the gibbon experience.

sunday morning. We woke early and got to the bus station half an hour before we were meant to leave. Apparently eveyone else had a similar idea, because by the time we got on the bus there was only one seat left. Thinking id be standing up the whole way, i braced myself for the journey, but I shouldn't have been so doubtful of the lao way because they had it all covered. Plastic chairs were loaded into the aisle for those of us unlucky enough to have missed out on a seat. It wasn't so bad at first-before we started moving-but after the first three blind corners my poor chair legs were barely hanging in there, let alone my screaming arms. every corner I was up on two legs, trying my hardest not to snap the flimsy plastic seat or end up on the people next to me, all the while determined to maintain some level of composure. After about 2 hours, we arrived at our destination. A dusty little unknown village called don chai, nestled cosily against a roaring highway. Before leaving luang nam tha, we had experienced a little bit of trouble explaining to the driver that we wanted to get off there, (this is where we would be picked up the next morning by the gibbon people) but we figured it couldn't be too hard to spot. Realisation dawned on us when we were promptly offloaded under a sign that read 'don chai' on the edge of a highway, literally in the middle of nowhere. To try and avoid looking like lost fools to the other people on the bus, we stuck our chins out and began walking purposefully in one direction only to find about 10 bamboo huts and a pack of mangey dogs. Shit. Luckily, there were some monks watching us from a temple up on a hill and they started yelling to us, 'where you go?' All we had was a piece of paper saying 'mr I-deng's guest house and restaurant' and so Claire yelled out 'do you know mr I-Deng?' They all pointed immediately back the way we had come, and so we lumbered off like unco-ordinated turtles under our packs, asking anyone we saw if they knew mr I-Deng. The highway was so dusty that every 30 seconds we were enveloped in a gigantic plume of dirt as a semi trailer roared by, just you're averaged roadside village experience. Everyone just kept pointing down the road until the very last place, where we finally found the elusive 'restaurant and guest house' which would be more adequately described as 'dusty shop of random snacks with a little room in the back.' We plonked our things down and got some lunch, and then were joined by mr I-Deng's two young daughters- Ghanda and Aiv. They taught us to speak a little lao, and also gave us a lesson in traditional dance. We made origami and played cards, and the next morning the younger one got me to braid her hair for school. So cute! At about 11, we were picked up by the people from the gibbon experience and drove along the most ridiculously steep and bumpy track until we reached a little village. We walked from there into the jungle for about 2 hours, until we reached a cool little waterfall. From there, we hiked up a maze of steps to our first zip line. excitement rippled through our group of 8 as one by one we clipped ourselves on to the wire and made the leap of faith off the platform. When you jump, you shoot forward instantly, flying through the trees on either side of you until suddenly they disappear and you're 100m above the jungle canopy, flying over a valley between two mountains. The view is breathtaking, and you have to pinch yourself to get your brain to realise it's actually happening. A few more zip lines later and we saw our treehouse. It was so great -very tarzan- with a little kitchen, table and mosquito nets hanging from the roof over our beds. The shower was the best though; two walls behind you, but infront was just a small railing and then the most incredible view of the jungle, from a cool 70m up. The next few days were amazing, zipping through the jungle on about 20 different wires, fighting off leeches, climbing mountains, eating jungle food and ducking through the dark caves made by the thick bamboo plants that bent over the path. It was an experience like nothing else, and by the time we got back to little don chai our bodies were aching and we were covered in mud to prove it. We got what tasted like the best meal of our lives, and then steeled ourselves for the bus ride back up to luang nam tha. Waving goodbye to the others, who were going to huay xai, we asked Mr I-deng when we should expect the bus to luang nam tha. "Oh maybe 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, sometimes 3 or 4" came the reply, accompanied by vague gesticulations and a little chuckle. So we decided that all we could do was wait and hope to flag down the bus (because it wasn't actually stopping) when it went by. As we waited, a shiny silver van pulled up outside the shop. The first man to topple out was a beaming chinese man in a hawaiian shirt, clutching a glass of bubbly. "hey hey!" he yelled, raising his glass, still beaming, doing some awkward kind of grapevine step across the dirt in his loafers. He was closely followed by a gaggle of men in ralph lauren polo's, the kind of rich business men who go on holiday but can't bring themselves to unwind enough to go without a button up shirt. within seconds they had swarmed the building, plucking bottles of scotch from the shelves and acting all charming-or so they must have thought. Having just come from 3 days in the jungle, the last thing we felt like doing was posing for photographs with drunk, over-friendly chinese men. One guy was trying to communicate something in broken english, and kept sliding up along the seat. A lady who must have been his wife started saying "my husband" and bending and straightening her elbow. I couldn't decide whether she was threatening us or just demonstrating that her husband has quite a good range of motioon in his joints. Who knows. About half an hour after they left, we spotted the rickety old bus motoring down the highway with a gigantic cloud of dust billowing out behind. I darted out onto the road and waved it down, and we climbed aboard amongst bags of rice, computer parts and confused people who had though we were missionaries. Go figure. We got back safely to luang nam tha and had the best nights sleep in a good week, all in preparation for our journey onwards.

december 11th.

Yesterday we had one of the best days of our trip. It was so much fun. We had met up with simon and lau, the danish guys we had met in vientiane, and we decided to visit the waterfalls with 3 other girls we had met on our travels. We got a tuk tuk out there and payed the driver a little extra to wait for longer than 2 hours (which is the usual limit). We went in and sw all the moon bears that they had in the rescue centre, they were so big and fluffy-like nothing we have back home. Most of them had been rescued from poachers and bile farms. We chatted to them for a while, then walked up to the first lagoon. We all kind of stopped and stared because it was so beautiful! The water was a creamy blue colour, bright aqua and almost milky around the edges. We decided to keep walking up the hill until we dound an even bigger lagoon with a waterfall and a rope swing coming out of the tree! it was so cool except the water was so freaking cold you wouldn't believe it! The best way to get in was to just launch out on the rope swing and jump straight in.. Simon and lau went first, but when I hit the water it was so cold that it knocked all the breath out of me and made my skin burn. Refreshing! We found a little cave underneath the waterfall, and soon discovered that the lagoon was home to the same little fish that had nibbled our feet in siem reap. So funny! Anna, one of the girls with us, had what she thought was a secret map to a hidden swimming place, but we followed it into the jungle only to find a big hole and the realisation that we suck at reading maps! We started climbing the regular steps up the side of the waterfall, and then spotted the 'danger no swimming' sign which-according to the map- was our cue to turn right towards the falls. We followed this little path through the jungle, and then came across a waterfall that we had to climb up. We had all gotten dressed after our swim so we got soaked again scrambling up the rocks as the water gushed down over us. When we got to the top we were all grinning at the sight of the huge waterfalls cascading down onto a small lagoon and rock shelf-our own secret place halway between the top and bottom of the falls. Despite feeling like we had frost bite all over, we got back into our bathers and started exploring all around. We found this awesome cave that went right back into the rock wall, underneath the wall of water. Following simon's monkey man walk up the cliff, we founf a cave with a little secret pool in the bottom. The colours were the best though! These crazy bright jade spirals coming down from the roof, and rocks under our feet that fels like spongey plastic, filled with millions of tiny holes. We walked all the way to the top and played on the fallen logs in the calm pool above the falls. It wad amazing how slowly the water moved at the start compared to the speed it got rushing down the other side. We slid back down the other side because it was so steep and muddy, and went for one more rope swing to finish off the days. On the way back we passed all these concrete bears lined up against the wall of this building and tried to take photos with them. We tried climbing up to sit on their paws, and claire has the best picture of us scrambling up these animals in vain. When we eventually got up there, all these japanese people started taking photos with us, one lady even put her arm around me haha. We bought some bananas and pineapple for lunch and made our way back to the tuk tuk. On the way we saw a lady roasting bananas, and she let me swap some raw ones for some barbequed ones which pretty much made my day! We piled back in the tuk tuk and started off home, everytime we get in one of those things it feels like we're soldiers about to be deployed on a mission somewhere. A few minutes into the journey i climbed out onto the back platform, followed by simon and claire. We stood so that our heads popped up over the roof of the tuk tuk and we got an amazing view of everything! It was the coolest ever- flying through the mountains with our hair whipping out behind us, waving at all the kids we passed on bikes and hanging on for dear life as we hurtled around the bends at some ridiculous speeds (sorry mum!) gladly, we made it home safely and everyone did their own thing for a little while before meeting for dinner later on. We went to this place called utopia which was really incredible. It was set on the side of a mountain, with a bar, a garden as the dining area, beach volleyball and a bamboo platform covered in cushions and little tables where you could sit and look over the river. We ordered some dinner (claire was late following a mad dash down the street after realising she had an hour left to enrol in uni) and sat there for ages just chatting and hanging out. Instead of dessert, the boys decided it would be fun to get one of those massive shisha/peace pipes to share seeing as we had never tried it before. They apparently ordered apple flavour but it tasted like liquorice. One of the strangest sensations ever, we felt like the caterpillar from alice in wonderland. Everywhere in laos shuts at 11, so we were sound asleep by 12 after a lovely/crazy day of being real hippies! Sadly we left the boys behind this morning, but we will meet up with them again for christmas in chang mai. The next few days we will be having the best time ever at the gibbon experience- ill let you know how it goes!

the epic bus jourrney (33 hours)

We got on the bus in siem reap at midnight, with tickets that said we'd be in vientiane by the next evening. On the way to the bus we met two girls who told us their friend had done the same trip in reverse and said it was the most frightening experience of his life, and he had thought the bus was going to drive off a cliff every 2 minutes. Absolutely crapping our pants, we got on what was meant to be a sleeper bus that turned out to be seats. This didn't matter anyway because the trip was so terrifying we didn't sleep a wink. Although we didn't see any cliffs,both of us sat bolt upright and wide eyed for the whole 4 hour trip, as we careered around corners and sped like crazy into the dark. Three days earlier, the same journey in reverse had taken 6 hours. Back in phnom penh we were dropped at some random bus station where they were blaring hip hop shit music at 5am. We were so happy to get on the next bus, even though that wasn't a sleeper either. It was ok though because we had two seats each, and passed the time experimenting with different ways to sleep without falling into the aisle at every corner. We stopped for lunch at another random roadside place and the lady sitting opposite me on the bus bought a giant fried tarantula. Back on the bus, I watched in horror as she crunched her way through the legs so painfully slowly and then started pulling apart the abdomen. I was in shock, it was so repulsive. We got to the laos border which was just a little shack with a flag on it where we had to pay to get our passports stamped for some corrupt reason or another. When we got to pakse though, we got on the coolest bus ever. Walking up the aisle, we got to our seats which were actually just a double bed, two pillows and some blankets. Not the safest ride but definitely the most fun! We befriended this gorgeous cambodian couple opposite us-the only other foreigners on the bus, who shared their fruit and dinner with us, and laughed at the whole 'bird foetus' episode that I talked about before. As we arrived in vientiane, we piled into a tuk tuk with everyone else and sped off into town. One of the most memorable experiences of our trip will be driving around the capital that morning to the tunes of 'funky town' and 'kung fu fighting' that blared from the boom box at the front of the truck. What can you do except laugh!

freaky food

We've been traveling for about 7 weeks now and have definitely had our fair share of new experiences. Some of the most memorable being the weird food we've tried.
In Phnom Penh, we tried these amazing pork dumplings which were steamed in pots on by street vendors. They also did ones with sweet pumpkin so Claire was set! They were so soft and sticky, obviously a health food! Haha. We've found that they prefer to use pumpkin in desserts rather than in actual meals, and even pumpkin juice is pretty popular! We stumbled across this awesome vegetarian buffet in Vientiane last week, and they had what is one of the most ridiculous desserts i have ever tasted. you get a bowl of kidney beans, then pour coconut cream over the top, add some squares of black jelly and this weird sugar syrup, and top it off with splash of pumpkin juice. surprisingly, it was so freaking good we went back for seconds...duh! Haha.
On the bus on the way to Laos from Cambodia we stopped at some ridiculous hour of the early, early morning to grab something to eat. Climbing down from the bus, I spotted some boiled eggs at one of the stalls and so i grabbed 4 for us to munch on later. It was only as i was halfway through peeling the first one that i realised it wasn't a boiled egg. Turns out half developed chicken foetus is a perfectly legitimate snack in laos. Lovely!
One of our all time favourites are the simple yet divine roasted bananas, or check anh in khmer :) have a look for yourself, dont be jealous- well roast you some when we get back!
Oh my god, i just remembered, last night we went back to visit this lady who named herself 'mumma lee' when we met her the other night. She is a legend! everywhere in vang vieng you can buy pancakes/burgers/sandwiches from vendors on every corner, but mumma lee made us the best thing ever! A toasted baguette with fried banana, nutella, coconut, peanut butter and chocolate. She even let me help with the roasting and chuckled away to herself as we declared our love for her and her sandwich. Funny, funny night!
Just this morning, we walked through the market and saw water buffalo hooves wrapped up like bunches of flowers, as well as something that looked alarmingly like a skinless puppy grilling on a grate at a stall. Ugh.
All in a day's fun in indochina.

ODA

When we were in Siem Reap we set aside an hour or so to visit an orphanage that my uncle had donated to. I don't know what we expected to find, but we could never have anticipated just how amazing this place and these people are. The orphanage is called "Orphans and Disabled Arts" and is located in the Angkor Wat complex.
We had planned to visit for an hour, but we stayed the whole afternoon, captivated by the stories of the children and the people who care for them. There were times when we were both sitting so still, trying desperately not to cry as we were so overwhelmed by all that we were being told. This is one of the best organisations in the world. Every single cent that is donated goes directly to the children-you can see it. It was just incredible.
Please take the time to watch this short clip, which explains about their lives.