Koh Tao Festival is upon us again! It happens every year, and is a two day event run by the Save Koh Tao organisation, and the local Koh Taoian community. This year it falls on the 18th and 19th of June, and right now I can hear the thumping bass from the festival grounds. It’s my third year attending the Koh Tao Festival, and as always, it’s a time for the Thais, Burmese workers, and Westerners (local, and tourists) to mingle, eat food, drink, and listen to looooud, peaking Thai techno/pop. There’s also usually a few shows that are performed on the main stage, and last night we watched the…
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Money Matters in South East Asia
Money is obviously important everywhere and anywhere, but especially when you’re moving from one place to another, and changing currencies. Here are a few things we discovered about money as we traveled.
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Beer Lao Company. Our Experience During The Factory Tour
We always thought Vientiane is a cool little city. However there is not a ton of things to do here. So, today we thought, we’d check out the Beer Lao Company and do their factory tour. What does the Beer Lao Company factory tour cost? The price per person to partake in the tour is 40,000 kip. This will certainly not break even the tightest budget! What does the tour entail? Firstly, you get to watch a basic corporate video in their private air-conditioned cinema. The video details the Beer Lao company history, investor statistics and what awards the beer Lao has been awarded. I would call it beer propaganda! It…
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COPE Rehabilitation Centre – Vientiane, Laos
Cost Free A tuk-tuk will cost about 50,000 kip each way from the centre of the city. We hired a motorbike for 24 hours for 60,000 kip and rode to COPE. What A FREE museum where you can learn about ‘The Secret War’ that America conducted against Laos a few decades ago. You also learn about the type of bombs that still remain in the country, hindering economic progress, and read/watch/listen to stories about people who have lost limbs and livelihoods thanks to these horrible bombs. Where Boulevard Khouvieng, Vientiane, Laos View COPE Visitor Centre in a larger map Comments We first visited COPE in Vientiane a couple of months…
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A Three Day Trek; Water Bombs, Leeches & LaoLao Whiskey
So we booked a three day trek with Jewel Travel Laos to trek around Nong Khiaw starting from Ban (Village) Houy Khong, through Ban Vieg Hinh and Ban Payong and down to the river where we would catch a boat back to Nong Khiaw. As we had met up with the Aussie couple from Sapa, Sarah and Scott, we decided to do a trek together. Day 1 was pretty crazy. We walked through some rice paddies, up through the jungle and then came to a waterfall where we assumed we would eat lunch and have a swim. How wrong we were. Turns out our path WAS the waterfall. Upstream. For…
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Top 10 Things To Do In Cambodia
In the order that I remember them. 1. Get a Blind Massage This is definitely an experience. No pampering, no fuss, just exactly what it says on the sign. A massage by a blind masseur. 60 minutes for $5. A few dollars for a good cause to help the blind make a living working instead of on the street. Don’t let the dirt road alleyway entrance or lack of English deter you. Where: Seeing Hands 4 in Siem Reap. There are Seeing Hands franchises in Phnom Penh, and Sihanoukville too. 2. Visit Angkor Wat at the Angkor Archaeological Park. These 900 year old ruins are a spectacular sight. You can…
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Ho Chi Minh’s Body
Today we went to see Vietnam’s most famed deceased person, Mr. Ho Chi Minh. Yes, deceased. Dead. Ho Chi Minh, more affectionately known as Uncle Ho, is the man who is famed for unifying Vietnam and fighting the Japanese, the French and then the Americans. And he’s dead. Since 1969 actually. Against his wishes, the Vietnamese government decided to embalm him so that he could be with the people forever. And it’s pretty cool. We got to the mausoleum around 9.30am – it’s only open from 8am to 11am, and despite the large crowd of people, the line moved swiftly and orderly. We got into a bit of a fight…
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Cao Dai & Cu Chi Tunnels
Because we love big tourist bus tours to sights, we decided to do the day trip to Cao Dai and Cu Chi tunnels. They picked us up from our hotel by walking. Someone came and walked with us to the bus – classic. The bus was very nice, we got some food and water, there was air-conditioning and a very enthusiastic guide who talked about history and other random things the whole way. After an hour or so, we stopped at a surprise, yet obligatory stop at a handicapped art factory. We were all shuffled off the bus, through the factory, through the store with many other tour buses. Ah…
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Go to the Cinemas in Ho Chi Minh – Check!
Went for a walk along the riverside before we got rained out. Wearing our ridiculous ponchos we wandered into the Bitexco Financial Building, the highest building in Ho Chi Minh City at 262 meters. It provided shelter from the rain, air-conditioning from the humidity and when we stumbled upon the cinema inside, we were so excited! Ended up watching Brad Pitt’s World War Z which was very entertaining. I found that Vietnamese audiences are pretty loud; they talk a lot during the film, phones were ringing constantly and they were really responsive, someone yelled ‘ooo, shit’ loudly when a zombie popped up. Prices were cheap too. As it was a…
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Elephant Trek in Sen Monorom, Mondulkiri
Besides the politics, we were very excited to embark on our elephant trek today. Mr. Tree drove us out to the local Bunong village where we met our guide at his house. His wife had just given birth four days ago. Their house was basic with an open fire inside. Soon after we met our elephant and set off on our trek. For the most part it was narrow paths, sometimes they were really compact and hard making them very slippery, but the majority of them were very muddy and slippery as it had been raining for days. Every chance she got, she would go off the path and feed…
