Thailand - Pai

We had a very lazy day, spent most of the day by the pool. The weather in Pai is a bit weird, it's quite cool at night and in the early morning but by 10-11am it is sweltering. We walked down into the village and had strawberry shakes and myself and Jess also had muesli with fruit and yogurt. This is the first place we have seen nice strawberries, and not at crazy prices either. I went for my first unresearched wax today and thankfully she did a really good job. I've been too chicken before now to just rock up any salon and get a wax. You hear so many horror stories! While I was doing that, Jess went for a foot massage and pedicure. I suspect hers was marginally more relaxing than mine. 

When we walked back up to our accommodation we enquired at another place about rooms. Our place is nice but the wifi is terrible and the toilets are really far away from our dorm room. We got a private room closer to the town centre, better wifi, our own toilet/shower and tea or coffee in the morning, all this for less than we were paying. The only down side is that we now don't have a pool.   We will be doing things during the day from now on anyway and so probably wouldn't have time to laze at the pool anyway. 

We watched the sun set behind the mountains and then showered and put our faces on so that we could go out for some dinner and drinks. 

After our night out in Pai we checked out of Circus and into a hut further down the hill.  This was a private hut with our own bathroom and supposed better wifi, and cheaper so, winning all round.

We had a super lazy day which consisted of naps followed by food followed by naps. 

The next day we decided to rent bikes again and see some of the things on offer around Pai.  First though, we had the obligatory police stop 5 minutes into our trip.  Thankfully for me, they didn't know the difference between a provisional licence and a full UK divers licence and so, it wasn't long before we were on our way again, fine avoided.

Our first stop were some natural hot springs about 10km outside Pai.  The pools were ridiculously hot, much hotter than I would even make a bath at home.  This coupled with the scorching hot weather made the whole experience a bit uncomfortable. We did buy some eggs though, we were told we could cook them in the water.  The lady in the shop told us, or we thought she told us, that you could cook them in any of the pools.  We shoved our eggs and our legs back in the pool we had been in.  About ten minutes later we tried to crack our first egg, this was a bit of a disaster and Kay ended up with egg all down her front.  We decided then to take a walk further up the hill and around the springs.  It was here that we found the pool that was 90 degrees, the one we should have been boiling our eggs in...oops.  We left them in there while we applied some sunscreen, our first of the day, again, oops.  We removed our eggs after a further 5 minutes or so and carried on with our walk around the hot springs.  We found a cooler pool further down the hill which was much more bearable to have our legs in.  Since we didn't want another egg-gate, Jess cracked them open near to a bin.  Unfortunately they still hadn't fully cooked and so we didn't manage to have any eggs that we'd cooked at a hot spring.

Our next stop was a place called Pai Love's Strawberries where they were selling anything and everything strawberry related.  From jam to smoothies to sweeties.  We then stopped at another couple of view points on our way to a waterfall.  We had been told that because this was dry season, the waterfalls in the area had no water.  This one though, claimed all year round water, so we set off hoping to find somewhere nice to cool down and swim for a bit.  We took a wrong turn and ended up in china town, from here we drove up a crazy steep hill which I wasn't entirely sure our bikes would manage up. We did make it to the top and were greeted by another view point.  We paid the 20 Baht entrance fee and sat drinking our free green tea and admiring the view.  The toilets here were infested with huge daddy long leg type spiders and so we all gave it a miss.  Jess bought one of the lovely tea sets that they severed our green tea in, and while they were packaging it up for her, one of the monstrous spiders crawled out of the box and we all screamed like the girls that we are, much to the amusement of the Thais serving us.

Scary ride back down the steep hill was followed by us taking the correct turning for the waterfall.  The waterfall was pretty useless and the pools full of rubbish and so we did an about turn and decided our last stop would be the canyon for sunset.  We met a nice Japanese guy at the waterfall who had walked the 10 or more kilometres to the waterfalls and asked if we would be kind enough to give him a lift back.  I told him that we were going to the canyon but that I could take him as far as the main road.  I don't really like having people of the back of the bike and so I made him drive back down with me on the back.  

We rode to the canyon and as we were quite early for sunset, walked around it.  It was pretty spectacular even if I was a tad on the small side.  Some of the walk around was pretty scary, especially when the path narrowed and was a steep cliff edge of either side.  We had all brought sensible shoes with us but Kay, in her wisdom, decided her flip flops would be ok for the job.  She was wrong, she did thankfully manage it but some of the clambering up parts would have been much easier for her in actual shoes i'm sure.

After sunset, we drove back to Pai and returned our bikes to the rental place.  We tried to then book a bus to Bangkok for the following day but, unfortunately, it was already full and so we would have one more day in lovely Pai.  A yummy burrito for dinner was followed by us all passing out early after our long day.  

We had a long lie the next morning since we had no plans.  We got cereal from the 7/11 and then spent the morning in the reception bit, using the wifi and meeting other people staying at the same place, this included the friendly Japanese man from the day before.  The Japanese guy, Tacu, told us about some nice organic restaurants just outside the main village and so the four of us headed off to grab some lunch.  We bumped into another guy from our hostel on the way, he was on his way back from the hospital because his shoulder had dislocated, ouchie! He joined the four of us for a wonderful lunch where the four of them had salads and I had fantastic home made granola with fruit and home made yogurt.  

After lunch, Kay, Jess and I walked up to a huge Buddha statue on the hill.  The million steps to the top was torture but the view from up there was thankfully worth it. On our way back to the village we stopped at a gorgeous wee cafe type place where I had some arabica drip coffee which honey.  I've never thought to put honey in my coffee but it was actually lovely.  We stayed there for hours, using their wifi and lounging on the pillows and hammocks.  

About dinner time we walked back into the village and headed for dinner at a place that Tacu had recommended to us.  Just as we were about to order, himself and the other guy from lunch both walked in having had the same thought.  We all had some yummy pad Thai and the the three of us headed off as we were getting eaten alive by Mosquitos and wanted to get some dessert at a small bakery we'd read about on trip advisor.  The boys were heading off to a party which their American friend had been invited to.  We all decided that this was probably the same party we had been warned about that morning by other guests at our accommodation. Apparently there is a ladyboy who owns accommodation close to ours and she often invites unsuspecting male tourists to eat with her, plies them with alcohol and has her wicked way.  Hopefully, they managed to save their friend before it was too late! Haha!

We ate a silly amount of cake at the bakery and fell into bed full and content.

The next 3 days were an absolute write-off.  We all caught a sickness bug that floored us for a few days.  We managed to get our bus changed for 3 days later and only had to pay for the cost of one ticket as they managed to sell 2 of our original ones for us.  

Heading south to spend some time on the beach before heading to Malaysia. 

Chaing Mai - Thailand

We arrived in Chaing Mai bright and early but, as it was so early we weren't able to check into our accommodation and so had breakfast and then went for a wee walk upto the moat which surrounds the city centre.  We checked out things to do in Chiang Mai and made a plan for the next couple of days.

I had read about a woman's correctional institute where the inmates are taught to do Thai massage and then are able to work in a spa connected to the prison.  We walked down around lunch time to see if we could book ourselves in for a massage in a couple of days time.  When we arrived we were told that they didn't do bookings and that the massages were offered on a first come first served basis.  The next available appointments were at 3pm so we changed our plans for the day and booked ourselves in.  We went back to the accommodation, checked into our dorm and then chilled out for a while since we'd slept on a bus the night before. 

Just before 3pm we headed back to the prison for our massages.  I am ridiculously ticklish and have never really enjoyed any massage so I opted for a foot massage while Kay and Jess went all out and got Thai massages.  The place was very professional and the ladies all very nice and friendly.  I kept wanting to ask my masseuse what she was inside for as she was so sweet that I couldn't imagine her doing anything illegal. My foot massage was great, lasted an hour and only cost £3. I wouldn't say that I am very high maintenance at home, I've had my nails done a handful of times, I think one facial and again, a handful of massages.  In south east Asia it's a different matter, when you can get a pedicure or massage for a few pounds, it would be rude to say no.

We went to see a couple of temples on the way back to our accommodation and then got ready for dinner.  We had the most amazing food for dinner, I had a delicious banana curry while Jess had young coconut curry and Kay had Kaow Soi.  Full bellies and an early night for us.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn to get ready for our day at the elephant sanctuary.  We had originally picked to go to a bigger place called Elephant Nature Park but they were full for quite a few days and so the lady at our accommodation recommended this place ( Elephant Retirement Park ) and I am so glad she did.  Our day started with a bit of a meet and greet and some information about the sanctuary, the people working there and, of course, the elephants.  They had four elephants at the park that day, one was 25 years old, and pregnant and there were three young ones between the ages of 2 and 5. We spent the morning feeding the elephants and getting big slobbery kisses and cuddles from them.  Then came an amazing lunch of pad Thai, fried rice, chicken wings and watermelon. Yum.  After lunch we got to get into the water with them and splash around until we were all thoroughly soaked through. Next was the really fun bit, mud bath!  This was followed by some more time in the water with them so we could get all the mud off ourselves and them.  This place was so wonderful, they rent elephants from other places in order that they can give them a better life away from mistreatment or being made to perform tricks for tourists.  They can only rent the elephants as the law in Thailand says that they must be passed through a family from generation to generation. They, really sadly, didn't have enough money to keep the older pregnant one last month and so had to give her back.  She spent the whole month in a cage, pregnant and in a cage.  This makes me feel sick but thankfully they managed to get her back this month.  They are a relatively new place and I really really hope that they succeed and they manage to save more beautiful elephants from abuse.  

We went back to the same place for dinner because it was just that good! I spoke to a couple outside who had looked at the menu and were about to walk away.  I told them they were making a huge mistake and they should definitely eat there.   They weren't disappointed and neither were we.  We asked if they did cooking classes and we told that if we went back any day between 3pm and 5pm, and they were quiet, they would show you how to make your dish and give you the recipe.  

We had a bit of a chill out day today.  We started the day by going to a yoga class, Kay's and my first ever, if you exclude the one at the top of the mountain in Sapa.  The class was wonderful, the instructor was really great, I can't wait to do regular classes when I get home.  After lunch we went to a cafe called Catmosphere for some tea and cake. This cafe has 19 resident cats which you can play with while in the cafe.  It sounds kind of gross but the place was spotlessly clean and the cats are so beautiful and obviously very well looked after.  I am allergic to cats and so took two antihistamines in the morning thinking that would do the trick, but unfortunately not.  I started to get itchy eyes and kept sneezing after a while and so I had to go sit outside.  I did manage to be around them for about an hour though.  Pad Thai and an early night for me while the Kay and Jess went to the night market. 

We spent the next morning at a cooking class learning how to make 4 different delicious thai dishes. I decided to make pad Thai, a chicken coconut milk soup, papaya salad and Khao soi curry. It was so much fun getting to make all these things and I can't wait to try out these and the other recipes from the book we were given at the end of the class. 

In the afternoon we took a bus to Pai, the journey consisted of over 700 corners on an uphill road. Thankfully it didn't actually feel too bad, it was my ears popping with the height that was bothering me rather than all the turns. We arrived in Pai finally feeling hungry after eating so much food at our cooking class and so ventured down into the town. Our accommodation was a wee bit away from the main strip but the walk only took ten minutes, but you do need a torch to see where you are going. Pai is such a cute wee place with lots of yummy looking street food and cool shops along 'walking street'. Our accommodation is called Circus School and you can in fact learn how to do some fire tricks here. The place also has an infinity pool! 

Glad to be back in the land of pad Thai and 7/11s. 

Sapa - Vietnam

 We arrived in Sapa at 5am but the bus driver was nice enough to let us all sleep on the bus until 6.30am when he chucked us off the bus. Sapa is about 5000ft above sea level but I wouldn't have known we'd climbed that high over night if it wasn't for the fact that a crisp packed had swollen up like a balloon in my bag. Some local ladies were waiting to greet us when we got off the bus. They wanted us to book a trek with them while we were there. We didn't want to make any rash decisions and so told them we would go to our hostel and have a think about it. We had breakfast and then got some info from our hostel on the treks that they provide. We decided between us that we would book a two day trek with them and myself and Kay would do a one day trek with the local ladies. Jess was coming to the end of her visa and so she would need to leave vietnam before Kay and I. Her plan had been to head to Loas and wait a few days for us there. 

We booked our trek with the local ladies, our guide Tam Tam was so lovely and we were very much looking forward to our trek with her in a few days. 

We then went for a walk around Sapa town and the lake. It was so unbelievably beautiful, you would think you were in the Alps with the surrounding mountains and french architecture. 

We had bought plenty of warm clothing in Hanoi but thankfully it wasn't that cold. The temperature would drop quite dramatically when clouds would come over the village, and particularly at night. 

We started our trek nice and early the next morning. There were about ten of us in total doing the trek. The first hour or two were a bit over cast but it wasn't long before the clouds lifted and we were gifted with the wonderful view of the rice hills of Sapa. We walked for a few hours before we stopped at a village for some tasty food. After lunch we walked for another hour or so before the majority of the group left to get the bus back to Sapa Town, they were only doing a one day trek. The three of us, two Israeli guys and our guide carried on for a short while to our home stay. There was another American couple already at the home stay. They made us some home made chips and gave us delicious plum wine to keep us going until dinner time. 

The temperature hasn't been very hot, maybe twenty degrees or so, so none of us had the sense to put on any sun cream. This resulted in myself and Kay getting a wee bit burnt on our faces and chest. One of the Israeli guys nicknamed me moonface because I had been wearing a headband which covered the top of my head which made my sunburnt face look like the moon, apparently! 

We had some time before dinner and so Jess, Kay and I went for a walk around the village. We stopped at a bar, yes they have bars in those remote parts of Sapa, and had a hot chocolate to heat us up a bit. 

Dinner was a mountain of delicious food which was followed by an early night, we were all pretty exhausted from our day of walking. 

The next morning we woke up early as Emelia, one half of the couple who were with us, was a yoga instructor ad had agreed to do a quick class with us. This was going to be myself and Kay's first ever yoga class and I was really looking forward to it. We all grabbed a towel and set them down outside. We did our short class which was brilliant, but a lot harder work than it looks! 

While we were all having our breakfast of pancakes and bananas, our guide came over to tell us that the lady running the home stay was very upset that we had used towels for our yoga that morning. He told us "she has to used those towels for over one year, and you have just got chicken sh*t all over them".

This started a hilarious discussion where we joked about how often they wash the towels we had used to dry ourselves that morning and that we were probably doing the next group a favour, since they would now need to actually wash the chicken sh*t off. I sincerely hope that something was lost in translation and that they don't in fact use the towels for over a year without washing them! 

We started off for our second day of trekking but we unfortunately didn't do much today which was a bit disappointing. After we checked back into our accommodation and showered, we decided we would go for a nice relaxing massage. I generally don't find massages relaxing due to the fact that I am so ticklish. This massage was the least relaxing I've ever had, and that is saying something! Some crazy chickens decided to start making an absolute racket underneath the window which made me start laughing which in turn made my masseuse crease up too.  We had dinner and mulled wine and we to our accommodation to relax. Jess decided to risk overstaying her visa and so she would do the second trek with us and then leave for Laos that night. 

The next day was very chilled, we were all a but stiff from our hike/massage and so we spent the day walking around Sapa looking at all the nice things on offer in the shops. 

The following day we started our second trek with Tam tam at 9am.  We actually ended up walking with some other local woman, which was a bit annoying as we were all looking forward to spending time with Tam tam but it turned out that the other lady was just as nice. We walked all the way through Sapa village, getting some raw sugar cane on the way. I didn't much like it as it gets stuck in your teeth, it's also not ideal for a diabetic so I just tried a little bit. We walked up and up and up a never ending hill, but the views from the top were beautiful. From the top, it was then mostly down hill, which can be very hard going too, using muscles your not used to using. Tam tam had told us that we would be able to buy gifts and souvenirs at the village where she lives but the woman walking with us only had bracelets for sale. We arrived at her village about 2pm and she asked if we wanted to walk any further, we were all a bit trekked out and anxious to get back to Sapa with plenty of time to pack our bags for our night bus. She gave us all a free "silver" bracelet and sent us off on motorbikes back to Sapa. 

We had enough time to pack and get some nice things from the shops before we left for the bus. 

We had read that this journey from Sapa to Laos was supposed to be horrendous but we decided not to listen to the masses and just booked it anyway. The bus arrived an hour or more late and so full already that they really struggled to get our bags on. The had to remove a live chicken from underneath to make room for Kay's bag. 

After boarding the bus, they made some Vietnamese people get out of their seats to make room for us and made them sit on the floor. I would feel bad but I'm sure they paid only a fraction of the fortune that we paid for that bus and they weren't going as far as us anyway. It was pretty difficult to sleep as we were going around corner after corner to get down the hill. We were turfed off our bus early the next morning and put on another bus which took us to the border. 

Quite an uneventful crossing by the usual corrupt standard, Jess even got through with only having to pay a small fee for overstaying. 

Goodbye beautiful Vietnam, hello Laos! 

Hanoi

We arrived in Hanoi about 3pm and got a taxi to our accommodation.  After humphing our bags up 4 long flights of stairs we went for a late lunch.  As we didn't have much time in Hanoi, I went straight from lunch to find the hairdressers I had read about.  Even though they told me they were open until 6pm, when I arrived, the owner ( and expert colourist), was not there.  After looking at my hair and talking to the owner on the phone for about twenty minutes, the girls in the salon advised that I would need to come back the next day. Feeling deflated, I walked back to our accommodation to meet the girls for dinner.  

We had been told by a fellow traveller about a big store called The Big C, where she told us, we would be able to find lots of good cheap clothing.  We were starting to get desperate as we were headed for Sapa soon and the temperatures there would be in the high teens at best.  So, off we headed for The Big C, it ended up being a huge disappointment though.  The clothes were rubbish, and not particularly cheap!  We ended up getting some toiletries and snacks just so not to make the trip a complete waste of time.  I did buy some hair dye though and when we got back to our place, I spent the afternoon sorting my hair while Kay and Jess went for a walk to the lake.  

We took my new hair do and Jess' lovely new dress from Hoi An out for their first public appearances that night.  There isn't a particular backpackers drinking area in Hanoi but we managed to find a lively street not far from our accommodation.  We were first ushered onto tiny little chairs, with a tiny little table fit for children.  These typical Vietnamese drinking places only serve local beer and so we removed ourselves from our tiny pews and headed into the first bar we saw.  After having a couple of drinks and a dance, we met a guy from Liverpool who asked if we would go to the bar around the corner with him, and watch the end of The Devil Wears Prada.  A bit of an unusual request but since it's Jess' favourite film, we decided we would accompany him.  We ended up not really watching the end of the film and instead spent the thirty minutes talking independence and Margaret Thatcher.  We ended the night at a club close by where we danced until the early hours of the morning.

After checking out the next morning, we spent the majority of the day on 'Fashion Street' where we finally managed to get some warm clothes for Sapa.  We bordered a bus that night to take us up to the beautiful mountain village of Sapa to do some trekking.