Kiteboarding in Fiji

As you may or may not know, my main reason for choosing fiji as a destination was based on the assumption that it is an excellent place to kiteboard. Warm tropical waters, lack of documented shark attacks, cheap accomadation and consistent trade winds had me sold on fiji from the beginning. Unfortunately the key ingredient to any kiting holiday wasn't as abundent as expected... wind:(

It blew less than a third of the days we spend in fiji so we didn't get as much kiting in as expected. Don't get me wrong here, i'm not complaining that i had to spend 6 weeks in a tropical paridise first with laura and then with two of my best friends, but our expectation of kiteboarding everyday turned out to be a pipe dream....
Nonetheless, we still managed to get in more riding then any of us has ever had before and we all improved significantly. Apart from kiting at various destinations, we explored the island, befriended the locals and learned to smile even when the wind doesn't blow. We met the local kitesurfing scene in pacific harbour and got to check out their local kiting spots.

After spending 3 weeks in the south we headed north to Nananu-i-Ra island which turned out to have much more consistent wind and beautiful clear water compared to pacific harbour. The wind blew over half the days we were there and we had our most epic sessions to date! As you can see from the aerial photo, the eastern beach has tons of reef around it. As long as the tide isn't too low you can ride right over it, which is increadible cause you can see the reef zooming by underneath you! We stayed at the Safari Lodge run by an australian couple named Warren and Steph who were really cool. The atmosphere was really chilled out and the guests devoid of ass-holes.... a very key thing when staying in a small resort. We had a few good spearfishing sessions, the most memorable one was when i killed this 2 foot long reef fish that weighed over 10 lbs.
We had been dropped off at a reef by a boat and we were holding the fish in the water for about half an hour before we got picked up. I smartly gave the fish to Jon to hold, hehe, and continued fishing. Mike dove down to kill a huge fish which turned out to be 1.5m long white tip reef shark. They aren't really agressive but this one was obviously after the fish we had just caught. I followed it as it swam up onto the reef where jon was waiting with the dead and bleeding fish. It circled around us for about 15 minutes until the boat arrived to pick us up. Luckily we were in much less danger then you would expect, and i had the fascinating experience of keeping a hungry shark at bay with my speargun while he tried to figure out a way to steal our dinner;)
As of yet i don't have any of the pics from kiteboarding on Nananu-i-ra, as soon as i get them i'll throw them up and put up a new post. Looks like the wind is picking up here, i think i'll got try and have one last session in fiji before saying goodbye to this beautiful country.

Cheers,
Corey

Laura in Mexico!

Hola!
here I am now in Guanajuato and it seems like I have been here forever!
When I flew into Mexico City I wasn´t too excited at first, I was deadly tired, my luggage was lost (but they found it an hour later) and driving through the city I thought, oh no, what am I doing here...
the hostel was nice, right in the center of the center of Mexico but veeery big!
That night I thought I would leave again the next day after a Frida Kahlo tour but then I met Juliette when brushing my teeth and she told me that she was going to do the same tour. Knowing one person made me feel a lot better already and as it turned out we were getting along very well, at least I think so, we are still travelling together!:)
The tour was awesome!I am sure you all are familiar with Frida Kahlo, the wife of Diego Rivera (famous painter in Mexico, known as socialist). I will add more about them later!
That night Juliette and I went out for dinner in a nice restaurant, we ordered our food and suddenly this piano player started playing the piano which was nice.
and then this lady started singing which was even nicer. and then one other lady got up and she started singing and then another customer got up and started singing. In the end all the couples that were sitting at seperate tables got together and continued drinking, singing and enjoying themselves. Once in a while they would come up to us and explain that this is the REAL mexico. It was just the nicest experience ever, something you can´t plan because it was so spontaeous!
The next day we went to some pyramid ruins, again I am going to add names, history etc later, my diary is upstairs...
That was a very nice tour as well and that night we went out with our tour guide from the night before, Monica,( the best tour guide ever!She was so enthusiastic and she just knows EVERYTHING!!) and her friends.
We had a very nice evening in a bar and ended up going Salsa dancing in a Cuban bar.
We really needed to recover the next day and just had a very nice evening with Monica and Alberto, they took us to the highest tower: Torres Latinoamericano, from which we had a very nice view over the city. When we got back to the hostel, I learned that ´Client´was playing that night in the city!!
I couldn´t believe it...I am travelling sooo far and there they were, playing in a club next door basically!the concert was awesome!!
The next day we took a bus to Guanajuato, the cutest town ever!all colonial style houses everywhere and you can walk from one end to the other in like 15 minutes!
I never felt unsafe in Mexico City because we were with people who were living there and obviously they knew which areas were safe and unsafe... but here I don´t think I will ever have to worry!
I am going to sign up for language school tomorrow, which I will be doing for the next 5 days hopefully, if I get in, but I think I will!:)
ok, that´s it for now, I can´t think of anytyhing else right now, except that I am happy here, obviously I miss Corey and it was hard getting used to travelling alone but that´s why I am very glad that Juliette and I are travelling together!
hasta luego,
Laura

Laura in Los Angeles and Las Vegas!

hey there,
sorry, I know it has been a while but I have been extremely busy lately enjoying the beauty of Mexico...
anyways, after a sad good bye from Corey I took the bus back to Nadi, packed my stuff and got ready to leave to the airport. I bumped into Helena and Sarah which was very unexpected and nice...but I guess, I got a little confused, or I don´t know what. Anyways, when we arrived at the airport I realized that I forgot my big backpack back at the hostel!so I had to rush back, get it and make it back in time to check in!what an adrenalin rush!
it was all good in the end and after a looooooooooooong flight I arrived in LA where I was expected by Dean, a friend of a friend of mine. We went home and that evening we just went out for dinner and relaxed. The next day I had to do some errands and we went to the beach in LA which was sooo nice!
That night I got introduced to LA style Salsa which was awsesome!I had lots of fun.
On Saturday we visited a friend of his and went to one of the nicest beaches...
Then I met up with Veronica and Javier, and we left to drive to Las Vegas!We arrived at 3 am and after a nap took a look at this crazy place.
It was incredible!I have never seen anything like that before ever ever!!
so many people inside the casinos, outside, walking around and about 45 degrees outside!I didn´t even know it could get that hot!
of course I gambled a little bit as well, but I behaved, I was more interested in drinking, hehe. You just need to stand near someone playing at the tables and then the waitresses walk around and serve you free drinks!as long as you are playing, or pretending to...weird concept but seems to work, everyone is drunk and likes spending money.
We got back Sunday night and I had about 2 hours sleep b efore and after packing.
then I left to fly to Mexico City!
Thank you again Dean, Veronica and Javier for such an awesome time in Los Angeles!you know that you are always more than welcome in Germany!!
talk to you soon,
Laura

Shark Dive, Fiji

Jon, mike and I did a Shark dive the other day, which was possibly the best dive i've ever done in my life. Luckily for use, it was just me, mike and jon with
three dive masters and a captain. We got to the site, and the guys started throwing bloody dead fish overboard, just like you see on the discovery channel when they are going to do a shark cage dive... one difference... no cage;) All of the sudden tons of fish were coming up to the surface to feed. At first we thought they were small sharks, but on further inspection they were actually ramoras, small fish that attach themselves to sharks and other large fish. After we got geared up i looked over
the side and saw a good sized shark sillouette below us... then we jumped in the water.

The first dive we saw about a dozen bull sharks, up to 4m long, lots of silver tip reef sharks and grey nurse sharks. Only the bull's are considered dangerous, but these guys have been doing the dive for 8 years without casualties... so far;)
On the second dive there was a 5m tiger shark in the water with us. At one point he swam directly towards me and then about 1m over my head, i almost shit myself. This things mouth was about 2 feet wide and i had just seen it swallow a 50 lb bag of fish whole.

It was about the same size as two very large cows stuck together by the ass with a huge mouth and tail. We have talked to lots of others who have done this dive and none of them have seen a tiger shark, so we were really lucky! I didn't want to tell you guys (mom especially) before i was doing this cause it thought you might get worried;)

Peace out,
Corey

Fiji

Hey everyone,

Sorry for not posting earlier, but i've been too busy;) It's a hard life....
Laura and I arrived here in Fiji on the first of june and made our way out to the Yasawa Islands. This is a island chain running off the west coast of fiji's main island. We made three stops on three different islands along the way. We got some diving in, which was very good, but not as good as Thailand. The dive had lots of swim throughs and caves that we went into, not as much fish diversity as in the Similans but still very nice. We visited the Blue Lagoon where the movies were filmed, which was beautiful, but a bit overdeveloped. We went on a boat snorkling trip from one of the islands and i hired a local guy to bring me spearfishing, which was sooooo cool! I managed to catch one fish and mortally wound about 5 others. Laura and I also did a village visit and met the chief of the local village, which was a very interesting experience. When you go to this village, you go to the cheif's house first and ask his permission to walk around the village. We both had to pay him $5, which he uses to travel the world... He had just got back from travelling to the US and hawaii for a couple months, which is a bit weird seeing how poor the people in his village are, but i guess that is how things go here.
After getting back from the Yasawas we met up with mike and jon and went to Robinson Crusoe Island Resort.

When you arrive on the beach the staff is waiting for you playing guitar and singing a welcome song. At night they do a crazy traditional fijian dance and fireshow, which is really sweet. We managed to get some kiting in, it was really windy and i got spanked pretty bad. For all you non kiters out there, getting spanked is when you are riding and the wind is a bit too strong and you start going faster and faster until your board catches an edge and your face hits the water at about 50km/hr... That was actually the easy part, i was wearing a board leash and after i bailed the board came and hit me in the arm and left a huge bruise. All in a good day of kiteboarding:)

While we were at robinson crusoe, we met a really nice couple who run a backpackers in Pacific Harbour, which is on the south of fiji's main island. The backpacker is called Tsulu, and they just opened it a few weeks ago. They hooked us up with a really sweet apartment for dorm prices. Laura spent her last couple days here until she had to hop on a bus to go to the airport. We were both obviously very sad to part ways, but also happy for each other because we can do our own thing for a while. She is now in mexico to travel and improve her spanish. I'm really happy cause she has found a very nice girl to travel with, and seems to be having a really awsome time! I'm very excited to see her photos. I'll let her tell the rest of her story there:)

Cheers,
Corey and Laura

New Zealand (encore)

Once again it seems like weeks since we have posted, but it's only been one and a bit weeks so we aren't doing to bad are we?:) We are back in Christchurch after having completed our circuit of the south island.
When we signed off last time we were heading south to do some glacier hiking. There are two options for glacier hikes here in New Zealand, the Franz Joseph and the Fox glacier. They are pretty much the same, together they comprise two thirds of the glaciers in the world which reach right down into a rainforest (the other being in Argentina). Both have guided tours, heli-hikes and all that stuff, but Fox is cheaper, so naturally we chose that one;) We lucked out with a clear sunny morning for our half-day glacier walk. After a short bus ride from the Fox township we started treking up the valley floor to the terminal face of the glacier (damn straight, i kicked ass in geography 12!). After astounding our guide with my knowledge of glacier terminology we proceeded to hike up through a dripping green rainforest and emerged on the side of the glacier. After fitting our boots with crampons (little metal spiky thingys that keep you from plummeting hundreds of feet to certain icy death) we climbed up onto the ice and explored some crevices on the glaciers surface. We got some incredible pictures and had an awsome time, we highly recommend this glacier walk to anyone in the neighbourhood! Fox rocks!!!
Next stop along the loop was Queenstown, which is a souless knock-off of your typical pretencious ski town, like Aspen or Whistler. Despite having no character whatsoever, Queenstown is a beautiful place, nestled between a pristine mountain lake and some big mountains, however if you are from BC then it's really nothing special. We stayed long enough to burn a DVD with pictures and check e-mails and then headed out to soak in some wilderness.
We did a day trip to the Milford Sound from the sleepy little town of Te Anau. In Te Anau we stayed on a deer farm converted to a backpackers and met a really nice swiss/british couple who are doing a similar (but longer) trip to us but in reverse. This was very handy because they were also travelling around the south island, but in the other direction, so we where able to swap info on where we had both been. Milford Sound was absolutely increadible, we were once again blessed with a bright sunny day.(Sorry Russ and Andrea, not trying to rub it in...) Milford Sound is a glacier fjord that extends about 7km inland from the Tasman sea. The walls of the fjord are very steep and there are a couple of spectacular waterfalls that decorate it's length. However, in our opinion the drive up was even more beautiful then the sound itself. We won't bother trying to describe the scenery cause we'll have the pics up soon anyway. On the way up we encoutered a flock of kia's, which are described as a "cheeky mountain parrot". They are a good sized bird (like a big sea-gull) with long, sharp claws and a menacing beak. When they look at you in the eye you get the odd feeling that if this thing was any bigger it would probably rip your liver out and eat it on the spot... One even tried to eat the antennae on our car!
After Milford we cruised down to the south coast through Invercargill to the Catlins. The Catlins are a band of wilderness area along the southeast coast that are very scenic and contain plenty of native wildlife. The highlight was watching yellow-eyed pinguins coming back up the beach from a day out at sea. We had no idea that there were pinguins in New Zealand, but apparently there are... We got lots of good pics and even some video. Of all the animals we have ever seen, pinguins are by far the funniest. Not that they do anything incredible, but just watching them waddling up the beach and then crouching down to jump over a rock is enough to make you giggle like a schoolgirl.
From there we made our way up the coast and stayed a night in Dunedin, a sorta scottish town that was refreshingly european. After that we drove inland to Lake Tekapo, which is a little town on a lake (go figure!) surrounded by snowcapped mountains. We did some sightseeing from the car and got some increadible roadside pictures but eventually decided that we had to get a different perspective on things. So, after almost no thought whatsoever, we swung by the local airport and booked ourselves onto the next scenic flight of the area! It was almost indescribeable how incredible the flight was! Once again.... blue sky,bright sun... we flew for about an hour over turquoise lakes, glaciers, saw the west coast again from 10,000ft and circled mt Cook's 12,000ft summit. Won't bother saying more, picture can only describe it....
Now we're back in Christchurch, burning another picture DVD (4gigs in 6 days, not to shabby...) and taking care of business before we head up to the north island. Hope all is well for those who are reading this, pictures will soon follow!

Cheers,
Corey and Laura

New Zealand - the land of cold!

Kia Ora!
...brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!
it's so cold here!
Coming from Brisbane with sun and 27 degrees it was a shock stepping out of the plane in Christchurch only to be greeted by a drizzling grey 5 degrees!
We wasted no time in renting a car, got a brand new diatshu sirion which Laura has dubbed "the blushed baby elephant", due to its odd shape and shockingly red colour!
After stocking up on warm clothes and raincoats, we headed north to circumnavigate the South Island in a counterclockwise fashion.
First stop was in Kaikoura to see the seal colony.
Next stop was the Abel Tasman National Park to do an overnight kayaking/hiking trip. Instead of roughing it in the bush, we opted for the much more comfortable houseboat to sleep.
This morning we visited the pancake rocks which are a mysterious rock formation in Punakaiki. After that we tried to find some greenstone (jade) on the beach but had no luck!
Now were are in Greymouth, a depressing grey town, getting ripped off in an internet cafe and about to head to Franz Josef to do some glacier hiking before the rain comes!
hope all is well with you guys!
Promise to update the blog more frequently!:) and we will try to get New Zealand pictures up soon, hopefully we will find some internet that is fast enough!
talk to you soon, auf Wiederlesen,
Laura and Corey

The Land of Oz

Well, we don't even know where to start... It seems like so long since we've last sat down and wrote a post. After Cambodia we flew back to bangkok and travelled down to koh lak where we departed for a 4 day, 4 night diving trip to the similan islands. The pictures have been up for quite a while but if you haven't seen them check em out, my underwater case has proven to be a pretty good investment;)
The diving was increadible, one of the best spots in the world or so we are told. Saw tons of stuff and met lots of really nice people on the boat. Water was 29degC and visibility was 30m+ so it's hard to not love it!
After this we spent a few more nights in PP (Rantee beach) chilling and recovering from 14 dives over 4 days. Then we hooked a train to bangkok, hung out for a few more days and then caught our flight to Sydney.

Australia:

Got into sydney and bought a car the next day. 91 ford falcon wagon with a beefy 4L engine and a complete camping setup. Stayed with Matt and Mike for a couple days and with Julia and her parents and then headed south for Melbourne (thanks again so much guys!!:)). Stopped in a bunch of really nice places on the way down the coast. Swam with dolphins in Jervis Bay, got attacked by an octopus in Cape Conran, met a crazy old shark fisherman in Woodside beach and got in a fight with a Wombat in Wilson's Promatory National Park.
We stayed with our friend Marcus and his family in Melbourne (thanks again Markus, Leigh and Barb, we couldn't have felt more at home!).
Then we headed up north again to Sydney in one day to make it to a party with Julia!
After we left Sydney we leisurely made our way up the coast to Brisbane. Pretty much spent the whole time swimming, surfing, hiking and relaxing! Along the way we met many incredible people and saw some amazing sites. We started talking to one couple while watching sunset at a national park and they invited us to stay at their place. Naturally, we took up the offer and made liberal use of their internet, laundry manchine and knowledge of the area. Thanks again Mark and Keri, you guys are awsome! Hopefully we'll see you sometime soon in canada or europe:)
In Brisbane we stayed at Laura's aunt's place. Thank you again, all of the Hogg family!
From there we went on a self-drive trip to Fraser Island for three days which was awesome! We saw wild dingos and big ass lizards called gawanas as well as the famous lake mackensie and champagne pools. We also did a 3-day canoeing trip up the Noosa Everglades, which is really just a river that runs through a national park. Nevertheless, it was spectacular! The water was like glass so you could see the relection of the trees and sky in the water. After a scorching hike to a sand patch located high on the hills above we indulged in a nice dip in the rivers cool water, only to find out later that bull sharks are frequently seen in the area.... opps...
After some drama (never trust belgians...), we managed to sell our car and relax for the last few days in Brisbane. The morning we were leaving to fly to Christchurch it was sunny and 27 degrees...

so long,
Corey and Laura
p.s.pictures from Australia are up! (see link)

Cambodia

After the natural beauty and extremely friendly people of Lao, Cambodia was a bit of a shock. However, considering the country underwent a brutal genocide and a failed experiment in communism less than 30 years ago, the place has recovered remarkably. We started our journey from Chiang Mai at around 5pm and finally arrived in Siem Reap (city next to Angkor) at 7pm the next night. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, the night was spent on a very comfortable sleeper train to Bangkok, before we boarded a local bus for the Cambodian boarder. We arrived in Aranya Prathet, on the thai side around noon, got our visas and crossed into Poipet. We have heard from many people that this is one of the worst cities in South-east Aisa, but if are just passing through then it's not really that bad. The first thing we noticed was garbage, everywhere... and then the young children hanging off you for some spare change. The road immediately deteriorated into a gravely washboard and the buildings aged by about 50 years. Tired looking Cambodians where streaming back accross the boarder from their day trips into thailand for shopping. Some of them must have been carrying over 100 pounds of assorted items on their backs. It really felt like we had stepped back in time. We managed to find a "decent" , air-conditioned bus out of the city and started the white-knuckle journey to Siem Reap.Along the road we saw petrol sold in old coke bottles and men looking for mines with metal detectors and kids playing right next to them(we found out later that they do a check up on land mines 2-3 times a year cause there are always bombs appearing due to shifting of soil)but still, it was a scary thought to think that there might be a bomb right next to you... About six hours and a sore bottom later we arrived and took the first guesthouse we could find.
The next morning we set out to see Angkor. For those of you who have never heard of Angkor, it is a series of temples and cities constructed between the 9th and 12th century AD by the rulers of the Khmer civilization. They were extremly advanced in science, architecture and astrology and produced some of the most famous temples on earth, with the most recognized being Angkor Wat. (Wat = temple in Khmer) We spend two days wandering around, taking pictures and trying to take in the enormity of the place. On the second day we got up at 5am and went to Angkor Wat for sunrise. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and it just slowly got light out, but it was still beautiful.
After Angkor and Siem Reap we got a bus to Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. This was a really beautiful city, right on the Mekong river, with very nice roads and many enormous embassies and ministry buildings.
On the second glance though you can still see a lot of bombed out buildings and the slums around the edges of the city don't really get along with the royal palace and the garden palace in the center of Phnom Penh!
We found a very nice and highly recommended guesthouse and settled in. The next day we checked out the Genocide museum and the Killing Fields. The museum is an old high school which was turned into a detention, interogation and execution center under the rule of the Khmer Rouge. A quick history lesson:

After the US stopped bombing Vietnam in the early 70's they started concentrating their firepower on Cambodia. (7 billion USD worth of bombs fell in the next couple years, that's right 7 BILLION USD!!!) Being a direct neighbour to Vietnam, many of the Vietcong communist forces were continuing to fight the war from the east part of Cambodia. The Khmer rouge, lead by Pol Pot in Cambodia, had been fighting against Cambodias US backed military government for control of the country. Using the threat of US imperialism as a catalyst, the Khmer rouge mobilized thousands of young peasant soldiers to their cause and within a few years had built up an an army over 70,000 strong. Supplied with weapons and ammo from the Vietcong and China, the Khmer Rouge advanced relentlessly on the capital of Phnom Pehn. When the US finally withdrew their support in 75, the capital fell and Khmer Rouge troops took the city. Intially greated as liberators by many Cambodians, their true adgenda soon unfolded. All citizens were forced to leave the city in a mass exodus under the pretext of a temporaty evacuation due to expected US bombing. However, the Khmer Rouge didn't allow anyone to return to the city and people were forced to work in labour camps all around the country. Over the next 4 years, 2-3 million people either starved to death or were excecuted by the Khmer Rouge. Finally in 79 the country was overrun by the vietnamese and began it's long road to recovery.
(Please forgive me if i've made any mistakes here, it's a complex history and i've just tried to give a quick idea of the awful events that took place in this country not too long ago)
The Killing Fields are a mass grave where over 17,000 men, woman and children were put to death in a variety of horrific ways. There is now a large stupa in the center of the complex were the skulls of over 9,000 victims are displayed.
The next day, feeling a bit depressed by what we'd seen the previous day we decided to do some shopping to take our minds off reality for a bit. That afternoon, I (corey) went with a swedish guy we met and did some very "manly" go-kart racing and gun shooting. They have a military base just out of Phnom Penh where you can go and shoot off any gun you want if you buy the bullets. M16, AK47, M60, uzzi, Colt45, rocket laucher.... Maybe this wasn't the most sensitive thing to do after what we'd just seen, but it was fun unloading half a clip into a cardboard target;)
Since our time is a bit constrained, we decided to fly to Bangkok. Now we are next to Khao San road in a round internet cafe lounge waiting for our night train to Suratthani to go Kao Lak to start our 4 day dive trip to the Similan Islands!Mine (Laura's) tonsilitis has improved thanks to Cambodian antibiotics and weird cold pills...

Peace out and Friede sei mit Dir!
Corey and Laura

Laos-what an amazing country!

After taking the night train from Bangkok to Nong Khai, we crossed the border to Vientianne (Laos) the next morning. Nothing special happened there except that Americans have to pay more for their visa than everyone else... for whatever reasons... maybe it's proportional to how much your country has bombed that country...
Vientianne was sorta boring so we decided to leave the next morning again to go to Vang Vieng.
Arriving there at noonish it was the funniest thing ever to see that every local was drunk...they were holding each other up, barely able to walk...what a friendly welcome! Apparently we had arrived on a local holiday and most of the time the town people are relatively sober.
What can you do in Vang Vieng? Tubing! So we got the inner tubes of truck tires and off we went for a relaxing 4 hour ride down the river! They had bars along the river where you could stop, drink beer or jump off the constructed platforms with ropeswings and ziplines into the water! It was so much fun just relaxing in the tube or playing water ball...or drinking yummy Lao beer! From everywhere along the river the kids were shouting: beer Lao, beer Lao...it was a huge party!
The next day we went on a trek to some buddha caves and visited Hmong villages, one of the ethnic groups in Laos. We bumped into them right when they were having a picture shooting for their relatives in America. Due to historical events in Laos, they have easier access to immigrate to the US. Once they saw us, we had to be in the pictures as well...:) the tall "farangs"
The tour was nice, we kayaked back along the river the same way we had gone with the tube the day before.
The bus ride to Luan Prabang was awful (the road was very bumpy and windy but nothing in comparison the roads in Cambodia as we had to find out later...) Ok, let's say, it was medium awful. We thought we were smart by taking the minibus. It turned out that we were indeed lucky cause we got very nice seats. Unlike another couple who arrived late and had to sit on these little half chairs that folded down...must have been very uncomfortable... There was also a very stinky old french man in our bus and everytime he put up his arms to air out his pits we thought we were going to puke:(
Anyways, after passing quite a few soldiers with AK 47 just standing by the road or hiding in little camouflaged huts, we were wondering whether the rumours of road 13 being safe were true...but apparently they were there to protect us...our driver gave them cigarettes to keep them happy!
Luang Prabang: declared Unesco World Heritage Site...a very nice city with wats (temples) everywhere...We, no, Laura, got up to enjoy the morning ceremony. Corey slept in a little bit longer. At sunrise all the monks come out of the different Wats and all along the road there are people kneeling and giving them food into their collecting bags...it is a very amazing thing to watch, especially at that time of the day!and knowing that religion here is so strongly felt among the people that it is an honour for them to get up at 6am to prepare the rice.
We decided to go hiking in Laos rather than in Thailand, seemed to be less touristy!
So David, a guy from Belgium we met on the way, and us left the next morning . It was an amazing experience, we hiked for 5 hours a day and passed through several villages on the way. We passed a school, with 20 kids, all different level, the older ones were writing with pens, younger ones with pencil...
When we gave them some pencils some of them even were too shy to smile at us.
The whole trekking was amazing!
And this wasn't only due to the amazing encounters we had with the different people along the way but also because our guides were so nice. At our lunch stop this old Hmong lady set next to us and starting carving a bamboo stick. Our guide told us she was going to make a bong, and shortly afterwards we saw her happily smoking a cigarette through it.
Finally we got to this Hmong village on top of the mountain, a very high mountain by the way :), and we thought we were in a completely different world...little huts all spread out, pigs running around with Children, dogs and lots of chicken. There was a fire making school, where 3-4 year old children learned how to make a fire and we were just wandering around looking at everything. The astonishing thing is that although they have tourists visiting them 3 times a week (roughly), the kids are still shy and stare at us, the adults still friendly...
Finally we arrived at our place to stay for the night - the chief's hut in the next village. Inside our eyes needed to adjust to the smoke from the fire but then we felt very cosy...There was the chief and his third wife and tons of kids, hard to remember who belongs to who...oh and tons of dogs and cats too!
After dinner the whole family (altogether maybe 20 people) gathered in the hut and somebody lifted the old blanket off something in the corner and we saw a brand new TV! Watching a traditinal Hmong movie was quite boring so we went outside to get some fresh air and saw David smoking a joint with the chief! (The whole trek up the mountain he told us about his mission to smoke opium with the chief!)
Then we went back inside.
The chief, 63 yrs old, an amazing man, told us the story of his life, of his 3 wifes and why he thought that one side of his face was slightly paralyzed so it always looked as if he was smiling with one side of his mouth. Finally he got some opium out an smeered it on one of David's cigarettes.
The next morning we walked down which was nice for a change, stopping by some more villages and finally arriving back in the real world, Luang Prabang.
The next day we took off on a 2 day slow boat tour on the Mekong River to Huay Xai (bordering Thailand). The boat trip was amazing as well...sitting back (on wooden benches) and enjoying this world that hardly seems to be part of ours, at least not the way we know it.
Women wrapped in colourful sarongs, washing clothes and naked kids running around, playing in the water...fisher men standing on rocks with a simple net, waiting for the next fish...Water buffalos cooling off in the water....driving by bamboo huts half hidden by palmtrees....
We spend the night in Laos and crossed the border (=a 5 minute boat ride accross the Mekong River) to Chiang Kong, then continued to Chiang Rai and finally Chiang Mai.
The next two days we only relaxed, walked around the city, got our hair cut (finally!!) and organized our train ride to Laos.
Cheers and auf Wiedersehen,
Laura and Corey