While in Thailand you can go to a variety of markets to pick up a quick little delicacy of bugs. Generally they’re fried and salted beetles and crickets and such. They taste fine, though when you have an empty stomach and you begin to get full off them, it’s slightly unappetizing.
Enjoy a four minute video of a real reaction to actually consuming bugs for the first time.
Leaving from Phuket, Thailand, we flew through Singapore on a budget airline called Tiger Airways, this is by far the cheapest way to get around South East Asia. The Singapore airline flies to parts of Australia, Thailand, India, China, The Phillippines, Macau and Vietnam.
We were able to spend one full day in Singapore, unfortunately all the traveling and party had caught up with me and I didn’t have as much energy as I had hoped to have.
Singapore (one of the worlds few city-states) is by far the cleanest place I have ever been in my life. There is no litter on the streets. Everyone is dressed causal/professional. The shopping there is incredible. Tourism is huge. English is a national language. It is a place that I would absolutely love to go to again. It is a shame I didn’t see more of the city. Singapore is the site of the original (and often imitated) Raffles Hotel.
Our trip has been amazing and other than a few hiccups we really haven’t encountered any major scams or found ourselves in any dangerous situations. Most of the people in Asia are genuinely kind with the exceptions of a few full time scammers. Yesterday we got on our final long distance bus ride from Ko Samui to Phuket. Along the way we were annoyed to find that even though we paid for VIP bus tickets, we were indeed on a local bus which stops about every 6 km to pick up and drop off local people. This adds anywhere from 2-5 hours to your trip. For us it was the latter. Not only did this bus frequently stop for the locals, it never stopped anywhere for us to eat. So we arrived 12 hours later famished, exhausted, and stiff.
I noticed that our bags, though loaded from the same side, were being unloaded from opposites sides of the bus, and mine was a disaster. My day pack was strapped on upside down and backwards, I figured they must have been messing with our bags a lot to access the bushels of onions, boxes of chickens and whatever else the locals were constantly loading on and off at there frequent stops. I was distracted by tuk tuk drivers offering to take Nick and I to a guesthouse. We settled on a very central yet overpriced place and checked in. When I opened my bag to change for dinner, I noticed that all my clothes were rolled into wrinkled balls and generally a huge mess. Again I thought it was from in a rush… So dinner was great, and afterwards we went back to the guesthouse and watched a DVD and eventually I just fell asleep in my clothes.
This morning I woke up and started to look through my stuff. That’s when I noticed what was up. All my medications were sprinkled in my pack, the “secret compartment” where I kept all my Australian banking and Visa info was torn open and scattered throughout my pack, and all the tailor made goods I was keeping in plastic bags were opened. I realized then that some little bastard was sitting in the luggage compartment on the bus going through peoples stuff. I knew my bag wasn’t the only one because I found some other peoples things in it. I checked my jewelry bag first and sure enough all my valuable stuff was gone. People had told me in
Unfortunately there is nothing I can do. The bus company switches your bus so many times that even if they did give you some kind of receipt for your tickets (which they don’t,) they are on another island and don’t even really know what bus company took you there. And had I noticed right away at the bus station, what would the driver have done? Probably laughed at me and said he had no idea what I was talking about. Who knows when the thief got in and out of the luggage compartment, maybe the driver doesn’t even know.
Anyway just a heads up to you all, BUY LOCKS for your zippers. Another thing that may have tipped them off is if your pack looks feminine, there know there is likely jewelry or designer accessories. Those are the only tips I really have. Well, I’m off to enjoy my last day of holiday now, starting with buying new underwear and bras…oh yeah, did I mention? The perverted little bastard stole those too.
After tubing I developed a severe case of pneumonia. I had to go directly to the hospital in Vang Vienne. I was placed on oxygen and antibiotics. Within 36 hours I was feeling much better, but it was felt that I need to be transfered from the small town to the capital Vientienne where I could receive better treatment. The hospital in Vang Vienne was a very nice, new facility. It was quite nice. I was transferred via 3 hours, painful ambulance ride. I spent two days in the Vang Vienne hospital and 3 days in Vientienne.
I have heard that if you are traveling in South East Asia and you need to be hospitalized, go directly to Bangkok for treatment. There is some truth to this, I’ll elaborate; the hospital in Vientienne is extremely dirty. There are ants everywhere. You receive approximately 15 minutes of attention a day. The doctors speak very little english, the nurses speak even less. The doctors and nurses give you no food. You will receive an intravenous dextrose drip. Luckily I had my girlfriend with me who made sure to get me food and water regularly. Had she not been there, my health would have been seriously compromised. Also, I had a lung infection that is cured with antibiotics. My family strongly encouraged me to get out of there, but since I was on the mend, with the help from my girlfriend, I felt safe.
Had I had a head injury, I would have left. I heard a story that a Swiss woman had a small head injury that required stitches. She was alone and received so little attention that the wound became infected and once she got proper medical treatment, a part of her brain had to be removed as a result of spreading infection.
The five days of hospital care, ambulance and medication costs me about $800 USD.
Vang Vieng, Laos is a hot spot for travelers. The real attraction is tubing down the Nam Song River. You rent a giant tire from the town for the equivelent of $4 USD. You then get a ride about 6km up the road and are dropped off to tube down the river. The water current takes you about 8kph. Within the first five minutes of tubing you’ll be coerced by locals to float to the shore to a bar. The locals stay near the water and will toss out bamboo sticks on a rope to pull you in if you can’t manage to paddle over in time. Within the first 20 minutes of tubing there are approximately 8 bars. They’re all bamboo and makeshift, but are quite pleasant. Most of the bars have trapeze swings and range from 5 to 15 meters high. One bar has 20 meter straight jump. I met a Hawaiian girl who jumped from 20 meters and almost lost consciousness on impact.
Each bar has inexpensive drinks. Beer and giant whiskey buckets are served regularly. By 4pm everyone is essentially plastered. Also available at the bars is marijuana, mushrooms and opium.
The sun goes down at about 6pm and most bars encourage you to leave by then. If you float down the river after dark, as long as you make enough noise, local children will swim out and pull you to shore at the appropriate place in order to return your tubes. Of course the children expect some money for their service, but it is up to you to pay them or not.
Tubing, without a doubt, is extremely dangerous. There is no possible way that something like this could exist in the western world. Lawsuits would be raised in regards to the ladders to the bars alone, let alone the several deaths that occur regularly. Within August the rumor was that four travelers died. With all the alcohol, drugs, strong current, high jumps and rocks you’ll understand how dangerous it is. Luckily the locals try to keep an eye out for the travelers, but it isn’t good enough. Also, it is irresponsible to serve drugs and alcohol together like they do.
That said, tubing is so much fun, be careful though.
I have heard that Laos is the place to go when traveling South East Asia. One of the reasons for that is it is so cheap. It is very beautiful. The mountains are large and dark green. The people are nice. Common words end in Lao. Whiskey Lao. Beer Lao. Lao Lao (which is a potent version of whiskey), mao lao, etc. While traveling in Laos I went to 3 places. Savanakhet, Vientienne (the capital) and Vang Vienne. From Hoi An, Vietnam the bus ride is painful to say the least. It takes over 20 hours straight travel. You are required to change busses several times and there is nothing pleasant about it. You’ll find that travel agents will mislead you in thinking that you are paying for comfort, but this is not the case. I would recommend flying if you are going from mid Vietnam to Laos. While on the journey we found that people gave offerings to their bus. I’m sure the bus enjoyed the soda pop.
