A whole new world

We have now been a week in Laos - which has been a totally different experience to everything else so far. It finally feels as though we are on a bit more of an adventure.

One boat ride up the Mekong river and we were almost immediately off the regular tourist route - not to see another Westerner for 2 days. This is the passenger boat we took from Vientiane to Pak Lai (that is a dismembered tuk-tuk strapped to the top of the boat):

It gets very rural very quickly outside the main centres and we have spent a fair bit of time bumping along in the backs of covered trucks from one village to another. This experience has proven that despite outward appearances, regrettably neither of us has buns of steel.

We are now in Luang Prabang - a very picturesque city that has a) preserved its French colonial architecture and b) focused itself extremely well on the tourist dollar. Shaun got up very early one morning to share his food with the local monks who walk through the streets of the town each morning. The effect of this was so stressful a cool Beer Lao was required by the river that evening (and most other evenings we have been here so far):

We are off next to fly through the trees on cables and sleep in treehouses with spiders and gibbons. We will post photos of gibbons (and possibly leeches) when we get back in a few days' time. M

Bangkok or bust

Arriving in Bangkok on yet another overnight bus, we blew our meagre budget on a night watching muay thai boxing. (Very small men kicking the out of each other to a shouting crowd of men in the cheap seats feverishly betting on the outcome.) In one fight we calculated that both the fighters (plus possibly half the referee) might still have weighed in on the lighter side of Shaun:

It seems every second person in Bangkok is a muay thai professional. The next day our tuk-tuk driver - who got out of his tuk-tuk to smack a taxi driver in the head in the middle of the street - informed us he too was a muay thai champion. Perhaps in the late 1970s.

We also made the obligatory visit to the Grand Palace in 33 degree heat to wander around pointy buildings with little golden tiles on them. Very pretty. Michaela tried to make friends with the locals ..

... but all this guy was interested in was the phone number of the cute Thai student across the path. We lent her a pen in the interests of romance. Next stop Laos ...

Bottle Beach

After our time in the heat of Malaysia we needed a well earned break to prepare ourselves for the mountains of Laos, China and Nepal so after listening to recommendations of those in the know we headed for Bottle Beach, a beach accesible only by boat on Koh Phangan, an island off the south east coast of Thailand (which was itself a 15 hour van and boat ride from Penang).

Our requirements were fairly simple: a beautiful palm fringed beach ...

Where we could have our own bungalow on the beach (a bonus when it costs only 300 Baht (about NZD$12)) ...

And where there was little else to do but read in the hamock, swim, play a little volleyball and watch your head when going through doorways/showering/walking under palm trees, although arguably one of us had it coming ...

For those not acquainted with Thai toilets, below is a fairly ritzy version of what is here (note that this toilet counts as ritzy as it has a "western" toilet bowl rather than just a polished hole in the floor). The toilet is flushed by tipping water from the bucket into the toilet bowl until you're satisfied with the result and if there are any emergency issues there's always the hose attached to the wall ...
as well as the shower (which was blessedly refreshing) ...

The Pearl of the Orient

Old Penang is filled with beautiful buildings and stories of colonial intrigue and fortunes won and lost. We have camped out here for 5 days enjoying the street food and the air conditioning (inside). Outside our shirts stuck to our backs in approximately 3.7 seconds.

We also got an early taste of potential train journeys in India by packing ourselves into a cable car travelling at the speed of slug up Penang Hill to get a view of the haze (and the monkeys). Imagine 100 people packed into the Wellington cable car in 35 degree heat with armpits aloft. At least Shaun's head was higher than most of the pits. Mine wasn't.

Next stop Thailand! M

A sea of headscarves

Kuala Lumpur was a feast for the senses and a chance for some "name brand" shopping in Chinatown. Michaela purchased a lovely Swatch watch for RM15 (about NZD$7) - which has since stopped working - and Shaun managed to locate a lovely yellow Lacoste polo for RM25 (about NZD$12) - not bad negotiation skills considering the bargaining for the watch started at RM50 and RM70 for the polo.

We holed up in a 'rustic' hostel in the middle of Chinatown (see if you can find the furry kiwifruit in this picture)...

We did manage to see some sights - the Petronas Towers really are quite awesome (even without Catherine Zeta Jones hanging from them) and the food has been fantastic (although the prevalence of corn and beans in the desserts is something that must be an acquired taste).

Michaela decided she would try to re-enact the 'dash across the skybridge' scene (before the trapeze wire came into play).

We have now moved on to Penang where we are camped out in Georgetown drinking and eating and plotting an assault on Thailand..

S and M

And so it begins ...

The change from New Zealand and temperatures in the single digits to Singapore and a daily low of 26 degrees has been quite profound. To cope with this change Shaun headed to Little India and negotiated a head shaving ...

what he got was an all over kiwifruit look ...

Otherwise Singapore has been great and we're now off to Malaysia today primed for the heat. S