Just for tracking..... Pardon me for the tenses as it was recorded just before I Knocked Out every night.
23rd Dec 2011 till LCCT
I finished work at 6pm and went home to do a last minute packing before departing for my night bus to KL at 10pm at Boon Lay Shopping Centre.
We arrived at KL at 4am the next day and took a cab from Chinatown to the LCCT. Believe it or not! There are also midnight charges for cabbies in KL. It costed us RM90.
24th Dec 2011
Arrived in Laos at local time 915am. Excellent landing from the airasia pilot. Good job for a budget airline. To our surprise there are Singaporeans on the same flight. The weirdest thing that occur to us is that out of the 3 money changer at the wattay airport only one takes SGD! Can you imagine? Totally disturbed! Both Tudi and I attempted to walk out of the tourist trap zone in hoping to catch a bus to town but there was none in sight. we walked till we hit the main road before a young tuk tuk driver approached us with a carrot price of 40000 Kip. We manage to reduce it to 30000kip need to brush up our bargaining skills.
Arrived at saysouly guesthouse and got a room on the second floor. The room is kind of rundown and small water flow but it is still acceptable. After lazing around for awhile we hit one of the restaurant for lunch. I had my fav bagelette. Yum yum! We visited most of the places of interests of vientaine within a couple of hours. Though the places of interests seemed to be far apart on the map but it ain't that far away in actual distance.
Grab a bite just before dinner.. Stoning and slacking now.
We went for an experience of traditional Laos massage before the traditional Lao Cuisine at Three Sisters! (Laos Noodles Soup - Similar to Pho Bo from Vietnam)
25th Dec 2011
Christmas in Laos!
Started the day with a little hipcup. Having sent to a wrong bus station northern bus station when we are traveling to vang vieng. Supposed to be the most happening city with the infuse drugs and party culture.
The bus trip was horrible up till now the bumpiest ride I ever had. Being right on top of the hind wheels elevated the effect. Suffocating and dizzy after sniffing in the dust coming through the manual doors.
We arrived at vang vieng bus station at local time 3pm. Our hotel is within walking distance from the station which saves us the tuk tuk transportation charges.
Food and transportation costs are really a killer in Laos as compared to the other indochine countries I visited over the last 2 years namely Vietnam and cambodia.
After dropping our luggages in the room, we headed out into town to check out for a half day tour that consists caving and tubing. Ran into a group of Singaporeans whom was on the same flight as us from KL to Vientaine.
This small town is flooded with similar retails shops and guesthouses. The party scene seemed diminished on a Christmas day as most of the pubs are empty. Other than some crazy tourists or maybe the intoxicated ones singing on tuk tuk, the christmas is peaceful in vang vieng.
We visited a night market or funfair, which is similar to the one portrayed in the Da Shi Jie movie. There is haunted house, bumper cars platform, small darts games stalls and an inflated playground, the non concrete floor and the once familiar scene in Singapore made me feel that i went back 30 years in time.
26th Dec 2011
Boxing day - left jab right cross
We are going to tube tube tube how about you you you?
Many came to vang vieng just to tube. Special thanks to our hotel Intera to specially arrange a half day trip of caving and cave tubing!
Met great companions like David from swiss and Bhil from France. We hit it off fast on a tuk tuk while it went around the small town of vang vieng to pick up the rest of the tubers.
We were split into two groups one the trekkers and the other kayakers. Tudi and I were under the trekking group with two others coincidentally there are from Singapore too! They turned out to be my kitten's colleagues. What a small world. We visited 4 caves. The two that left me with an impression are namely the elephant cave and the water cave where we have to tube through to visit.
Arrived back at our hotel at 145pm.. Having slightly more than an hour to wash up and laze around before our pickup at 3pm to luang prabang.
The ride took 7hrs inclusive of 2 munching stops along the way. This ride is way off better than the first one. It is a minibus.. Hopefully the ride back to vientaine will be just as great.
We arrived in luang prabang at 10pm, got ripped off by a tuk tuk driver. We agreed on 30000kip but he insisted on 40000kip when we alighted. We arrived at our guesthouse safely, dropped our luggages and geared up for the cold weather before checking the night market but most of the stalls are closed.
On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me..... 2 turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree!
27th Dec 2011
Woke up without a concrete plan for today.. Intended to just wondering around the city of luang prabang. The weather was great in the morning simply cooling but still comfortable enough to walk around without a jacket. We walked past the post office and posted a postcard to each other's address in Singapore.
Drawn by the BBQ smell of chicken, we walked into a roadside stall for breakfast. Totally done with baguette. I ordered a local Lao porridge. Porridge is pronounced as chok, which sound like the mandarin way of pronouncing.
We went into several travel agencies to check for the best deal, however it seems like the tourism industry has been monopolized by the same company. We went back to book the tour to the Kuangsi waterfall from our guesthouse and departed in less than half an hour.
The journey to the waterfall took an hour and we were given 2 hours for lunch and exploring the waterfalls. The entrance fee is 20000kip. We met Nam, a friend from Thailand on the trip.
On our way back to luang prabang, we stopped over and visited the hmong minority village. The kids are reciting the following sentence "come buy anyone 5000.... Ok ok discount for you.... 2 for 5000" it reminded me of those kids in Cambodia who tried to exploit our sympathy.
We visited the TAEC and crashed in with a tour group whom had a guide to bring us the history of the ethnic groups. Headed to mount Phou si for sunset but it was too cloudy for viewing.
We went to the Dyne Sabai which is across the bamboo bridge. Seriously overrated, totally differed from the description on lonely planet. The prices were jerked up by double. Screw it.. I bet it is a paid for recommendation.
Went for a shopping spree at the night market before heading back to the hotel.
Tudi wants to wake up to watch monks lining up to receive aims for the bystanders at 6am. Possible? We shall see..
Good night!
Luang Prabang to Nong Khai Via Vientaine (28th Dec 2011 to 29th Dec 2011)
The second day in Luang Prabang was a relax one. We covered the remaining 2 wats and the royal palace before heading back to our hotel to pack before checking out at 5pm. No offence but I gave up taking off my high cut trekking shoes today and decide to stick to viewing from the outside. (Laos' beliefs - every time when you enter someone's home that includes tourism locations like Wats, you are supposed to remove your shoes)
After checking out we went to the night market for a last minute shopping just in case we missed out anything. We noticed that the mobile stalls actually have their designated location for setting up for the night market. The market starts to get active from 6pm onwards. As observed by Tudi, bargaining seems to be easier in luang prabang compared to vientaine. We bought shawls from a sincere young lady. Dinner was settled at a roadside stall in the night market which offered a buffet style at 10000kip per plate. I bet he will definitely make a loss if his customers are all Singaporeans as we are well trained by the stacking of salads at pizza hut.
We made it just in time to my guesthouse for our pick up to the bus station at 715pm. We were received by a minivan driver who came by specially to pick the two of us up. Thumbs up! Arrived at the bus station around 730pm and waited for the departure of our sleeping bus at 8pm. We met our friend Nam, whom we met on the Kuangsi waterfall trip yesterday who is also taking the same bus back to vientaine and to nong kuai and back to her home town.
The sleeping bus is slightly different from those that I have taken in Vietnam. This sleeping bus has both upper and lower decks with the size of a super single bed which is supposed to hold two persons. Luckily, Tudi and I were assigned to the same deck. If not I will be sleeping with a person whom I do not know. That will be awfully weird.
There was a couple of stops along the way to Vientiane the only one I alighted was the one for food. The journey was bumpy and uncomfortable. The duration of the ride took close to 12hours and arrived in vientaine northern bus station at 730pm took a tuk tuk over to the Talat Sao bus station for 20000kip.
We had breakfast at the Talat Sao bus station and went to the Talat Sao mall to spend some time before our bus to nong khai at 930am which cost 15000kip. We arrived at Nong khai bus station at 1030am and took a tuk tuk to our hotel for 50000k after displaying my poor bargaining skills in Thais.
We checked in and washed up before heading to the sala kaew ku a similar version of buddhas park in vientaine by the same artist. The tuktuk journey took about 30min (crawling speed) and costed 120 baht. The park is simply amazing! Worth visiting!
We visited a Tesco-lotus shopping complex and the thasadej market to continue with our shopping spree. The living standards in nong khai seems to be lower than vientaine which is kind of an irony as Thailand is the strongest country within the region.
We went for a massage at pp massage by poon. Excellent services for a low fee of 150baht. Headed for dinner which is similar to the Singaporean zhi chai cooked in the Thai style.
Back to the hotel.. Hotel sweet hotel...
30th Dec 2011
Back in Vientaine
We took the 930am nong khai to vientaine Thai-Laos bus and arrived at Talat Sao bus station at 1130am.
We went straight to our guesthouse saysouly in hope of not getting back the same room that we had the first day as the water in the room was screwed up. yeah, we got a different room this time.
After lazing for a little while, we left for le vendrome a French restaurant for the traditional French cuisine for just a fraction of the price paid in Singapore. On the way to the resturant, we ran into Poon and the boss of PP massage after parting in Nong Khai. At the resturant, we ordered a pizza consont, spagatis bolognaise and steak with wine sauce.
After lunch, we went to the Laos national museum which we missed on the first and found our gongs! There were 2 gongs that seems kind of lonely separated from the rest of the gongs at the plains of jars. Lonely lonely i am so lonely all on my own.. 2 Lonely gongs.
Back to the guesthouse to research on KL plan tml. Should we stay in LCCT to rot for 8hrs or proceed to chinatown via KL sentral. After doing the math, we decided to find a guesthouse in the Chinatown to drop our bags and wash-up before heading back to the airport tml evening.
Out for the night market, with intention to spend our remaining Kip but we can't seem to find anything worth buying. There are couple of clay painting shops as it was too early for dinner, we picked up a clay sculpture each and started painting. We spent close to 2 hours painting and waiting for the finishing coat to dry.
We went back to the restaurant where we had our first meal in vientaine for our dinner. Felt kind of ripped off for the BBQ chicken we ordered, it costed 35000kip for 4 pieces of chicken!
31st Dec 2011 (New Year's Eve)
Last highlight of the trip before leaving for the airport. We finally witnessed the standard "SOP" for the monks daily! Collecting offerings from the devotees at before the breaking of dawn.
After a 7 days of adventure in Laos, we are departing from the Wattay airport, vientaine, Laos for KL on airasia flight at local time 945hrs expected to arrive in LCCT, KL, Malaysia at 1330hrs GMT +8.
We were lucky to find the star shuttle transport direct from LCCT to Chinatown. It costed RM8 only compared to the taxi charge of RM 90,we took on the first day of our trip. It is very cheap! Cheap cheap cheap.. Quote from Dr Jia Jia. What is the national bird of singapore? Singapore tourist! Lol...
We arrived in Chinatown around 330pm managed to find a nearby guesthouse to drop our bags before seeking for our favorite roasted duck plus char skew rice at a roadside stall. I guess we were too used to the weather in vientaine, we are sweating profusely or should I should melting. We gave up walking through the stretch of stalls on jalan petaling and took a taxi to the bejaya time square. The taxi driver was a hardworking dude who is self learning English. He asked Tudi how to converse a Chinese sentence into English. He introduced himself as Alex and asked us to call me if we need a taxi in KL next time. Nice chap.
Berjaya time square was a shopping paradise for us the last time we were in KL. The aircon seemed to be down today the whole mall feels like a rice cooker. I managed to get a pair of slippers for rai but can't seemed to find one with an angry bird design that fits his rat legs. Picked up a couple of basic tops before boarding the bus back to LCCT.
The bus was half empty and the ride was smooth. We arrived at LCCT at around 845pm. No cold sweat!
The flight departed LCCT at 1030pm and arrived Singapore Changi Airport at 1130pm. Mr Rai and Amy came to fetch me and we went for supper at Bedok 88 market before heading home.
It is indeed an exciting and pleasant trip! It is once again proven that an excellent travel companion is necessary. Thanks Tudi!
No comments:
Post a Comment