NovaTOURient

May 16, 2014

That time I thought Sara was dead

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Drinking, laos, scary stories, tubing, unfortunate happenings, vang vieng

So, on our first day in Vang Vieng, we pretty much think there is only really one street here and tha’s it. We stay at Easy Go, which seemed nice at first, until we have to endure another night in a fan room, which makes us soak the beds in sweat. I wake up, feeling severely dehydrated and unable to do a simple task like showering or brushing my teeth, so we decide it’s time to check out and go to Central Backpackers. Most restaurants play Friends all day and night, so we honestly spend two days just chilling on a bed of pillows, watching TV. I’ve been in this weird state of laziness since Bangkok, and I haven’t wanted to drink or really meet people since then. It’s quite awful.

This is what paradise looks like to the lazy backpacker

On our third day, we decide to go tubing, which is what this place is known for. We meet two Danish girls, Siw and Christine (random that I found another one, since it’s such a rare name back home), and an American guy, Tyler. We all go to the first bar, shotgun a can of beer, have shots, play beerpong and then we go out on the water.

At the next bar, I play flipcup, have cocktails, more shots and probably another beer. You get a nice little bracelet for every shot you do. By the third bar I am wasted. I lose Sara in the grass somewhere between the third and fourth bar, and after drinking at the fourth for a while, I get worried. I have just assumed she was going to catch up anytime, or maybe she’s met some of our friends on the way on gone back to the other bar. A guy I’ve been drinking with goes out to find Sara, but after 10 minutes it starts raining. A lot. He doesn’t come back, and the girls at the bar start to get pissed with me that their friend in’t back, so I decide to swim against the current in the rain to find her.

I am calling out her name, but nothing but the hard rain responds. The river is cold and dark, sometimes really deep, sometimes I can feel my feet stick in the gooey mud. I am scared, because I don’t like deep and dark waters, and because all that I can think of, is how I have to call Sara’s parents and tell them that their daughter has drowned. I swim for at least half an hour (since I wma searching very hard, and the weather makes swimming more difficult) before I reach the last bar we’d been to. It’s packed with people, and I look everywhere, crying hysterically. Suddenly, a few of the people I have been drinking with see me, and run over to see what’s wrong. They try to comfort me and tell me that she’ss alright, but I don’t believe them. I’m drunk and scared. A couple of french guys come around and jokingly say (in a french funny way – so without a smile on their faces) that she is probably dead and it’s my fault for not taking better care of her. Of course this upset me even more, and one of the girls takes me away from the crowd and tells me to go home.

I cross the river to get to a bar with no people in it. A big local family is sitting there, and as I approach them for help to get a taxi, I break down. Still, they take me to a taxi and demand 20.000 kip. I am tired, sad and desperate, so I just hand the driver money. As he’ss about to drive, three very demanding spanish girls jump on board and only pay 10.000 each. They keep asking him to drive faster so they can get their deposit for the tubes back – I realise I have lost mine at the fourth bar, when I went out swimming to look for Sara. After they’ve been dropped off, the driver doesn’t bother stopping at my hostel: he tells me to get off at the same place as the girls and walk in the rain. I try to argue, after all I have paid double, but he lets me out, and I walk barefoot in a bikini in the rain, crying.

I walk up to the room to find Sara asleep. I don’t even feel relieved, I just feel anger. I startethrowing things at her to wake her up and show how upset I am, but her side of the story is different than mine. She feels that I have abandoned her, and I am the bad guy. More upset than ever, I walk out, go to a restaurant and have dinner and watch Friends for hours. I calm down quite a lot, but not enough. I stay up till about 3 at night, still very drunk, and buy an amazing burger on the street just before falling asleep.

Best burger ever

Bracelets from tubing

The next day, I get Sara’s version of the story. She called for me while we were approaching the fourth bar, passed out in the tall grass by the river, then was taken to some local’s home, where she vomited, before being driven back to the hostel and helped to bed.

The yearly rocket festival Bun Bang Fai is happening that day to celebrate the beginning of rain season, but we don’t bother leaving the restaurants.

At night, people get what they wished for: rain. And lots of it. It’s storming, massive lightning bolts appear all over the sky, and the rain is brutal. The power goes out for quite some time. The ground floor is flooded. The door to our room on the third floor can barely stay closed from the strong wind. I guess no street food for me tonight.

All in all, Vang Vieng was an experience.

May 14, 2014

Slowboat to Luang Prabang

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Drinking, laos, luang prabang, slowboat

This is such a boring thing to write about, much like the trip itself. It takes two days of sailing on the Mekong River to get to Luang Prabang, only broken up by a night in Pakbeng.

The slowboat trip is fairly uneventful. Beautiful view, but 8 hours on a boat isn’t purely entertaining. On the first day, Sara, Kaleigh, Max, Andrew and I bring a bottle of vodka and end up having quite the party in the back of the boat. On the second, I sleep as much as I can. Oh, and we pass a dead, skinned animal in the river and I’ve finally learned that death smells foul.

I’m not really impressed by Luang Prabang. We check into SpicyLaos, in a decent dorm with no AC, which is awful. We decide to upgrade and get AC, even though it costs extra.

The hostel offers a free cup of snakewhiskey to the ones who dare. I dared, and my mouth tasted like rotten meat for the entire evening. That’s what happens when a snake has been in there for 5 years, I guess.

The next day, we go with a group from the hostel to Kuang Si waterfalls and it is so amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. First, we go to the bear sanctuary.

That’s a bear cage

We then go swim in one of the pools with a smaller waterfall, which makes it OK to cross off another thing on my 22 things list:

#17: Shower under a waterfall

At night, we have some beer and a hookah at Utopia, which is a really cool bar, and also the only one of two bars in town. And it closes at 23.30! Fuck that. But at least the view is nice.

Sunset at Utopia

Besides the waterfalls, there is a nightmarket and some temples, all things that we are bored of. We’ve spent three days here and now we are heading to Vang Vieng, which I am just so ready for. I am so bored!!

May 13, 2014

Final thoughts: Thailand

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Thoughts on Things, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, final thoughts, thailand

In India, I was addicted to my Lonely Planet book. Here, we just went with the flow. I haven’t looked through my 40 pages of notes about what to do and see in the places we planned to go to. Instead, we did some island hopping, then went to the mainland to be productive. And boy was it a great way to do it.

A few things were different. This time, we barely learned the language or the history of this country. We didn’t do many cultural things or much sightseeing. We partied a lot, and actually met people. We got addicted to 7-11 toasties and Chang beers, chicken with cashewnut and pad thai. I slept in dorms that others would describe as nasty, but I had some of the best times in those. The nature here is beautiful, although we didn’t see a lot of it, and it rained a lot in the month and a half we stayed there.

When I first arrived in Thailand, I was surprised to see so many women – I barely saw any men the first few days. They all spoke almost perfect english, until we started island hopping. I really felt safe at all times, even walking home by myself at three in the morning in Bangkok, partying alone at full moon party, and doing a lone toasty-run during a pubcrawl in Koh Tao. I rarely locked up my belongings, and didn’t sleep with my fanny pack stuffed with passport and money. I felt safe and comfortable.

Service is horrible, as in India, and the waiter usually forgets at least one thing – but in most places they serve everything at once instead of as soon as its been made, which was the case in India. We didn’t tip once, which we always did in India. We learned that you must always take a cab with taximeter if you have the option – a tuk tuk is more than double the price!

Generally, Thailand is expensive – especially on the islands. It must be the fee to ship it from the mainland that does it, and the more north we traveled, the cheaper it got.
The islands are paradise. Not neccessarily visually, but the atmosphere and the people really make the place what it is.

On the mainland, the partying seems more aggressive (I’m thinking of Bangla Road and Khao San Road), but I generally really liked that atmosphere and the options to do things during the day, like going to the movies and nice stores for purchasing electronics, for example.

Oh, and everything is whitening. Creams, sunscreens, deodorants… Wtf!?

I fell in love with Thailand (and elephants) and I would go back in a heartbeat. I am, because my flight home is from Bangkok.

May 12, 2014

Finishing the bucket list?

christinelouise Asia, Lists, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, 22 things, Bucket List, Lists

With 9 things left on my bucket list, it seems that I am going to finish it soon… Or am I? I am starting to worry a bit.

Since we threw all of our plans out of the window, the volunteer work we were supposed to do in Cambodia is not going to happen. Laziness and other factors make it hard for me to cross some of these goals off as well. Things like having a supernatural experience and swimming with dolphins seem impossible. What was I thinking?

May 8, 2014

Life of Pai

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, pai, thailand, the purple monkey, waterfalls

The road to Pai is a narrow and curvy one, about 3 hours away from Chiang Mai. Needless to day, I get carsick. When we finally arrive in Pai, it starts raining. A lot. We meet Sophie from Chiang Mai, and a guy from our hostel picks us all up and drives us to our home for the next two days, The Purple Monkey.

While it has good food (poutine!) and nice people, it’ss extremely basic. The bathrooms are tiny rooms without roofs. There’s a squatting toilet and a cold shower in each stall. With this weather, I don’t shower or poop for two days, which is awful – and gross. Why am I sharing this with you guys?

On our first night, we join the hostel pubcrawl. It’s one of the smallest and least fun pubcrawls I’ve been on. First off, I’m drinking… At least not in the beginning. So I guess it’s mostly my own fault.

We are handed these sheets of paper with challenges to do at each bar, and I want my team, Team Peach (Sara, Kaleigh, a French girl and me), to win. Here are the challenges:

As team captain, my first challenge is to shotgun a beer along with the other team captains.

I don’t win that challenge, unfortunately. I do take a group photo and post it on The Purple Monkey’s Facebook though.

A few hours later, I get more competitive, taking shots for the challenges instead of waiting for others in my group to do them, running around the streets trying to get bonus points by getting a picture with a beer sign and learn new thai words.

In the end, we win. Free breakfast, and lots of haters. I can honestly say that I didn’t expect people to be so cruel – they are loudly complaining that we don’t deserve it, since we aren’t drinking (I actually am, but the French girl didn’t bring money), or we have been sleeping with the guy that did the score. What!? Whatever guys, breakfast is 50 baht.

After our free breakfast, we rent two scooters for 24 hours. Since Sara and I have never driven scooters before, I thought we would share one while Kaleigh, who has a scooter at home, would be fine on her own. I say I’ll go first and then we can switch later. I hate it, and I take a long time getting used to the sensitive gas pedal, and suddenly I see Kaleigh drive off – with Sara on the back. I try to follow them, but I don’t want to go very fast, so I am ages behind before we end up at a gas station. I air out my frustration over being left behind like that. In response, Sara gets on the scooter, touches the gad pedal twice, and then decides she isn’t gonna ride a scooter. Ever. Well, now what? None of us feel comfortable riding the scooter, so automatically I am the one that should do it? Right.

We join a group from the hostel and go to the Pam Bok waterfall. I swim in the water, which is cold and brownish, but amazing.

We’ve parked on a bumpy road, so when I try to drive on to the road, I fall off. In front of everyone. This is only the second time in a month that has happened! .

We all start driving towards the main road. I am alone again. One of the side mirrors is broken, and I think of the 7000 baht we had to pay when the same accident happened in Koh Phangan. I am way behind the others, scared of going fast and crashing again. And I start to cry. For a good 10 minutes, I am alone on a small road bawling my eyes out about being alone and having to pay for this bike and so much more. I am furious that I have been forced to ride a bike, instead of taking turns like Sara and I had agreed to. What was the purpose of renting two scooters then? It has been a waste of my time, money and dignity. When I catch up with the rest, they are having lunch and a good time. The last thing I want to do is join them, but I do it anyways. One of the girls is nice enough to let me ride on the back of her boyfriend’s scooter, while she takes mine. She is my hero.

Next, we go to Pai canyon. We do a quick walk around, and then it starts to rain and we have to get back to town from this sandy hill, fast. I decide to jump on Kaleigh’s bike, while Sara goes with Rowan (the guy whose scooter I’ve been sitting on). We go back to the hostel and are stuck in the rain for hours. We order food while we wait, but that takes us over an hour just to get. By then we only have a bit of time driving around and seeing the White Buddha before the rain starts again and we go back to our beds.

We all get up at 6 in the morning the next day to go to the Lod cave, which is a 1,5 hour drive away. We have a bus back to Chiang Mai at 11.30, so we have to leave by 7. I am on the back of Rowan’s bike, and it’s a loopy drive up the mountain – very, very cold on top – and a loopy drive down, and Rowan is driving very fast. We finally get to the cave, but apparently, you need to buy a guide, a boat and a lantern. So we have to go back. And then Kaleigh’s scooter gets a flat tire. We call the company to pick up the bike, but we are running low on time. We have half an hour until our bus leaves. Sara and I drive back to check out of the hostel and try to arrange for a later bus, while Kaleigh waits with the bike. In the end everything works out, and we go back to Chiang Mai, just a little carsick.

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