In Laos... where electricity is only a possiblity....

Things have moved on quite a lot since I last posted... To sum up, I spent about a week in Bangkok before going to Phuket for 3 days and then returned to Bangkok to join the intrepid tour, which has consequently taken me northwards through Thailand, into Laos PDR up through the Mekong River before entering Vietnam this morning. A note to anyone who was worried about the Burmese cyclone... we were well out of it's path, and we're completely fine (although we did have a rather noisy night) we saw a lot of things going the other way, probably to the Burma border however. Anyone who was concerned about the facebook status that stated I got shot at, don't worry I didn't get chased by police or anytihng, me and a few friends just wondered a little to close to one of the many public firing ranges in Phuket.

Of course with travelling you get sick from time to time, so a long with the normal stomach complaints I have managed to get sunburnt a couple of times as well. But by far the most spectacular injury so far took place while tubing on a river in Laos. Tubing down the river takes about 3 hours, and along the way there are many bars and such, just float up to the bar get off and have a couple of drinks, get back on the tubes, continue the leasurely float down the river. One such bar also contained an extremely high jump into the river (about 8 metres, doesn't sound like much, but once you get up there... trust me, it's like jumping from the roof of your house) also on this jump was a huge swing which swung out a good twelve metres into the river, this swing was spectacular fun, and me and two other crazy people had much entertainment swinging from this thing and then dropping into the river from the lowest point (probably about 4 metres above the water) On my last go I decided to try and outdo the other two and decided to drop the the highest point while swinging (about 8 metres!)

Falling from that height was absolutely bloody terrifying as well as the most thrilling thing I've ever done. The problem was the way I landed. After falling through the air I hit the water at an awkward angle in which my shoulder entered the water first followed by my face. The sensation was not to dissimilar to being punched in the head (that's happened to me too) When I came to the surface I felt something crunchy in my mouth... turned out the force of hitting the water actually managed to chip a chunk of one my incisors off. Fortunately it was only enamel and there's still plenty left protecting the tooth, and the tooth is not currently painful four days later. Even more fortunately I still have the piece of tooth and I am happily carrying it around in my wallet until I get home where I'm hoping my dentist can reattach it, or at least fill it in. Any relatives. Any dentists reading this please "chip in" your advice (ho ho ho)

Laos was peaceful and sleepy, Vietnam is loud and dangerous, is one very simple way of summing up the places just visited.

The fascinating thing about Laos is it's government. The government is officially communist, hence Laos PDR people's democratic Republic. But the best way of describing it is half-heartedly communist. It has characteristics of communism, as in big monuments to the revolution, hammers and sickles, and other strange random thing like every single hotel or guesthouse we stayed in (about 5) used the same soap from the official soap factory. There's also a government curfew that comes into force around half eleven, to ensure all residents are back home for midnight, although this is more strictly enforced in places that actually have a police force (or more likely, an army division) nearby. And trust me, those guys are scary. Despite this, Lao Thai and Vietnamese people are all very friendly and it's no wonder these two countries are nicknamed the land of smiles.

But apart from this and a few other things, Laos is very similar to any other developing country, it's definately the little brother of all of the East Asian countries. Being landlocked and very isolated with a poor road system, it's not exactly been touched by tourism that much... although I realise that ironically by visiting and writing about it this will only increase interest. Infrastructure is unreliable, internet comes and goes, and electricity is not available in all areas, or sometimes just between certain hours! Powercuts are random and frequent. The best way to get around Laos is by boat. We spent a great two days floating down the Mekong drinking Beer Lao and taking in the sights.

Vietnam roads are legendarily dangerous. Crossing the road is even scarier than Bangkok, when stepping out into the road traffic flies at you from all directions and the only way to gurantee safety is to walk in A VERY STRAIGHT LINE and hope that buses, millions of mopeds, cars, motocyclos and pretty much everything else find their way around you. crossings, where they exist are useless as no one stops at traffic lights anyway :D

The bus we came on would regularly pull out on blind corners, swing on to the wrong side of the road, overtake other vehicles with a shockingly narrow margin. Enough to make all of the backpackers on the bus (including myself) cry out in alarm. Another thing that seems to be popular in Vietnam is horn honking, from the second any journey starts horns are blaring, sometimes even to customised tunes, and sometimes seemingly for no reason at all other than to alleviate boredom.

As is always the case when travelling I'm not sure when my next post will be, especially as within a week or so I will be heading into China, up there I'll be behind the infamous great firewall, which blocks horrible anti-government behaviour, including many blogging websites I've heard.