Got ill again at the end of our few days in Sihanoukville. God knows what from, we've given up trying to understand all these tropical illnesses.. Before it all got bad I convinced myself I wasn't going to get ill and had a chicken korma as the hostel was running an 'Indian Night'. Possibly biggest mistake of whole trip.. Sped up the process and can't say I'll be able to look at korma the same way after the deathly way it made me feel while sicking it up in a smelly hostel toilet.. No food is nice to sick up but curry has to be one of the worst. Felt really bad for the rest of the time there, with Ben having to carry me to the bathroom, couldn't leave the room which I was so gutted about because Sihanoukville was lush :( but at least I had one lovely day there.
Over the next few days we made our way back up through Cambodia and over to Bangkok. From Siem Reap we booked a bus that took us all the way over the border. A tiny rickety old bus arrived to pick us up in the morning, and transfer us to the bus stop. We all crammed into the boiling hot bus with too few seats and our bags piled on top of us and looked forward to getting on the big coach with air conditioning.. Unfortunately it became clear when we drove straight past the bus stop that this wasn't just the transfer bus but actually the bus taking us the whole 8 hour journey.. Uncomfortable but funny.
The bus steward came round asking for tickets and we heard a raised voice at the back of the bus. Realised in disbelief that a huge fat man with his wife and daughter, who wasn't english but was giving us a bad name by speaking in it, was shouting at the poor ticket man: 'NO you say TICKETS PLEASE SIR'. Couldn't believe he was being so rude to someone who clearly couldn't speak English well, AND telling him to speak English in bloody Cambodia! He then carried on by pointing at the poor bus steward and telling him to behave himself. EUrgh vile man.
Made it to the border, and still weak and in a daze from being ill, accidently left a gorgeous elephant present I'd bought for mum on the floor somewhere while we were filling in immigration forms. Only realised I'd left it in another country once I'd gone through to Thailand. Was wrapped in newspaper in a plastic bag so convinced myself that it would end up at a rubbish dump where a poor child would find it while scavenging and treasure it forever...
At Bangkok we tried to catch a taxi to our hostel, but they didn't know where it was so we named some hotels near it. He caught onto one of the hotel names and decided to take us there. We thought this would work out alright as we'd just get out near it and walk to our hostel. Instead when we arrived at the hotel he'd understood the name of, he took us through big posh barriers to the smart hotel entrance and car park, where doormen came and opened the door for us and took our dirty old rucksacks from the boot. We got out, feeling ridiculous as a bunch of scruffy travellers surrounded by smart people in their smart outfits. Embarassingly explained to the doorman that we weren't actually staying here, to which he looked very relieved and sent us on our way.
The next evening we caught another fun sleeper train, this time up to the border with Laos. Woke up in Nong Khai where we got on a train across the 'Friendship Bridge' to Laos immigration. During the morning of our passing through immigration we noticed a tall, loud german man possibly mental, definitely drunk who barged his way to the front of every queue shouting various words at the back of peoples heads till they jumped out of the way in confusion, making one girl cry as he harassed her in a different language. Everybody seemed too scared to question him, he was clearly slightly off the rails.. Have no idea why they let him through the border but they did, as we got our taxi to Vientianne we saw him on the side of the road clearly just been kicked out of one taxi and trying to hail down another. Our driver went to stop for him but when we all screamed NOOO and tried to explain he was a nasty nasty man he kept driving.
Vientianne is the capital of Laos, but alot of it got destroyed during the Siam invasion, so there wasn't much to see. Had a few days exploring as much as we could and a nice night out at a pretty roof-top bar.
Took an 11 hour bus journey up to Luang Prabang through the mountains. Luang Prabang is such a beautiful French collonial city, surrounded on 3 sides by the Mekong river and another smaller one. The buildings are lovely, with so many pretty little alleys and streets to explore. Our hostel is called spicy Laos, the same company as the one we stayed with in Chiang Mai and equally fun and chilled out with free breakfast sat on cushions on the balcony. That evening we made our way to the night Market in town and had delicious chicken baguettes, where they grilled the chicken and made it all freshly infront of you. Had a mango, banana and pineapple fruit shake. SO GOOD. On our first day there we booked a trip to Kuang Si waterfall. Was more beautiful than we could have ever imagined, the water is so clean and blue, with amazing waterfalls and pools to swim in. Jumped in the first one we came across and all sat on top of a small waterfall with our legs dangling over before sliding in. Jumped down off a log that stuck out over the pool like a diving board, maximum a metre from the surface and I still screamed. I AM SCARED OF HEIGHTS. Moved up to the next pool with a rope swing to swing in from and a 6 metre high waterfall to jump off. Watched the boys climb the slippery tree and swing into the pool. I enjoyed swimming in the lush water in the sun while they threw themselves from crazy heights. They insisted I was missing out by not either doing the rope swing or jumping from the water fall. I explained that I hate heights and I am getting enough fun just being here.. But found myself at the top of the stupidly high waterfall with water rushing past my legs, hyperventilating and insisting I couldn't do it. Only jumped when a sarcastic cunt behind me asked 'are you ever gunna jump or what?'. HORRIFIC. Felt like I was falling to my death before I hit the surface and water filled my every oriface.. including eye sockets. I enjoy adrenaline rushes from things that at least involve more than a second of enjoyment before you're engulfed in pain.. Spent the evening browsing the fab night Market and buying some lovely souveniers for home. Love it here, my favourite place out of everywhere we've been, wish we had longer than 5 nights.
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