Simone on the move

So I’m a bit behind with blogging…I’ve been busy! Now I’m in Singapore, the final days of my 6 month trip!!

Edit: ok, so I lied, I was already back in Perth when I wrote this, but I was keeping parents, Oma and some other people in the dark so I could surprise my parents by turning up on their doorstep 3 days early. It totally worked, it was awesome :D

So Raf and I flew from Bangkok to Luang Prabang, northern Laos, in a cute little plane.
My camera was in Bangkok for repairs, so most of the photos below are from my camera phone, and some by Raf and Marissa. I did miss my camera a lot.

In Luang Prabang we spent an hour trying to find our hotel with the help of several people, after dodgy directions (and the wrong name of the place) from our friend Emily. Fun, fun :D

Emily has been living and working in Laos for a year, through the Australian Youth Ambassodor Program. She worked with remote communities in Eastern Laos (near the Vietnamese border), setting up education programs to help teach the locals about illegal logging and wildlife trade and such (or something like that…). With her, her sister and her mother, and our friend Marissa, we travel from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, via Phonsavan/Plain of Jars and Vang Vieng. They’ve organised a minivan and driver! And along the way we’re staying at quite fancy accommodation!

In Luang Prabang it’s a Laos style villa, that we have nearly all to ourselves.

It’s christmas and Emily has organised a small tree, and Raf makes some paper decorations. The girls from the hotel join in at one stage!
We have a la carte breakfast in the garden every morning, awesome! On Christmas day it’s extra special, with crackers and champagne brought from Australia.

We’re quite far north here, it’s cold at night (jumper weather!) and cool and cloudy in the mornings, then sunny and around 25 in the afternoon. My perfect weather!
Luang Prabang has a night market we enjoy, and we take a walk across the Nam Kan river to another village, and then back along the Mekong River.


On Christmas Eve we have a fancy dinner (most expensive of my trip at around $50!) at Le’Elephant. A 5 course, french type meal, very nice!

On Christmas Day we went to the main waterfall outside of Luang Prabang

It has several different levels. Above is the longest part, and below is a lower level where there is a rope swing. Scary and cold water, but fun!

Our ‘christmas lunch’ was beer and cake and fruit at a picnic table, and dinner was from a street stall at the night market back in Luang Prabang :D

On Boxing Day we got in the minivan and headed to Phonsavan, middle of Laos. Awesome landscape, green mountains, and then when we got closer it started to be dryer and looked a lot like Australia in summer! There were even eucalyptus plantations and pine trees! 6 hour drive through very windy roads wasn’t easy, but I was lucky compared to the others, as I don’t get bad car sickness, and can even read.

Laos is known as being (one of?) the most bombed country in the world, mainly ‘thanks’ to the Vietnam War. The province we were headed to, Xieng Khouang, is the worst hit. There is still a lot of UXO (unexploded ordinance) in the ground. When we stopped by the side of the road to pee, you can’t go in the bushes, because it’s too dangerous. So you’re pretty much peeing along the side of the road. Luckily there’s not a lot of traffic…!

In Phonsavan we stayed at Auberge de Plain du Jars, a nice hotel with bungalows with wood fires, run by a half Laos half French guy. The view was awesome:

The next day, after finding hair elastics at the market, our driver took us to the three main sites of the Plain of Jars.

There are random stone jar things, probably used for fermenting wine, for burials and maybe other things like storing rice throughout the year. There’s still much confusion and they’re hard to date.
We also saw bomb craters and trenches from the war. The sites have been mostly cleared, but there’s warnings everywhere to stay on the paths.
Emily and I with our friendly driver. He only spoke Lao, but thankfully so did Emily.

We stopped in Old Phonsavan for lunch and saw the two temples which managed to survive the bombings (not much did).

After a beer at a Lao place on a reservoir and dinner at the Indian place in town, we joined the hotel owner and his mates (one was the chief of police!) for a few drinks and some talk about Lao culture. A great day.

It’s Hmong (hill tribe) new year, and the teenagers play a ball game, throwing a ball back and forth, while chatting. Courtship?!

The next day we drove, through the mountains again, to Vang Vieng (just north of the capital Vientiane). At one stop it was so cold and foggy!! High altitude, cool! Annemarie and I:

In Vang Vieng we stayed at Nam Tok Guesthouse (friend of Raf’s) which was great. Again we only had one day, but we visited 3 caves, the third one being one filled with water, that we had to tube through! So much fun!

Vang Vieng is surrounded by limestone karsts, which I love. There’s good caving, rockclimbing and river activities in the area.

The next day the final leg with the minivan and so many people travelling together, and we arrive in Vientiane. On the 31st we started with a surprise champagne brunch at Sticky Fingers for Em’s birthday.

Later we moved to my friend Renae’s house. I know her from Perth, she’s a couchsurfer, so Raf, Marissa and I couchsurferd with her for a few days. We had to stay in Vientiane till after the long weekend because we needed to get visa’s from the thailand embassy.
It ended up being 6 nights and days of 2010 celebrations. It involved a lot of cocktails, watching dvds, playing with the cute toy poodle Minnie, ten pin bowling, pool, foozball, home cooking and driving around on a supercub motorbike/scooter. Good times :D Though, learning to drive the super cub (gears!) while stressed and trying to find the thai embassy, with Marissa on the back, in peak hour Vientiane traffic (with motorbikes coming at me on the wrong side of the road) was a liiiitttle crazy. But still fun when I succeeded without injuring anyone! :D

And then Marissa left to go back to Thailand, and Raf and I took a night sleeper bus down to Pakse, where we met up with our friend Kate and her dad.
We went down to Champasak and visited Wat Phu. Then we went and hung out on Don Khon in the 4000 Islands (next to Don Det) for a few days and bicycled around and visited the waterfall. Along the way we crossed the mighty Mekong River several times.



From Don Khon we took a boat out onto the river to see the rare Irrawaddy dolphins at sunset. There’s only about 70 left here on the border with Cambodia. (there’s a few thousand in total around southeast asia, mostly near India).
While we were on the river we asked our boat driver to take us to Cambodia. There was a little island with a hut selling beer! We had to pay a $1 fee each to the lady there, and then pay for the beers separately, but success, we drank Angkor beer (ok, so it’s not as nice as Beerlao, but had to do it).

Made our way back to Pakse, and then crossed the border back into Thailand and stayed in Ubon Ratchitani.

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Some random things.

Sleeper train
I’m writing this on the sleeper train from Ubon Ratchitani in Eastern Thailand(Isan) to Bangkok. This is my third sleeper train in Thailand (have also travelled on a sleeper train in Vietnam, and sleeper busses in Vietnam and Laos).
It’s 19.45, the train left the station at 19.30. Initially you’re sitting in seats and it looks just like normal train.

Then a steward comes along and pulls down the top beds and pulls out the bottom beds from the seats, puts sheets on them, a pillow case over the pillows and gives you a blanket. It happened early on this train, so I’m writing this from my bed. Raf and I booked bottom bunks (this is second class/fan) so she’s on the other side of the train. Random thai dudes in the bunks above. Three other western looking backpackers in this carriage.
Edit: I thought I had a good sleeper train photo somewhere, can’t find it. Figuring it must be on that mobile I lost, grr! Well, here’s a crappy one with Raf not looking pleased…

At the end of the carriage there’s a little room/bed for the steward a toilet and washbasins. The toilet on this train is a squat one. Toilet paper and the bidet/spray thing is provided. Bit scary when the train is jolting around…could get messy :o
Other trains we’ve been on have had western toilets. I’ve only had to use squat toilets in the cheapest places I’ve stayed in, in Thailand and Indonesia. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos seem to have the most western toilets, I guess due to the french influence a while ago.
The big windows on the train were wide open, but the steward closes them when he makes the beds. The door at the end of the carriage is also open. I was standing there earlier, holding on, as you could easily fall out if there’s a jolt! Fun :D
There are racks in the middle passage for bags, so my bag is right next to me. If you’re a top bunk, then there’s a rack up there too.
I forgot to mention the curtains. Everyone has a curtain in front of their bed. Essential for keeping the light in the passageway away.
We’ll arrive in Bangkok at around 7.30 in the morning.

Food stalls, night markets, plastic bags
All over south east asia there are roadside stalls offering takeaway food, and sometimes there’s some plastic tables and chairs provided. They usually serve things like fried rice and noodles, noodle soup or rice soup(a breakfast thing), fried chicken, satay stick things, fried donuty things, indian roti pancakes. Varies a lot per country what is served.
Often a city or town will also have a nightmarket, where the stalls are altogether in one area from around 4pm till at least 10. Especially thailand does these well, lots of variation.

They’ll often have tables and chairs set up. I guess kind of like a food court in Australia. So cheap, so good. And can often be quite adventurous when you’re in a non touristy place and you just point at things and see what you end up with.
If you order takeaway (or sometimes even when you don’t), the food will come in styrofoam, or just as often, small clear plastic bags. Even salad or drinks come in plastic bags. They tie an elastic band around the top, and with drinks just stick a straw in it.

Last night in Ubon I grabbed a salad in a bag (lettuce, cucumber, corn kernels, tomato, hard boiled egg, little bag of dressing) from one stall and sat down with Raf at a table where she’d ordered chicken with rice. I borrowed a fork, and as I was struggling ripping open the bag and pouring the dressing over the salad, the lady from Raf’s food stall handed me a plate and a spoon. Awww, so nice!
For dessert I had a pice of baked pumpkin with coconut custard in it, which also got handed to me in a plastic bag. This is a traditional thai dessert, we made it in my cooking class in Chiang Mai.
Earlier in the day we ordered a chai nom yen (tea milk cold=ice tea with sweet milk) in a little hole in the wall restaurant, and that also was handed to us in a plastic bag. No elastic band, just a straw stuck in. Usually the ice tea gets given in a plastic cup with lid though.

Modesty
In south east asia, it’s generally disrespectful to walk around with shoulders and knees uncovered. Most definitely in temples and sacred places it’s just not done. The more tourists there are, or the bigger or more modern the city is, the more it’s just accepted. I have no trouble keeping my knees covered, but I still don’t find light airy t-shirts as comfortable as singlets. I’ll usually remember to wear something with sleeves or bring a sarong to cover myself up in temples. And I’ll usually try to wear my shirts with sleeves more in more traditional towns. I already stand out enough as a tourist (though not as much as tall or blond people, and my skin is as dark as many as the locals now! Actually, I regularly get spoken to in Thai and once was asked if I was half thai. Just then a guy on the train spoke to me in thai!)!
When swimming at tourist spots like a waterfall, the local people generally go in the water fully clothed. When they bath in rivers (poorer areas), they’re usually in a sarong. Though, I’ve also seen quite a few half naked people by the side of the road washing themselves, I think just in Laos.
At popular tourist spots, western tourists including myself generally do what we always do, not wear much. I have occasionally kept my singlet on though, and am usually wearing boardshorts.
Today we paid about $2 to hang around the pool at a fancy resort in Ubon. There was no one around but there were a lot of hotel rooms looking onto the pool, and it was a very thai place. I wouldn’t sunbathe topless anyway, but I didn’t even feel comfortable walking around in my bikini. Though the staff were amused I think. I walked past two ladies (cleaners I think) hanging out in a doorway near the pool, and they said something like ‘hello, very good, very good’ and sort of jiggled around and laughed. I had my arm in front of my chest so I think they were trying to tell me not to be embarrassed, haha.

On a slightly different subject, generally you take your shoes off when you go inside places here, including many some shops, all beauty/massages and guesthouses. Restaurants you leave shoes on. It’s become nearly second nature, and is easy when you’re wearing thongs/flip flops.
I recently realised that I have been wearing thongs for pretty much 5 months straight now. Only when I’ve done a trek or a whole day of motorbike riding (around 10 days in total on my whole trip) have I worn my walking shoes! They’re not that pretty (I really wish I could have found the black ones of this model instead of brown, boo!) and it’s just too annoying having to take them off when entering somewhere! And obviously it’s been very warm for most of my trip.

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So I summed up the last decade, but I wanted to do the last year in a little more detail. Believe me though, even this long list is still a summary. Busy much?!! Life is short.
The biggest thing this year was traveling, for the first time ever by myself, for the first time ever to non western countries, for the first time ever for such an extended period of time. I made many new friends along the way and caught up with old friends towards the end of the year. I’m not done yet, ‘home’ in February, at least for a while. I have the rest of the world on my mind…

2009
Lived in Mt Lawley with Pat
Lived in Fremantle with Raf and Ayesh and random couchsurfers
Was a couchsurfing host a few times and a couchsurfer once in Karratha
New Years camping in Boranup, cave, and Southbound Festival in Busselton
Cleared out and cleaned the Thornlie house and handed over the keys
Outdoor movies, beach, parties parties parties (any excuse, usually dressups), drumming on the beach, endangered wildlife in the hills, circus shows, garage sales, soup kitchen mondays, Freeway Bike Hike, weekends south to visit the parents, Jazz Cellar, World Pillow Fight Day, Yanchep NP, Rock Paper Scissors World Championship Heat, Black Books, red wine, Creatures Loft…
Big Day Out (Neil Young, Cog, Mammal…), Perth Festival gigs, Soundwave Festival (Alice in Chains, NIN, Lacuna Coil…), West Coast Blues n Roots, Cog, Karnivool, RTR In the Pines Festival, The Black Keys, Jeff Martin, lots of local gigs Went on ABC720 a couple of times talking about what’s on in Perth at 6.30am on a Saturday morning
Roadtrip to the Goldfields
Quit my job of 4.5 years to concentrate on EnjoyPerth! and travel
Sold or gave away half my belongings and put the rest in storage at my parents house
Did housesitting in Canning Vale, Innaloo and Shenton Park for friends
Esperance roadtrip with Dhugal where I sprained my foot/ankle
Changed my tattoo
Roadtrip to Broome and back via the Pinnacles, Geraldton, Hutt River Province, Kalbarri, Shark Bay, Carnarvon, Coral Bay, Exmouth, Ningaloo/Cape Range National Park, Karajini National Park, Nullagine, 80 Mile Beach, Broome, Bidyadanga, Karatha with Raf and Doug
Officially got divorced (it’s a boring yellow piece of paper)
Made a heap of new friends and strengthened some older friendships
Backpacked around southeast asia for nearly 6 months:
Indonesia: Climbed Rinjani, the second highest mountain in Indonesia and saw lava flow from the volcano, Komodo Dragons, extreme food poisoning, lazing on tropical islands, snorkelling, good books.
Malaysia: caves, rope bridges in the jungle, snorkelling with turtles, reef sharks and nemo, awesome Indian food, jungle tour to see the Rafflesia and 4WD, a lot of whiskey
Vietnam: Vietnam War history and remnants of French colonialism (baguettes, cheese, architecture), mud in the streets from Typhoon Ketsana, met up with Emily and toured around central Vietnam, sleeper bus, sleeper train, hired a bicycle, hired a scooter, trekked through the mountains and stayed over night with a Red Dzao (hill tribe) family and did shots of rice whiskey, boat tour of Halong Bay.
Thailand: Thai cooking course, scooters, waterfalls, hot springs, Cave Lodge, awesome coffin cave, Loi Krathong, fireworks from a hotel roof, elephant conservation centre, ancient city, burmese border towns and refugees, trekking through the jungle to the best waterfall in Thailand, crazy Bangkok, lazy days with Raf on an island in the south, back tattoo, motorbike with Eric, scooter roadtrip around Kanchanaburi
Cambodia: the ancient and amazing temples of Angkor, blood tests, dengue fever, khmer rouge history in Phnom Penh
Laos: christmas in Luang Prabang with the Lapinskis, fancy french dinner, another awesome waterfall, Plain of Jars, lots of french rum at the Auberge, more awesome caves, tubing through a cave filled with water, nye in Vientiane with friends…we made it last for 6 days… More on that in the Laos post I will hopefully do tomorrow.

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Amazed at how much I’ve done in the last decade, but hoping to do more, different things in the next!

I could regret certain things from the past (education, work and relationship choices), but I choose to see them as learning experiences, just ‘life’, and generally I’ve had a lot of fun. Things I didn’t do and still want to do (like more travel, different ‘career’ choices’), is going to happen slowly. The main thing I struggle with is how much I want to do, and the limited time (and sometimes funds) I have. But it’s about choices, and it’s awesome I have the freedom to make these choices and prioritise.

So this was 2000 to 2009…

Major life events + education + work:
Graduated from high school in The Netherlands (2000)
Started and graduated from university in The Netherlands, a bachelor in business administration-facilities management (long story what this is, why I started it, what changed for me during) (2000-2004)
Got a car license, got a car with P (black Peugot Uno)
Moved in to an apartment with P (2002)
Married P (2003)
Moved to Perth, Western Australia with P (I’d lived in WA as a child and have dual citizenship) (2004)
Worked at G in various admin positions (2004-2009)
Bought a house in Thornlie (2005)
Started the blog EnjoyPerth!, now a proper website (2006)
Bought a rescue dog, Bailey (2006)
Divorced P, sold the house and found Bailey a good new home (2008)
Lived in various locations in Perth with friends/family (2008/2009)
Quit my job to concentrate on EnjoyPerth! and travel the world (2009)

Holidays:
Backpacked through Australia with P, WA, NT, QLD, NSW (2000)
Camping in Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg and The Netherlands (2001-2004)
City trips to London, Berlin, Barcelona and various in The Netherlands (2001-2004)
Many camping trips around WA with various people (2004-2009)
Holiday with family and P in The Netherlands (2007)
Roadtrip to Broome via Ningaloo, Karajini etc etc with Raf and Doug (2009)
Backpacked around Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, mostly alone (2009)

It’s been an awesome decade. I guess the decade I’ve been most in control of my life so far.
But the other decades have been awesome too:

90’s
Lived in Kalamunda (Perth Hills), Bidyadanga (aboriginal community 200km south of Broome), Nullagine (town/aboriginal community between Marble Bar and Newman), Bridgetown (south west), Koedijk/Alkmaar (6 weeks when first back in Holland) and Rijssen. Started high school in Australia, finished in The Netherlands. Was part of a youth circus. Had pet goats, chooks, dogs, rabbits, ducks, guinea pigs and hamsters. Performed in plays. Made life long friends. Got a scooter. First kiss. Got a boyfriend. Then got a serious boyfriend. Holidayed in Perth, south west WA, Bali, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany. City trips to London and Paris. Went to my first big concert (*cough*BoyzIIMen*cough* blame my brother). Music festival (Lowlands). Night club (Lucky). First alcoholic drink (probably bessen, berry gin).

80’s
Was born in The Netherlands (82). Migrated to Western Australia (87). Lived in Graylands Migrant Centre, Maida Vale, in a campervan going around Australia, and Kalamunda. Started primary school in the campervan. Holidayed through Europe, stopovers in the Maldives and Singapore, Western Australia (and that 4 month trip around Australia). Got the two dogs I grew up with (Takkie and Springer). Learnt Dutch and English, to read and write (but not hold my pen properly). Ride a bicycle and swim.

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When I don’t blog often enough, or write things in my notebook, I forget sooo many little funny things that happen, conversations that are had.

Here are some random ones I did write down:

Trek near Umphang, months ago
Our mahout (elephant handler), climbed from the neck of the elephant, over us, and stood on it’s butt and peed off the back. We had stopped to let the baby elephant drink milk, and we were last in line of all the elephants.

Last week in the car in Northern Laos:

Raf: there’s a machete next to the driver, for if we have to hack through jungle
Emily: No, everyone has a machete for when you hit a buffalo, and have to divide it up. Whoever hits the buffalo, gets to keep it. Or half.

Emily is serious. She knows stuff, she’s just lived in rural remote Laos for 10 months. She’s said so many other things I’ve already forgotten :( Except this ones. This is a ‘joke’ in Laos, but really, it’s true.

In Vietnam they drive on the right, in Thailand they drive on the left, in Laos they drive in the middle.

It’s true, though Vietnam is more the middle too.   Also, they like to drive on the wrong side on the road here, when the traffic is too busy to cross the street. I came across at least 10 of those just this morning on my crazy trip on super cub motorbike to the Thai embassy. Vientiane rush hour traffic, oh what fun!!

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