6-18 July 2008 - Laos

The moment we stepped foot in Laos the rain was never far away. It rained every afternoon and was torrential and sometimes stayed around for a good couple of hours (but thankfully this meant the temp was much cooler than Vietnam which was a relief to everyone). Keeping this in mind, and the fact we were driving across a mountain, we had to stop due to 3 very large landslides covering the road. The sort that can't be driven around, or over and being in Laos, it could be hours before it's cleared away. As Soon and the Laos guide were wondering what to do, they realised another Intrepid trip was coming up the other way. What luck we had in being able to 'swap' minivans on either side of the landslides. Of course that meant we had to get from one minivan to the other....

We put on our backpacks, grabbed any other bags and headed for the first landslide. Not only was it extremely muddy, it was raining still and the gradient was steep going up and then down the other side. Most of us needed help from each other due to the precarious nature of balancing 15+kg on your back and numerous other bags and walking up and down a very muddy slope...which 2 people found went up to your thigh if you stepped in the wrong place!! Lets just the next hotel had a large amount of very muddy clothes to wash (and the poor minivan driver had a very muddy minivan to wash). But everyone got through safely except for a flipflop still MIA!

Laos food is very much like Thai and a hell of a lot spicier than Vietnamese! We found that out the hard way on one of the nights as the cook forgot to put the chilli on the side and put it in the meal...there were a good few tears, and not many people could finish their meal. But the food is delicious and the coffee is as good as Vietnam.

Vang Vieng is famous for its tubing. In fact this town is only here for this one purpose only. You can either do the 4km in 1hr (just sitting on the river), or 6 hours if you want to do a tubing pub crawl! The pubs (and I use this term loosely) have people to pull you in from the river and try to get you before you float past them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The river is called Nam Song and as it is the 'rainy season' it is very high, very fast and very dirty. But oh so much fun!

We then headed of for another 8hr travel day to get to Luang Prabang. It is a lovely place to chill out – very much geared to westerners with its own coffee houses and western pubs. There is a lot of French architecture, a fab night market and gorgeous view point over the city if you want to climb over 300 steps We also got up at 5am to see the monks collecting alms – ie. their food for the day. Locals will come out and sit in the street waiting for them to pass by – about 60 of them in total.

After Luang we boarded our boat for a 2-day journey (and I do have to put my hand up and admit it was pretty boring) down the Mekong River to Pak Beng and then on to Huay Xai. In the evening, we docked at the small town of Pak Beng to spend the night (all electricity is turned off by about 11pm).

After this we had a border crossing back into Thailand which ended our trip!

I do like Laos, and it is very similar to Thailand. The scenery is very lush and absolutely stunning in Vang Vieng, but it is not as cheap as we imagined (except for Beer Lao which is usually the cheapest thing on any menu (660ml for 10,000 kip (c. US$1.20)). Most of us have also discovered the 'towers' you can buy that holds 3 litres of Beer Lao...amazing good value.

A collection of my favourite photos from Laos (top to bottom, left to right):
- Monks collecting their alms
- Preying on good fortune
- Even the young are taken to the temples to prey
- A monk and his 'Beer Laos' umbrella!
- Monks are allowed mobiles and obviously know how to take pictures with them!
- An evening by the Mekong River
- Bringing in the rice (a very dirty job)
- Collecting alms

22 June-5 July 2008 – Vietnam

I love Vietnam....even with all its chaos and motorbikes! Vietnam is just so different from Cambodia. The Vietnamese food has to be my all time favourite – Pho noodles, fresh spring rolls, cau lao, white rose, Vietnamese pancakes, bbq and most other dishes are so delicious. I would come back to Vietnam just for the food. And as for the coffee...that definitely has to rival anything from the UK (maybe not NZ though...).

I really do like Saigon but crossing the street is literally taking your life into your hands. There are about 5m people in Vietnam, and 3m motorcycles (more like mopeds)...so when you cross the street there is never a naturally break in the traffic so you step out slowly and keep moving slowly and let the bikes dodge you (I'm not kidding!). You just need to watch out for the kamikaze bikers who want to run you down!!

We visited the War Remnants Museum which houses remnants from the Vietnam War. We also went and saw the Cu Chi tunnels that the Viet Cong created. They run for about 200km and go from the Cu Chi river to under the US army base...the US army never knew they were literally under them the whole time! The tunnels are very claustrophobic to crawl through and I am told that they have been expanded for 'Westerners'...so the real tunnels are much smaller! There are three levels, at 3 metres, 6 metres and 9 metres deep and they had bunkers which houses the hospital, kitchen etc. Once the US realised they existed, they first tried to throw down gasoline and set it alight...but all that did was harden the clay, then they put dogs down there to flush them out, but the VC used the US garbage (food, cigarettes, toilet paper etc) to put off the dogs' scent, then they tried to drown the VC and then lastly, the US bombed the hell out of them...which did collapse the tunnels.

We then went to Nga Trang....scuba diving, lazing about on the beach and drinking Saigon beer was about the only thing on the menu! After that we went to Hoi An which we all fall in love with.

It only has a population of 80,000 and it has amazingly well preserved architecture - there is a part of the town ('Old town') recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is also probably the hottest part of Vietnam so far so most of us were sweating like crazy the minute you step outside the hotel. The best time of day is after 2pm when a thin layer of clouds come over and it stops the full glare of the sun. One afternoon we went for a bike ride into the countryside and it was lots of fun. We passed people just out and about doing their everyday work and when we cycled past kids they would all high-5 us.

It is also the place to get any tailoring done. Thanks to a friend's recommendation I found a fantastic tailor (two sisters) who I then recommended to everyone else in the group and they must have made about US$1,000 from us all. If anyone intends coming over the tailor's address is: Phoung Nam, 15 Phu Tran, Hoi An.

We spent 1 night in Hanoi before escaping to see Halong Bay on a day boat. Halong Bay is in north eastern part of Vietnam and very beautiful with its nearly 2,000 limestone islands. We stopped to go to one grotto called Thien Cung, but so did every other tourist!

I liked Saigon better than Hanoi...not sure why, but Saigon has a better vibe to it. Hanoi is very historic and we were staying in the Old Quarter where 100,000 people live in 100 square miles...the most populated area in the world and only consists of 36 streets that are named after the product they sell (e.g. fabric, electrics, spices...). I went to see the water puppets and it was very entertaining (I recommend everyone go and see them). I am sure the expertise needed to manage one of the puppets is more than I have! In fact only a few families in Vietnam teach the art and every puppeteer has to study under them.

A collection of my favourite photos from Vietnam (top to bottom, left to right):
- Sleeping and keeping cool
- A very friendly local
- Young boys entranced with us westerners!
- Cruising along Halong Bay
- A temple in the lake (Lake of the Restored Sword in Hanoi)
- Harvesting time
- I even did a double take at what is on her top!!
- A monk's homework fluttering in the breeze
- Du Tuc's tomb near to Hue
- A painting by a 14 year old...it says a lot!
- A sign I found in a park...give it a read...
- Nga Trang beach
- A sailor in Hoi An
- Very brightly coloured lanterns

9-21 June 2008 – Cambodia

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Cambodia. The heat was hard to get used to, particularly in Siem Reap – but thankfully it was clouded over a lot of the time. The first thing we did was go to the Angkor Wat complex. We had two days to look around and what an amazing place. The temples are spread over 40 miles and built between the 8th and 13th centuries. We managed to get around to see 6 temples...all very different from each other and could well be built in different centuries. The Angkor Wat temple is the most fascinating but my favourite was the temple where some of Tomb Raider was filmed.

In fact, travelling through Cambodia now it is sometimes hard to imagine the atrocities that went on. But it did get very real when we arrived in Phenom Pehn and visited the Killing Fields and S-21, the infamous torture and interrogation centre the Khmer Rouge set up during the war.

Cambodia is still being developed for tourists and is still more a destination for backpackers rather than 3-5* travellers. It is dirtier, noisier and more chaotic than Vietnam, the food is pretty non-descript...lots of rice and instant noodles, and the roads atrocious in some parts. Got to say though, Angkor beer goes down very well and on the beach it was only 50c for half a pint, $2 for a cocktail (where they certainly don't measure out the alcohol) and around $4 for a seafood feast!

A collection of my favourite photos from Cambodia (top to bottom, left to right):
- The memorial at the Killing Fields contains the skulls from the mass graves
- A friendly face!
- Who can spot the tarantulas?
- Sleeping on the job (it is afternoon siesta time as it's so hot)
- Rain in paradise (usually in the afternoon and torrentially)
- The grisly rules of S-21 (the prison where Pol Pot put everyone he didn't like)
- The group
- Angkor Wat temple
- A young girl selling fans (the best buy I ever made!)
- Up to no good!
- Angkor Wat temple

25-27 April 2008 - Milan, Italy

Vicky, a good friend of mine, finally decided to do the 'right' thing, and marry Conall. Preceding such a commitment, you have something called a 'hen's night' and therefore a weekend was planned for celebration/commiseration in Milan.

There were eleven of us - 8 friends and 3 mothers. We arrived in the afternoon and after finding out hotel we ventured into the city square where we were met by riot police and lots of people! We didn't know that we had arrived on a public holiday and the hot topic was the liberation of Italy by the US...because there were riot police about, I wasn't entirely sure it was a protest or celebration....

Milan has a lovely cathedral and shopping pricinct (where Posh Spice shops) and after spending the afternoon walking about in sunny 20 degree temps, we found an ice cream shop that was shouting at us to come and try it out! I forgot how nice it is to eat an ice cream in warm weather - will London ever be warm again!!??

That night was the first night of 'celebration' and we ended up in a restaurant called Joia, dressed like angels (literally)!

The meal was an experience and a half...very 'out there' and 'spiritual'....

There were six courses, and the most memorable one for me was

the soup...you had 3 small glasses of soup, you ate half of the middle one, mixed in the one from the left, ate half that again, and then added in the right one. Amazing how the taste changed with each addition.

Two hours later we were absolutely stuffed - even though they were 6 small courses, over 2 hours it all added up (as did the bill...along the lines of about €880)!. But we didn't mind paying as it was worth it for the experience, the absolutely delicious food and supurb service.

The next day we all got on the hop on-hop off bus which took us around Milan. Milan seemed to be just another European city - there is the cathedral, the church, the castle and the expensive shops, but not much more....except of course, the 'Last Supper' painting. Vicky - the art history buff she is - gave us a great 'lecture' on the painting and that certainly helped with the memory! (trying to think back to the Di Vinci Code...)

That night there were lots of festivities, and thankfully the Italian waiters were good sports...enough said! Here is a picture that sums it all up....

The next day we headed home....some great memories to take away, and hopefully the 'bride-to-be' enjoyed it as much as everyone else did.

29 Feb-3 March 2008 – Altenmarkt, Austria (skiing trip 2)

Some of us decided to head back to Altenmarkt for another weekend of skiing (myself, Carla and Terreis). Very much like last time, but the weather was warmer and there was less snow about (the warmest any local has ever experienced in February).

Saying that, the field was closed for two afternoons due to high winds (talk about being blown down the mountain) and we also had wet weather and snow one night. We spent the afternoons shopping (well Carla and Terreis did) and eating and drinking.

On the Friday night we went out night clubbing and as C and T aren't the young bunnies they once were, they ended up sleeping the whole next day to get rid of their hang overs! I was on the skifield skiing my heart out - the weather wasn't too nice, but the snow was good and there were not many people about.

The consolation prize was the last day when the sun was shining very brightly and we had a fantastic day skiing over in Flachau - another ski field but in the same general area. This ski field was wider and not as steep as Zauchensee, but was it busy! Every man, woman, child and dog was on the ski field and it took 4 chairlifts to get to the top of the mountain. At least in Zauchensee it was at most two.

At Flachau there was great, OK and just plain ugly snow conditions as the sun was quite hot and there were lots of people about. Talk about quad-burn on the last run down - it was a combination of moguls and slush! But we all had fun and I came back injury-free. We are already thinking about next year's trip....

17-20 January 2008 – Altenmarkt, Austria (skiing)

There were 16 of us in total meeting up in Altenmarkt (45mins from Salzburg airport) for a long weekend skiing. Seven of us were coming from the London Credit Suisse presentation team, and nine from the Frankfurt Deutsche Bank presentation team (a big thanks to Wolfgang, Alex and Vesko for organising this).

Some of us from London were flying in on little sleep – for me I had no sleep as the flight was at 6.30am and I went straight from work to the airport. It meant that when we got to the ski resort, we dumped our stuff at the very lovely apartment we were staying at, got the shuttle bus to the ski slope, got our hire gear and pass and skied for the afternoon.

The skifield (Zauchensee) was great – lots of runs to choose from and though it was snowing, there was no wind and little people about. The runs were mostly intermediate with some black runs thrown in. With it snowing there was lots of powder and we had reasonably good visibility. We skied the whole afternoon and then got the shuttle bus back to Altenmarkt (only 20mins away).

The ‘Germans’ were coming by train and didn’t get there till that evening. When they turned up we got ready and headed out to dinner with them. I was literally falling asleep at the table by 10pm, so I excused myself and went to bed. Some stayed out a little later but most of the us from CS were in bed by midnight. The Frankfurt guys were out later, but they had slept the previous night!

And then it all went wrong…

…The next morning I was skiing along happily (and doing pretty well considering I hadn't skiied for two years) when I stupidly got my pole in the way of a ski and took a tumble. Not a bad fall in any way, shape or form, but I did fall awkwardly and ended up tearing my left calf muscle. By the time I got down the slope I couldn’t even clench my calf muscle without it screaming in pain! I ended up going to the hospital and after an ultrasound came back negative on a haematoma (bleeding in the muscle), I limped out with painkillers and 1-2 weeks of no activity ahead of me.

Though I couldn’t ski, I still managed to hobble around and keep occupied. There were others who kept me company as they were either injured or tired so I wasn’t completely bored. Still managed to enjoy meals out, go to a nightclub and have fun with everyone. I just couldn’t walk very fast, or put any weight on my calf muscle.

In fact my injury kept me from making a very unwise decision on the Saturday night – to go down a very long, steep and icy slope that had no lighting except for the moon, on the back of a sled with people who had been drinking since 8pm that night! Let’s just say that there were a few more people not skiing the next day!

Being injured was not the scenario I had in mind for the long weekend but I did get some fresh air (except for smoking in public places which is allowed in Austria), met some fab people and had a good laugh.