This is what we did today...

...to all of our friends and family, and a very happy New Year.  I'm off to light the barbecue...

I spy, with my little eye...

...a five foot long monitor lizard a few yards from our front door, preying on the neighbour's chickens. Oh, and a bright flash of turquoise in front of me has just signalled the arrival of the local Kingfisher, landing on the boat moored in front of the house. Welcome to Koh Yao Noi, a relatively untouched slice of Thai island life situated midway between Phuket and Krabi.  The Waterhouse is simply breathtaking and we have done little more than sit on the veranda reading our books while watching the little wooden fishing boats come and go as the tide slides in and out under us.

Monitor Lizard - huge!

After four months of restaurants, bars and cafes, this fully equipped kitchen was a very welcome sight.

Somewhere to relax...

...with a pretty good view:

And the view from the bed is pretty nice too.

Can we stay forever?

Bangkok Boils

A heavy dome of smog descends on the city of Bangkok as the sun appears over the corrugated roof tops, setting the streets ablaze in an inferno of heat and sealing it's inhabitants inside an immense pressure cooker which rattles and fizzes with increased ferocity as the hours pass. Tuk-tuks, their drivers chugging down tiny medicine bottles of Red Bull, buzz through the narrow alleyways, swerving frantically around the street food vendors who push their aluminium clad carts along the kerbside. The whine of engines, the shrill calls of the street hawkers and the growing ring of crickets and cicadas echo around the fresh white walls of our forth floor hotel room. In the tree outside, a bird begins it's whistle like chant, drawing the local cockerel into a lengthy discussion which forces my eyes to open and another day in the world's hottest city to begin.

Bangkok is like a solar powered blender, blitzing up all of the best parts of our favourite cities with a splash of Thai spice. It is a place where the East meets the West, where cultures from every part of the world come together, where tradition swirls with modern technology spawning a seemingly autonomous monster of a city which roars along at light-speed, catching everything that happens to pass between it's heels and kicking it into the fray. Roads on top of roads, sky-trains and elevated walkways, it's sometimes difficult to know where the ground is. The place really comes to life at night when the heat of the day fades and neon lights cast a warm glow on the pleasure seekers below. Thai restaurants spread diners far and wide across the pavement on tiny plastic chairs, the zingy aroma of citrus and chili float in the air alongside the frantic intermittent chatter of Thai teens, broken only as they take long swigs from dewy bottles of local beer. As the energy builds, the bars begin to swell. Bangkok has everything from giant, booming emporiums of bass driven dance music, to dark, cosy dives serving bourbon and rum.  The latter being our favourite.  Long, narrow rooms cut between two buildings with makeshift bars built from scrap wood and nails, their walls adorned with vintage record sleeves and faded photographs of the much beloved Thai King meeting Elvis.  Somewhere int h shadows, a blues guitarist concocts silky smooth licks behind a twisting veil of cigarette smoke.

Between Bangkok's dizzying lights, the spires of gold edged temples sparkle in the moonlight and the steady twinkle of distant skyscrapers fills in the gaps, forming an enshrining wall around everyone and everything, a panorama broken only by the wide meandering river, a dark serpent slicing through the city which roars and gargles with the engines of public water buses, tourist friendly long-tails and giant glitter and glass party boats.

Bangkok held us captive for one week and we sweated our way through the busy streets each day, avoiding the many scams and cons, taking in as much as we could possibly endure before the heat devoured us and forced us to seek the shelter of our hotel room or a chilly movie-theatre. We drank far too much Thai rum in a tiny bar rammed with local college kids who took turns to play guitar, sing and beat-box (very well); we peered inquisitively into the clubs of the red-light district before making our escape; we strolled along miles and miles of marble flooring in various shopping malls; we watched the sun set over the river from a crooked little bar on the floating wooden ferry boat pier, and wandered in wide mouthed amazement through an enormous late night vintage market, set around a disused railway station.  Spread across the open train yards and tucked inside various wooden storage sheds and vast warehouses, the entire scene was lit by strings of sepia tinged fairy lights which gave light to some of the coolest vintage cars, clothes, antiques and furniture we've ever seen... Oh, and there was also one of the biggest markets in the world.

But all good things must come to an end and a couple of days ago we took a sleeper bus from Bangkok to Phuket, and this morning, a speedboat from Phuket to the sleepy island of Koh Yao Noi, where the majestic Waterhouse waited for us. This three bedroom wooden house, built on stilts over the sea and accessed via a small bridge, will be home for the two of us over the Christmas week. We collected a few cheap decorations on our way here and with the help of the Mothers (and the Royal Mail) who both sent festive care packages in the mail, we now have a very Christmassy looking living room. The tide is in and the jade coloured sea is lapping just a metre or so below my feet. The veranda and a large glass of red wine are calling...

Exploring Sukhothai

To break up the long journey between Chiang Mai and Bangkok, we made a short stop at the Sukhothai Historical Park.  Taking to rented bicycles once again, we spent a day pedalling through the dry heat, exploring the remains of the many ancient temples and shrines which lay hidden among the trees in this large  Khmer complex.  Giant stone statues of Buddha, many lovingly wrapped in swathes of saffron coloured silk, sit cross legged on crumbling plinths, gazing serenely down on the tourists and long lines of monks who shuffle their way through the ruins.

We are now firmly back in the gritty city life of Bangkok - an amazing city that has been thrilling us for almost a week now.  Tomorrow we leave for Phuket and then take a ferry to the island of Koh Yao Noi where we will spend Christmas.  Hopefully someone will inform Santa of our whereabouts...?

Back to Thailand

Chugging across the narrow expanse of river separating Laos from Thailand, we were both very much looking forward to getting back to some of our home comforts.  Three weeks in Laos had left us "riced out" and in such a poor country, finding decent food was a chore.  Chicken, rice, noodles, chicken, vegetables and rice:  the most common options when dining out.  It wasn't all bad, and we did have a delicious wood oven pizza in Luang Prabang with lightly smoked pepperoni and a doughy yet crisp base - it even came with a free beer.  

But again, for a country where many people still live in single room wooden huts and a deep vein of communism still runs through their lives, food is little more than a means to survive.  When speaking to a volunteer at a social mobility charity in Huay Xai, he told me that the Lao people simply do not understand many western concepts.  Enjoying an evening out to a restaurant, for example, or that of competition in business - even in some cases, the meaning of profit.  For them, owning a business was merely 'something to do to survive', rather than a way of making money (or at least, making more money than your neighbour's restaurant, bar, cafe or shop).  And indeed, without the amount of choice consumers in developed countries are used to, what would they spend 'more' money on anyway?  There are no Ikeas, there is no Amazon.Laos, they don't have giant retail parks to while away a Sunday afternoon in.  Some may argue that this is a good thing, but given the levels of deprivation we witnessed, the romantic portrait of communism starts to crack, particularly when you learn that the government (at local and national levels) make life for foreign charities trying to help, very hard indeed.

So when food poisoning struck yet again, being in a town with a pharmacy that opened as and when the owner felt like working, and a convenience store that only had about ten products on its shelves, it all got a little frustrating.  We needed little more than a pack of diarrhoea tablets and a few cold bottles of Gatorade to re-hydrate our systems, neither of which we could buy.   It got even more disheartening when, upon recovering, one finds the ubiquitous rice and chicken combinations the menus of every restaurant in town when seeking a homely meal to comfort a battered digestive system.

You must forgive us then for not indulging in local Thai cuisine at the first opportunity (as worldly travellers no doubt should) as, upon arriving in Chiang Mai (northern Thailand), we spotted an American bar/grill near our hotel and walked straight in to feast on giant bowls of chili cheese fries and ice cold glass bottles of Coca-Cola - it was bliss.  We are now very much looking forward to a month in Thailand, where the exotic sits side by side with the familiar.  We can sit on plastic seats and eat Thai street food one night and have a mountainous burger the next.  Beer and massages are still cheap and in many places, a Thai curry will set you back less than pound.  7 Elevens provide cheap snacks and drinks on every corner and Boots, Tesco and Starbucks are never far away.  It does feel a little bit like cheating, but having been away from home for so long, a familiar sight, smell or sound can be an extremely welcome addition to a day of exploring - many Thais even dig Jesus so we've even seen a few christmas trees, which Rosie is very happy about.  While we flick through photos of friends and family playing in the snow at home, we're slapping on the sunscreen and downing iced smoothies in curb-side cafes.  The temperature is thirty-something degrees and we're about to head even further south.  It's going to be a Christmas to remember

Country Synopsis: Laos

Likes - The scenery.  Laos is a beautiful country.  The bus journey from Vientiane to Luang Prabang was particularly memorable.  At one point, while snaking our way through a high altitude pass, the view from the window was like something out of Lord of the Rings.  Enormous jagged lumps of rock formed a mountain range like nothing I'd ever seen before.  Near vertical cliffs of splintered grey stone stretched thousands of feet up into the sky, puncturing the rolling green hills of the valleys and grasslands far below, before tearing through the clouds and falling straight back down to earth again.  Each peak grew higher than the last, forming a steadily climbing horizon growing the north and the south, culminating in one single behemoth of a mountain may as well have had giant winged dragons circling around it's cloud capped summit.

Dislikes - Food poisoning.  I won't go into details, but when toilets in bars and restaurants often don't even have a sink (and the few that do don't have soap), it was pretty inevitable that we'd spend a large proportion of our three weeks in Laos fighting off increasingly resilient bacteria.  This isn't to say that Laos is particularly "dirtier" than Vietnam, Cambodia or China, it's just that during our time there, something got in us....something evil.

Favourite Beer - Like the good wholesome communist country that it is, there is really only one on offer. The imaginatively named, available everywhere at just a few pence, Beer Lao.  Some places also stock a stronger and darker version called (naturally) Beer Lao Dark which I didn't get round to trying but heard good things.

Favourite Meal - The aforementioned pizza in Luang Prabang's Hive Bar.  Sat in a tropical garden, under the stars and with a scattering of candles illuminating the overhanging palm trees, it was a perfect setting for a near perfect pizza (it just could have been bigger!).  Oh, and then there was a fashion show and hip-hop dance performance on the makeshift stage beside us - only in Asia!

Favourite Day - The Gibbon Experience day one. An exhilarating off-road ride into the middle of nowhere sat in the back of a Toyota Hilux, an incredibly demanding hike through thick jungle followed by a couple of hours soaring over the treetops on zip-lines before spending a night in a three storey tree-house (and then doing it all again the next day!).

Crossing the Mekong to Thailand

In testament to our adventures, our camera is now full of muck and dirt, but behind the dark shadows lies a rather nice photo of a Thai statue! 

Having cycled from the top of Thailand's forth highest mountain, we stopped to admire the view.

Jungle Boogie

We return!  Muddy, tired, a bit battered and bruised, and very sad that our three days at "The Gibbon Experience" are over.  This was probably the one stage of our trip we were looking forward to the most.  Upon first reading about it in the Lonely Planet guidebook in the dark depths of winter 2011, we immediately scrambled to the computer to make a reservation and begin counting down the months.

And slowly, the twenty-eighth of November approached as we made our way across Laos to the sleepy border town of Huay Xai, where the rolling hills of Thailand lay a few hundred metres across the Mekong River.  This bottle-neck of a town, where scores of backpackers collect to make the short hop between countries, is home to a small office hidden behind a non-descript wooden door on the towns main thoroughfare, with nothing but a hand painted sign to point the way to one of the highest rated, most raved about attractions in all of Asia.

The project was set up to preserve the habitat of the black crested gibbon - one of the rarest mammals in the world.  Instead of hunting these incredible creatures and the other exotic inhabitants of the jungle (often for use in Chinese herbal medicines) the local poachers are now the guardians of the forest, keeping loggers at bay and leading nervous tourists into the enormous Bokeo Nature Reserve in search of these elusive creatures.  The proceeds of this eco-tourism are reinvested back into the project in the hope that the gibbons might flourish once again.

Now, the first thing to know about the Gibbon Experience is that it is not your average wander into the jungle.  I fear that nothing can really convey the experience we have just had.  Neither words nor pictures will truly express what we have done, but I will try and provide a small snapshot of three days which we will never forget.

...

Crossing a wide rice paddy, the sun scorches the ground around us, filling the air with the thick scent of sweltering leaves and steaming hedgerows, the sickly must of childhood summers in the countryside, clumps of cut grass at the edge of a sizzling playground.  Single file, we march along a narrow track cut into the long grass.  Ahead, the thick, seemingly impenetrable jungle bursts upwards from the ground, drawing the weaving path into darkness.  Steep hills blanketed in heavy, twisted layers of vegetation swoop up towards the sky, blotting out the sun as we approach with interlocked webs of branches and ferns.  Our guide presses on, slipping silently into the undergrowth and leading us into the shadows.  The air becomes damp, heavy and ominous; the dank smell of the forest  hitting us like a face-full of rotting leaves, with unfamiliar hints of flowery perfume reaching us from afar.  As the sky above becomes nothing but a few scratches of light through a ceiling of greenery, the noise of the jungle fills our ears.  Buzzing, chirping, siren-like wailing, rustling and singing - birds, insects and who-knows-what else.  A slick path of cocoa coloured mud, the ground squirms with ants, termites and leeches as we tread deeper, stepping over fallen tree trunks and ducking through dark dens of broken bamboo branches.  The path steepens.  Roots, surfacing through the mud like snakes, act like steps and pull us upward.  The sweat drips from my nose as I gaze down and spot my next foot-hole.  My tee-shirt is saturated.  We climb.  Reaching an initial summit, I stop for water, handing the bottle to Rosie who grins with glee through flushed cheeks.  "We're in the jungle," she says.

The path drops us down towards a shallow creek and we pick our way upstream, hopping from rock to rock before climbing slippery banks to another trail.  Checking the ties which seal my trousers around my boots, I spot a leech inching it's way up my leg, craning in circles, sniffing for a point of entry.  I flick it to the ground before it gets too high.  I check Rosie's back for any which may have fallen from the trees.

The path climbs again and my heart rate quickens with each step, my legs heavy and shaking, the heat sapping my energy and my face glowing.  The trail twists and turns, taking us along narrow ledges with steep drops into nothingness.  A haze of steam hangs in the air, turning whatever sunlight can reach us to misty beams of amber falling in broken shards to the ground.  We pull ourselves up on branches, squeezing out every drop of strength to fight a gravity which drags us down harder than ever, heaving ourselves towards what we know awaits us at the top, peering ahead for daylight and the eventual summit of this endless hill.  

Having hiked for some two hours, a small clearing marks the end of our struggle.  Off to the side, from within a tiny shelter made of dried banana-palm leaves, a second guide appears.  In his hands he carries climbing harnesses.  Seven red faced tourists - seven harnesses.  Having strapped ourselves in, checked our knots and reminded ourselves of the contents of the safety video we watched back in town, we step nervously towards what we know we must do.  And then, one by one, hooking ourselves onto a 600 metre-long high tension stretch of steel cable, we experience what we all came here for.  Zip-lining.

Attaching my safety line first, I lower my roller onto the cable.  Gripping the rubber brake with one hand, I wait nervously for the call of 'okay' from the other end (apparently a wooden platform attached to a tree on the other side of the valley).  My legs wobble slightly and my chest pounds against the straps of my rucksack.  The noise of Rosie's roller stops and the cable falls still in my hand.

'OKAY!' she bellows.

I take a few steps, skipping along the dirt until the harness takes my weight and the ground drops from beneath me.  I tuck my legs up and I'm airborne.  I gather speed, the the wind begins to build, the earth falls completely away into the steamy depths of the forest.  Whizzing along a small tunnel cut through the trees, I spot clear sky ahead.  With a few whips of overhanging branches, I burst out of the forest and into the open air.  I'm flying, I'm actually flying.  The tops of towering trees sway far below me, the ground an unthinkable distance below them.  A wave of emotion barrels over me.  Adrenalin hammers out my exhaustion.  I laugh, gasp and choke simultaneously  and the wind sucks away any sound I manage to make.  Laid out to my left, I can see the entire basin of the forest, immense hills and mountains reaching into the fuzzy distance, narrow pillars of smoke rising into the sky from the hill tribe villages and a sea of fluffy clouds gathering on the horizon.

At times, we were easily 100m from the ground.

I'm quickly plunged back into the awaiting jungle and I spot the platform onto which I must land, with Rosie waiting with a beaming smile beside it.  Squeezing the brake I slow down and the jungle floor rises up to meet me again.  Landing with a satisfying thud, I'm left speechless.  My mouth hangs open as my wobbly hands release me from the cable.  'Okay!' I call, before the next person begins their descent.

Rosie prepares for landing

We cross around seven cables in total, having hiked for three or four hours, before the shadows falling over the valley stretch long and far through the warm glow of the setting sun.  'Now we go to tree-house,' says our guide.  Hooking on to the final cable of day one, we emerge from the forest to find ourselves flying towards our home for the night.  A tree-house of epic proportions clinging to the tallest tree in the area, overlooking the top of the canopy and the wide sweeping valley sweeping westward through the rolling hills.

Yes, as well as creating a staggering network of zip-lines across the park, seven tree-houses were also constructed, each accessed solely by cables.  These veritable jungle mansions, hanging around sixty metres from the ground, are truly the stuff of childhood dreams.  They each have a rain-water shower, a porcelain toilet, electric lights, a sink and space for eight people to sleep - ours even had three floors!.  After we'd zipped one by one in through a 'window' in the living area, we staggered around in amazement at what would be our home for the next two nights.

As well as the incredible venue, the hospitality was excellent (especially considering that we were hours on foot from the nearest village).  Throughout our time in the tree, fresh Lao tea, platters of fruit, steaming meals of rice, meat & vegetables, toast, jam, eggs and cassava chips - all were zipped in to us from a kitchen hidden somewhere in the forest which provided three meals a day plus snacks to seven separate tree houses throughout the complex.  We even saw a gas canister strapped to a bamboo pole whizzing across the valley, held by two guides who whooped with glee as they soared through the sky.

Back to day one.  'See you in the morning,' our guide said before leaping out of the house and disappearing into the oncoming darkness.  The sun sets quickly this close to the equator and pretty soon the light of a full moon was beaming through the misty valley below us like a search lamp, illuminating the forest floor and coating the trees in platinum frosting.  Having devoured our evening meal and shared travelling stories, we all sat in quiet reflection, all of us exhausted and overwhelmed by the day's activities. In the eaves above us, rats began to scurry for food, giant huntsman spiders lurked menacingly, their eyes glistening in the light of our head torches, and flurries of moths descended.  The creatures of the night were coming to life.  With our eyes getting heavier by the minute, four tent-like sheets were strung from the roof beams and their edges sealed tightly around mattresses laid on the floor, protecting us from mosquitoes and the vast array of creepy crawlies which swarmed around us in the darkness.  Despite the noise of the forest's nocturnal inhabitants and the frequent movements and scratching outside our little "tent", we drifted off within minutes and slept a long, deep sleep that only a hard day of physical activity can muster.

We awoke the next morning to the sound of the guide zipping in with tea and breakfast and the gentle patter of rain.  Lifting the side of the tent, we witnessed a tide of mist rolling up the valley in large plumes.  With nothing more than a few struts of wood between this incredible sight and my pillow, I don't think we'll get a room with a view like this for quite a while!

Cold, but well worth it.

Squat a view?

After breakfast, we each donned our harnesses and prepared for the leap of faith we'd been dreading since arriving.  Our exit - a platform, hanging from the side of the house and accessed through a small sprung wooden gate.  Clipping ourselves to the cable and shuffling on our backsides towards the edge, we lowered ourselves out, over a void of nothingness, on to a thin strip of wood on which we sat waiting for the shout of 'all-clear' from the landing platform buried inside the forest on the other side of the valley.

A slight slackness in the cable allowed for a brief moment of free-fall!

This was so, so high!

You now see why we are so sad that it is over.  After eleven hours of hiking over three days, taking in around twenty five cables, two tree houses and one refreshing dunk under a waterfall, we bounced and bobbed back along the single dirt road towards reality, the tyres of the Toyota slipping and spinning in the thick mud and our tired bodies aching for a shower and a soft bed.  It was one of the greatest experiences of my life and thinking about it all brings a lump to my throat...it really was that good.

If you get the chance, we could not recommend The Gibbon Experience enough.  We did the "Waterfall" option which we felt provided a perfect balance between hiking and zipping and allowed us to see more of the jungle (and gave us some well needed exercise!).  Book way in advance (like, several months), pack your walking boots, a sense of adventure and plenty of mosquito repellent.

I should probably mention the gibbons.  Despite the project's name, it's actually quite rare to see them, although on dry mornings (which we did not have) it is apparently possible to hear them singing across the tree-tops.  Although we did not see or hear them, we left feeling happy to have invested in such a worth-while cause while having such an incredible time in return.

The Team (our guides were a lot more fun than they appear here!)