Just Step off the pavement and walk

Kids are in heaven, after a few weeks of roughing it and being constantly on the move we are in a clean modern hotel, free internet, cable TV and room service. We left them to enjoy and head out to explore Ho Chi Min City (Saigon).

We had heard from a few people about the traffic in Saigon. The only way to cross is to just step of the pavement and walk, trusting all the drivers to flow around you. It is quite a thing to get your head around and I had thought about it a lot. Finally here Louise and I were at one of the busiest traffic circles in Saigon opposite the main city market and we had to get to the other side. Taking a deep breath we stepped of and walked……..like schools of fish the hundreds of scooters, motorbikes, and taxis flowed around us without missing a beat.

Our trip through Asia has been like this, no plan or agenda just step of the pavement and walk, often putting our lives in other people hands. We are coming to the end of the first half of our journey and are once again on the banks of the mighty and inexplicable Mekong River. From the northern most tip of Thailand near the Chinese border, through Laos, back into Thailand, through Cambodia and now close to the ocean in Vietnam we have been zig zagging the Mekong.

We had used every mode of transport imagineable - busses, scooters, boats, canoes, trains, bicycles, tuk tuks, elephants, pontoons, rafts and rickshaws. Traveling this way has its rewards, slow travel lets you appreciate where you are and gain an insight into the daily life of the locals. Your rhythm changes, distances become real again, you acquire a sense of discovery and adventure sharing your days, meals and boredom with people you would otherwise never meet. The humanity that moves about with bundles and children while the world of the aeroplane passes over their heads in every sense of the word. Slow travel is for us, but then I guess you have got to have the time.

What a great and pleasant surprise Ho Chi Min city turns out to be, feels like the Paris of SE Asia. We arrive at the market and after 2 seconds Craig is bored, anyway we end up in the food section and he is no longer bored - funny that. We sit down to Vietnamese spring rolls and a beer from one of the many stalls yumm, Craig’s in heaven and he could have stayed all afternoon but I dragged him off to look at all the groceries and delicious delicacies.

The food market is staggering and we realize that there is a whole new world to food in Vietnam. After spending so much time in little rural towns and villages we are back in foodie heaven. We start thinking about dinner and having seen lots of fresh seafood we decide to fetch the boys and hunt down some chilli crab. We walk back to the hotel, down-load, un-pack, freshen up and then get our concierge to flag down a “real” meter taxi to dinner. Bill is mortified as he is missing his Arsenal game to come and eat with us, shame poor deprived child!!

This restaurant comes highly recommended from an article given to us by the foodie of all time Irene and boy was it an incredible experience! The restaurant is packed, mostly with locals, which is a good sign but after a few minutes at the entrance we are shown to a table by our friendly waiter. There are 15 different kitchens surrounding a central courtyard with each kitchen preparing its own delicacy. A salad section, a barbecue section, a steam section, a soup section and so on and so on.

After being taken on an impromptu guided tour by our showman waiter through all the various kitchens we are flummoxed - how to decide when everything is so mouthwatering! We finally settled on a papaya salad – spicy (just for a change) a chicken mince meatball packed around a sugar cane stick- deep fried, a prawn toast/fritter and the piece de resistance our Crab steamed and stir fried in a Tamarind sauce - God it was sublime. Kids have salad and chicken – a few beers, a bottle of wine all bloody marvelous and happiness all round.

Back to the hotel to drop the kids and we decide to hit the town. It’s a Friday night and the city is busy, the streets are lined with bars, clubs, restaurants, massage parlors packed with people and noise. We settle on a corner bar and try and get a take on things, we are in the touristy part so there is lots of action. People on the make everywhere sex being the central theme- “love you long time one dollar”. Tomorrow we leave and are feeling sad, having caught a glimpse of the shade we want to see the sun. Vietnam we hope to see you again soon.

Kayaking to Vientiane and onto the Islands down South

We woke up early and got into the back of a truck with canoes stacked up to the sky and hit the windey road, a Dutch girl who had a dogey stomach and gets car sick was in with us - another barf bag, and my tissues and wet wipe later she sheepishly with many apologies started looking helpless holding the bag and not sure what to do with it. Craig who was sitting next to her and looking rather green himself told her this is not Holland toss the bag out the truck.We arrived at our canoe stop and hit the river anticipating 2, 3 and 4 grade rapids and watched our bags disappearing over the hill on the truck destined for our end point, wondering if we would ever see them again.

Lou partnered with Bill, Nick with Craig, I definitely lucked out with Bill he and I were a team and he worked hard, Nicky on the other hand played the fool the whole trip and at one point as I canoed past he was lying back and using the paddle pretending to be doing bench press, he definitely is training to be Mr. Funny guy. We stopped before the big rapids, climbed out and walked round to check them out and then got a vague go to the middle mmmm, who bloody thought of this. Anyway Janine and Lawrence, me and Bill ended up capsizing, no one injured so all ok, they made us lunch on the side of the river little kebabs, with baguettes, the last part of the journey got a bit long in the tooth and I think we all lost our sense of humor, anyway at least the car to Vientiane was air-conditioned and a mini bus.

We got dropped off and walked towards town and the river all a bit frayed at the edges and there like a mirage in the desert was a shiny new hotel, I was saying in my mind – that’s for me and then Janine god bless her soul said it, we walked in did the deal and had shiny new bathrooms and rooms, what a pleasure. Hit a local expat French restaurant and tucked into steaks and red wine for a change and languished in our aircon rooms seeing what had happened in the outside world in the last few weeks, elections SA! Viva Zuma!

The next day awoke to no electricity, no aircon, no money and temperatures soaring. Realized my mobile had been switched of and packed in the bottom of my bag for two weeks, not missing it at all!

We have been in Laos about 2 weeks now, for a communist country it has been remarkably free and easy but time to move on. Bus to border, border crossing, overnight train to Bangkok, and flight to the South and the islands. All accomplished in 24 hours, its amazing how organized travel is in this part of the world. Small operators, very entrepreneurial and cheap, SA could pick up some good tips here.

Decided on new financial plan for the boys - pocket money 250 bahts each every three days. Arrived at Bangkok airport and both boys blew their new found wealth in one go on Sushi. Took Nicky a 10 baht bet to eat a big blob of Wasabi, should have seen his face on his first Wasabi rush priceless!

Luang Prabang

Woke up to find this amazing town, it was previously a French colony so the buildings are soooooo Kapstadt International, French-Indochinese architecture, some of Laos best cuisine and most sacred Buddha image. It’s full of monks from tiny little boy monks to ancient wise old men all draped in my favorite colour orange.

First things first - a little walk to orient ourselves and then ……. A massage of course to smooth out the aches and pains - excruciating but hey afterwards you feel like a million dollars. Bill and Nick are now connoisseurs at massage.

While walking through this town each building is more charming than the next, lots of architectural ideas for Elands, this is a stunning town and I think we will be back.

First time I’ve ever seen Alms? (Where the monks walk around and people give them offerings, awesome sight all the monks) It starts at sunrise you hear the gongs from the Wats then they walk through the streets with these pots that people put there offerings into.

We also took ourselves off to the local theatre, being a Unesco world heritage town they preserve all heritage including theatre, it was well , mm fabulous costumes, lots of Wats,(wots a wat you may ask, a Budhist temple) the Kings Palace, also popped into the art academy and saw all the students art, impressive.

The thing is that I am such a foodie that if there is a food market I’m there, little prepared was I for the reality of Laos, The morning of the monk Alms, Craig and I stumbled upon the one in the old city, it was horrendous, how do you describe beautiful ½ meter lizards tied up I mean their front legs tied behind their backs, dead birds, small birds in cages dried rats/squirrels, all kinds of bugs, dead and alive (saw a lady working on a big bowl of bugs emitting rustling sounds, removing the big legs so the bugs cant crawl out the bowl straight out of raiders of the lost ark), made me feel queasy and tearful, Craig wanted to buy all the lizards and set them free.

Tamarind – is the name of a good restaurant and cookery school, owned by a Laos man and his Australian wife. They do a whole fish packed with lemongrass and herbs wrapped in banana leaves and baked on a barbecue, it was a three course meal , wonderful, and so I arranged to come back for a cooking class – perfect last day in Louang.

Phabang.

On my cooking course with the first signs of a dodgy stomach we headed early for the very un-touristy local market and all was well until the guy said anyone vegetarian or squeamish should wait by the car, ohhh do I wish I had listened to my tummy, how do you describe this meat market , well an abundance of flies, no refrigeration, congealed blood thickened with rice flour (people eat this) pigs heads – a delicacy, eggs with numbers on mean embryos inside and people buy these for more money and eat it (a combo of egg and chicken taste I guess) YUUUUK, also buffalo skin with the hair and fat in strips they liken it to biltong cook it on the Barbie and yes well eat it too, I think the worst for me was the womb of a water buffalo with a baby inside, ok it was just the end for me I ran for the car.

The cooking course was superb and would have been exceptional barring the fact I had the first dodgy tummy since our journey began, I learned the essence of Laos cooking which I can’t wait to share with all of you so no info.

So with another 6 hours on a bus trip the next day we have opted for a VIP air-conditioned bus with a toilet. (We are learning!)

Pak Beng to Vang Veiene

We had a late start with the boat as some tossers woke up late and the boat won’t leave until everyone’s on, lots of stunning backpackers. The thing about westerners is we are so focused on instant gratification, and when you travel this way you really get to slow down, you cannot throw a western tantrum and demand to start the boat, they would look at you as if you were quite mad, it is such a good lesson on stillness, inside and out, it takes TIME, while you are on the journey find joy, stretch sleep (on the floor) play cards, read, speak to others including the locals- hear their storey, broaden your mind watch how others live along the way. Amazing scenery- incredible settlements and people, so simple yet beautiful. I watched our sons accept the time and even though we got “when are we gonna get there?” a few times – guess who???

Bill personified his Buddha nature and was amazing no complaints, he went with the flow, Nicky was entertaining, irritating and then started sitting at the periphery of some young backpackers playing cards, next thing he was in playing and speaking with all these young people, he eventually got his dad and Bill to join the game, he has a knack that one - MR Personality.

We finally got to Luang Prabang late and tired beyond explanation, puffy ankles from no exercise, we found an expensive but stunning guest house and booked in – the hunt for the real one was the next morning’s mission. (Which made our French owner very grumpy – but hey that’s normal for the French) oh and mission accomplished next door stunning Laos people and rooms at half the price, clean – aircon, what more could a family want.

That night it was the best exfoliation, shower, hair wash I have ever experienced, there is something quite spiritual in those first moments of being clean; you can face the world again!

Down the Mekong to Pak Beng

We have met the fabest couple from Canada and due to the political stirrings and a few flare-ups of unrest in Bangkok we have decided to hop onto their (the fab Canadians) itinery of to Laos down the Mekong, head across the border into Laos and eventually end up in Louang Phabang. A big part of traveling involves well traveling and we had a three day trip ahead of us. The first day was a grueling 4 hours back down to Chang Mai and then a long 6 hour to the Laos Border.

We arrived at 9 at night and Lawrence dashed of in the tuk-tuk got us a room thank god as it was the last. It felt like days on the bus to get there, long and boring, we ended up playing I spy and laughing at silly things a lot.

The next morning we woke up early and was sitting in the funny guest house we found on the river in the coolest open restaurant with Laos across the river, someone singing and playing flute, the occasional cock crow, after breakfast we headed for immigration caught a boat across the Mekong to Laos, got visas in the extreme heat and then landed up on a slow boat packed to the full of travelers and a few locals down the Mekong 6 hours+

We arrived in Pakbeng a small little one road town that felt like a frontier town from another era with a couple of guest houses and restaurants, a stunning market (straight out of my wish list no crap just real food market) lots of chickens, dogs, puppies, cats and the occasional pig and goat (one of which we heard squealing for its life as it was slaughtered that morning). Not very Buddhist. The locals here are different from Thais a lot softer not so hardened by years of foreigners abuse. We found a fabulous guest house for about R30 a night hot shower, electricity until 10 - en the whole village shuts down.

I had the most exceptional fish dish from this Local guy who Lawrence met on the boat yesterday, it was catfish with a Soya/oyster sauce (not sure I asked but we were'nt sure of the answer.) Must have been grilled on a flat plate with caramelized ginger sauce. Craig had Lap - a minced pork and a mint dish similar to the Thai dish I like to make. The food was brilliant, fresh and well bloody authentic. Woke up early to the sound of the village coming to life stepped out on our balcony overlooking village and glimpse life Laos Pakbeng style.

The local kids are so gorgeous, I could bring a few home with me!