Step 5: Back in Thailande (from 31^st to 2^nd january)

We spent few time at Chatuchak market for Christmas presents. By night it was new year eve. We spent it with a French couple, Elodie and Baptiste, met sooner in day. While bombs were bursting we were at the Bayoke Tower (the tallest building in Thailand) eating a great buffet and admiring the view... By midnight we went to an outdoor bar to kiss at midnight. At that time we weren’t sure bombs have burst. A bit after midnight they kindly asked customers to leave. Security reasons: to close all bars and pubs: 2 more bombs have burst at 12 in a night club...it was pretty freaky!

Matthieu left the next day and me I spent almost 2 more days there...walking around, visting. I left the 2^nd at 11pm to France...I was sad cause it was the end of my trip, but I knew I did the most difficult 1 month ago: to leave all my friends overthere and to know that I will never see everyone together again. I am sure now that I want to do a worldwide once in my life...Baptiste and Elodie are doing one right now for 8 months and I want to do that. 1 month it’s already great and I know I did a lot these past few months and I discovered I like traveling!!!!

Next destination...????

Step 4. Vietnam (from 18^th to 30^th )

Vietnam is composed by 80 millions of people for 330 000km² (Laos is 15 times less populated for 230 000km²). Although we are in Asia and they speak vietnamese they are using the same alphabet than us (more or less, but compare to the other languages overthere!). Hanoi is the capitale with less than 4 millions people and 2.5 millions of motorcycle (that’s why traffic there is packed!!!!). As a former French colony you can find some baguettes as well and also some specialties like dog meat...

It was my turn to be sick...so we didn’t do a lot the 1^st day. Afterwards we hung around the old quarter. I loved it...I love Hanoi. It’s a beautiful city, very crowed, polluted, messy and it is dangerous to cross streets but streets are so nice, and even if people jump on you to sell something they stay nice even if you don’t buy anything, architecture is nice, I don’t know I just felt good there. It’s funny because all shops in a street sell the same things, so you can find the “shoes street”,”souvenirs street”, “repair motorcycle street”, “gravestones street”...

We decided to do a 3 days trip to Halong bay (we thought it should be THE tremendous place while our trip). So we spent days around a beatutiful limestone landscape, did some kayak, did a small trek on Cat Ba Island (the biggest Island), sleept on a boat, sailed between rocks...I loved it too. Awesome!

Back to Hanoi we took a plane to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). We spent 2 days in HCMC and I really don’t like it. It is not as nice as Hanoi but as polluted and crowed as it is.

We were there for Christmas Eve and it is funny to see how they celebrate a such important fest in Europe. For us, it is not a Family thing...everyone is in the street, throwing away shaving cream and other stuffs, children are dressed up in Santa Claus, angel or even elk. It was quite –very- difficult to be far away of my family but I appreciate to see something else as well.

We decided not to go in Cambodia, because doing so many things in such few time is quite tiring, and you can never stay in a place and really enjoy it. Instead we wanted to spend more days in Vietnam as we liked it and then took a plan to Bangkok and spent our last days at Ko Phi Phi...I was very keen on this idea, but flight ticket was freaking expensive (194 US$ for one way!!!), so.....we forgot this plan and decided to take the open bus from HCMC to go back to Hanoi (NO???and yes!!!!we did that!!!) as it allowed us to still visit Vietnam by stoping where we wanted and flight tickets from Hanoi to Bangkok were half the price.

So we did a lot of bus travel, by night, by day (more than 30 h).

We stopped 2 days at Nha Trang, an attractive coastal town. We had a lot of fun there: we rent a motorcycle and I drove it ( just for remind: I don’t have my driving license :-) ), and of course we had an accident while I drove:someone tried to overdrive inner me at a roundabout (??? Do you understand what I mean?? Anyway just to say I wasn’t the only responsable:-) ). Fortunatly I am not a crazy driver and I didn’t drive fast (that’s why maybe the guy tried to overdrive me!!!)...Oh btw I didn’t tell you...the guy who tried to overdrive me was on bicycle (Yes, he was!!!shame on me :-( ). Anyway, we also did island hopping, snorkeling (Matthieu tried but he was quite stressed), sunbathing:nice

Afterwards we went to Hoi An for 2 days, a great city, small less traffic I loved it as well. This place is also the place for tailored suit and we did it, one each. The first day they took your mesuration and the next day you come for a try and they make changes...So fast and so well it’s incredible.

Finaly we reached Hanoi and took a plane to Bangkok...we needed times to order our luggages: it was almost end of the trip, so we had a lot of Christmas gifts.

Step 3: Laos (from 11^th to 17^th)

About Laos. Laos is composed by 5.3 millions of people and 85%of them live in rural area. It was merely shelled during Vietnam war (“Laos earned the unenviable distinction of being the most heavily-bombed place on earth” from BBC article.). As it was a –strong- communist government tourists weren’t allowed to go in before 90s. Nowadays, it is still a communist one but government understood the importance –the opportinuty- to open its border to foreign firms and foreign people...good for us.

In the morning we crossed the Mekong river and I saw a Laos town for the first time. I had many first impressions: slower life, people less “aggressive” with tourists, the road wasn’t tarmac and dusty...

From there we took the slow boat for 2 days (the slow boat not the speed boat as in the Lonely Planet they say it is “at your own risk” because tourist died) with a night stop at Pak Beng. Afterwards we arrived at Luang Pra Bang.

Luang Pra Bang is the 2^nd largest town in Laos, after Ventiane the capital. As it was the former capital, it is filled with a fascinating array of magnificent temples, historic monuments and crumbling French colonial houses.

We stayed 4 days there, in order to ride a bike around streets, to see the beautiful Kuang Si waterfall and to swim there, to visit temples and musuem. We saw tremendous sceneries. We also spent 1 day in a cooking class in a restaurant to learnt Laos food....it was awesome. Saddly Matthieu was ill 1 of these days. We wanted to try local food, so we ate at the night market but one night he tried something he didn’t digest (=tourista).

We finally left by night bus to Ventiane (210km for 8h :-), VIP bus with aircon=windows that you can open, hole in the ground). We arrived at 6am at Ventiane and at this time NOTHING is open!!! So we waited to go in a restaurant, took a breakfast and slept on a chair. I didn’t like Ventiane. I didn’t find it nice, beautiful or interesting....I was quite excited by the fact that we would take the plane to Vietnam!!!

I really appreciated to travel in Laos after traveling in Asia because as french colonized it there are still some french stuffs: good baguette, vache qui rit, local talking french.

Step 2 : Thailande (from december 5^th to 10^th)

Thailande is very touristy country. It is composed by more than 62 millions of people for around 510 000km² (552 000km² and 60 millions of people for France). In Thailande you can find everything: big cities, amazing beach and great mountains scenery. Bangkok is the capitale and due to a fast expansion it is not a very nice city: too much polluted, not easy to go from place to another, from the point of view of architecture there is no harmonization...I mean i’m not a great fan of Bangkok.
We left Singapore December the 5^th by plane to Bangkok. There I planned to leave luggages to a friend because I didn’t (and I couldn’t travel with all I gathered in 4 months in Singapore) but it didn’t match, so I left everything at the train station ( I was pretty worried about that I have to say!!).

We took a night train-see picture on the left-(the most confortable I have ever seen, but slow:14h for 700km) to go to Chiang Mai (the 2^nd largest city). We stayed there 1 days and did a 3 days trekk around with walking, elephant riding, rafting driving and sleeping in spartiate dorm in small village, eating wild pork and rice cooked in a bambou. It was very nice, and it was my first experience of living in a place where there was no electricity so activity by night is not very thorough :-)

After Thailande we planned to go to Laos. Air ticket was quite expensive, so we chose to go there by boat. But first, we did a 1 day drive to Chiang Khong, the Thai/Laos border and slept there. Doing travel by day is quite interesting as you can admire scenery and it is exactly what we did. North of Thailande is very mountainous and it's beautiful.