we tried some local cuisine and quickly left to visit the KL Forest Eco Park. The park had a walking canopy where you can walk through the forest and see an abundance of wildlife. However, the Eco Park seems more of something you would do if you prefer hiking than wildlife, as dynamic of the Park seems more built around hikers than animal lovers. After spending a couple of hours at the Eco Park, we left to go and visit the Batu Caves for the 1st time. We got to see most of the Batu Caves, which we would recommend visiting as it’s a really cool place. The caves are full of Hindu paintings and statues and it gives you an insight into some Hindu spirituality. Unfortunately, we could not visit the main attraction as one of us wasn’t wearing appropriate clothing. To enter, you can wear shorts and a T-shirt but your knees and shoulders must be covered, so keep that in mind if you’re thinking of visiting.

As our first day in KL was coming to an end we went back to the hostel to get showered before visiting the night market. Personally, the night market was my favourite place in KL. As a food lover, this market is amazing. During the course of our stay we must have eaten here most days. After eating all different kinds of weird and wonderful Malaysian cuisine, we headed back to the hostel where the hostel Rep, Kat, convinced us to come on the pub crawl tonight. The reason we needed convincing is that we had an elephant sanctuary visit at 7am the next day which we didn’t want to miss. However, even though the next day was a massive struggle, we were so glad that we decided to go out that night. Not only did we have a great time, but also met some incredible people! KL has a great night life down Bar Street and the club Sutra is awesome. KL has a policy where it’s ladies night, 5 times a week!

After being convinced that drinking 2 for 1 long Island Iced Teas all night was a good idea, it actually took the hostel receptionist to wake us up at 7am so we didn’t miss our bus to the elephant sanctuary. After what was a horribly bumpy, hungover, 3 hour journey, we arrived at the elephant sanctuary, via the Batu Caves, which we once again could not see the parts we didn’t see because we weren’t i wearing adequate clothing. However, the second time we actually did not know that we would be stopping at the Batu Caves. At the elephant sanctuary we started the day by feeding the smaller elephants that had clearly been in captivity at some point in their lives. Some of the elephants couldn’t even stand on one of their legs. Nevertheless, it was fun to be able to feed the elephants as it felt like, although our contribution was very small that we were in fact helping just a little. The day continued with us watching educational documentaries on why and how they poachers are capturing elephants. However, even though the reviews on trip advisor for the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary were good, we quickly saw that the sanctuary might not be treating the elephants as well as we imagined. The set up of the day seemed to be more about the elephants being a tourist attraction rather than travellers coming to help volunteer at the sanctuary. Personally, we would not recommend coming to this elephant sanctuary as the one we visited in Chiang Mai, was much better ran and the elephants treated with a lot more respect!

Our third day in KL was a very busy one. We woke up quite late as we were still so tired from the night before and went back to DVR for a quick lunch. Today we decided to visit some temples as well as just explore the city by walking around and taking it at our own pace. We began the day at the Guan Di Temple, which is a Taoist temple dedicated to Guan Di, the Chinese God of War. This was an interesting visit as we had never been to a Taoist temple and therefore became educated on Taoist rituals. After, we visited the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple, the oldest Hindu temples in Kuala Lumpur. What draws your attention to this temple is the architecture. The front of the temple is decorated with depictions of Hindu Gods sculpted by artisans from Southern India. Both temples don’t take long to visit so if you have some spare time you can fit these into your schedule. Merdeka Square was the next place we wanted to visit as we had heard that you can just relax and watch the city go by. Literally “Independence Square”, here is where the Union Jack was lowered and replaced by the Malayan flag in 1957 for the first time. The annual National Day parade is held here, although we weren’t there at the right time to experience it. We actually spent quite a while at the square, although there isn’t much here to do. We enjoyed just sitting and chilling on the grass.

We then decided to walk for at least an hour to visit the National Monument and War Memorial. For those of who you have our blog before, you will know that history and politics interests us and therefore this was a must do for us. However, be aware that it is quite far away from the city centre, so if you do not want to walk, getting a bus is probably the cheapest way. The monuments were stunning pieces of design and symbolised the soldiers who fought for the British Empire. We ended our day by visiting KL’s Botanical Gardens and visiting the Batu Caves for the third and FINAL time, this time appropriately dressed! The Botanical Gardens is like most other Botanical Gardens, with large walking areas with nice scenery. We only stumbled upon it during our walk back from the War monuments. We left here to go to the Batu Caves which we finally could go and see the caves that we were not allowed into the first two times. With 272 stairs up to the cave, we definitely went at the best time of the day (just before closing time) when the heat had calmed down a bit. Although we felt the caves we had already seen were much better than the cave we were finally allowed in to see, the sunset and view over the city coming out of the cave was really good and definitely worth third visit. Like most days, we decided to go and try some more local cuisine at the night market which is located close to our hostel. We tried stingray, which is still one of our favourite dishes to date!

With it being Sunday, we decided to chill and just relax in the hostel and catch up on some much needed rest. The heat and humidity in Malaysia was not an experience we were used to coming from the north of England. By the time we decided to get up and do some exploring, it was afternoon and we decided to just go for a walk and see where it took us. It led us to going on a 2 hour walk through Little India, which is a street which gives you a taste of India, and onto Thean Hou Temple, which is probably one of my favourite temples. We had been walking for over 2 hours on the hottest day we’d had to date, by the time we got to the temple we were dripping in sweat but the temple architecture made it all worthwhile. You can just get a bus or a taxi to the temple, but we really wanted to just go for a walk. The temple has elements of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism and mixes modern and traditional designs together. Everything combined makes for a stunning temple, and when you get to the top the view over the city is just as good. Personally, if you’re not really a temple person then only go and visit this temple in KL because it is worth the visit.

When we got back to the hostel, one of us became really sick because we had started to take our malaria tablets for our trip to Cambodia. Nevertheless, we still got convinced to go out, even though it was a sunday and we wanted to just chill. Again the hostel rep Kat convinced most of the hostel to come out on the pubcrawl and again we met so many awesome people that we are still in contact with today. One of us met their now girlfriend on this pubcrawl. Although Kat no longer works at this hostel as a rep, she made our stay in Malaysia amazing. Not only did she make us feel comfortable and convince us to do stuff that we might have not done otherwise, she was really fun to be around and to talk to too.

After demolishing too many 2 for 1 Long Island Iced Teas all night (breaking Kat’s record of the most she’d seen someone drink by far!), we were completely written off the next day and actually did nothing during the day time but eat and stay in the hostel. We did pull ourselves together enough to go to a pub quiz where we failed spectacularly as a group to put many answers together. We left the night early as we were heading to the Cameron Highlands the next day and did not want a repeat of our journey to the elephant sanctuary.

Before leaving for Asia, we booked the Cameron Highlands tour with Anuar who we would like to personally recommend as a great host and incredibly knowledgeable guy. He picks you up from your hostel and drives you for 4 hours to the Cameron Highlands, which is a place everyone should visit if you’re in Malaysia. During our trip to the Cameron Highlands we learnt how to hunt with a blowpipe by getting a demonstration from a local tribe, as well as visiting some amazing waterfalls. Other activities included strawberry picking, where you get to pick your own strawberries, and the time tunnel, which show a history of the Cameron Highlands dating back to when the British first invested in the area. After visiting the “time tunnel” where Anuar had educated us on the history of Malaysia as well as the Cameron Highlands, we took a visit to the butterfly centre where we got hands on with snakes, scorpions and other exotic creatures. We ended our visit by going to the BOH tea plantation where we got to see up close the process of how the tea was made and how many different countries import their tea from the Cameron Highlands. We even got to taste the tea at the end, and even for someone who isn’t a big tea lover, the tea was great!

As we were coming to the end of our stay in KL we were thinking if we should leave KL and go and explore other areas of Malaysia which we really wanted to or leave and visit another place like Bali. As we had a couple of more things we wanted to see, we decided we would put the decision on hold. As we had visited Hindu and Taoist temples we decided to go and visit the National Mosque as we were in a Muslim Country. Visiting the Mosque was quite a brief experience as we were not allowed in the main area as we aren’t Muslim. Therefore, we headed over to the National Museum which gave you an insight into everything related to Malaysia. From prehistoric animals and early civilisation to the British Empire, the Museum was really fun, interactive and educational. We ended the night again going on the hostel pub crawl (again) where we met some Australians who were leaving to go to Bali the next day. We got on so well with them wanted to go with them so badly, but the money we’d lose on our flight to Cambodia and activities booked there persuaded us against it.

We ended our trip in Malaysia with visiting the Petronas Towers, which with student discount only cost around £12. The Petronas Towers give you an amazing view of the city from every angle and was incredible as we headed there for sunset.

Even though we spent 9 days in KL and only had day trips out of the city visiting other parts of Malaysia, it is still one of our favourite countries. Not only did we fall in love with the city, but we met so many amazing people from all over the world. We enjoyed the food, the culture, the night life and it’s of the reasons why we just couldn’t leave!

View the rest of our Malaysia pictures here.

Malaysia: A Look into Paradise After thoroughly enjoying our stay in Hong Kong, it was now time to head onto the second country of our tour of Asia.

#Asia #Blog #Blogging #cameron highlands #Drinking #Elephants #Fun #guides #Hostel #KL #Kuala Lumpur #Malaysia #night life #south east asia #Students #Travel

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