Blogging on the road

27 03 2010

I have received a few questions on bringing a computer with me on a backpacking trip like ours and I’ll try to answer as many of them in this post as I can.

Why a Netbook?

I really wanted to blog throughout our journey, both to let people know where we are and what we were doing but also to keep a journal for our selves that we can look at in a few years to remind us of how great the trip was.  We also needed some sort of a device to store our photos, we have so far taken over 1,300 photos and videos in ten weeks but our camera only stores about 600 photos if I remember it correctly.  Being able to watch movies and listen to music would be an added bonus.  With that in mind I did some research back in December to see what we could do.

I have a 13 inch MacBook at home that I love dearly and even though it is quite small I didn’t like the idea of taking an expensive device like that with me so if I wanted to take something with me I would have to acquire it.  I looked into several smart devices like the iPhone and netbooks and laptops as well.  At first I really liked the idea of a 9 inch netbook but they were hard to get and in the end I settled on a 10 inch Asus netbook from Amazon. 

The netbook was “only” about $340 and had everything that I wanted: Windows 7 (I didn’t have the time to install MacOS), fantastic battery life (10.5 hours), adequate hard disk space (250 GB) and memory (1 GB) and a bright screen with a good resolution (1024×600) and most importantly light (just over a kilo) and compact.

What about Internet Access in the Orient?

Before coming over here I thought that we would have internet access once a week or so at best but we have been pleasantly surprised that you can get on the internet almost anywhere.  I would say that about 70% of the guesthouses that we have stayed in have had their own computers that they rent out (often at inflated prices) and free wifi access in the lobby area for those that have their own computers and about 15% even have access in the rooms.  This has been the same for all four countries we’ve been in so far.

Internet cafes are quite frequent but they are not really cozy places to hang around in – just rows of computers – so when we have not had internet at the guesthouse we have dropped into one of many restaurants offering free wifi to entice customers.  There have been plenty of restaurants with free wifi, at least where the guesthouses seem not to have wifi on their menu.

The internet connections have been quite fast over here, maybe not as fast as back in Europe but fast enough to upload these blog posts, movies to YouTube and photos to flickr.

How to keep safe?

I haven’t been too concerned with digital security – someone sniffing the network and trying to steal my passwords – I think that is more of a concern if you are using a shared computer.  Physical security however has been more of a concern.

When we have been one the road i have always had the computer in my small bag so it is with me at all times, I would never have it in the big pack as it gets thrown around and, as we have seen on one occasion, been searched through for some valuables.

After we have picked a guesthouse I sometimes leave it there during the day but if I get suspicious I take it with me.  Sometimes the lock on the door isn’t too trustworthy or that strangers could go to the rooms unseen, then I just take it out with me – it is just one kilo so it isn’t a big deal, just like taking an extra water bottle.  If I leave it in the room I always lock it in my big bag and sometimes I lock the bag to the bed.  I know that is false security as a thieve could easily open the bag with a knife but it makes me feel better.

Some guesthouses offer security boxes in the lobby area but we haven’t used that service at all.

Quite many tourists over here carry expensive cameras that are 4-10 times more expensive than my computer so I’m not overly concerned about theft but just in case we always back up our photos to a memory stick ca. every three weeks.

How to make time to blog?

Most of my posts are written off-line with Windows Live Writer, a blog editor from Microsoft that works nicely with WordPress – my blog service.  In Writer I can format the posts and insert the photos so that when I come online I can publish the posts by pressing one button.  Same goes for photos where I use Flickr Uploader to upload the photos to Flickr with a push of a button.

Since I’m able to do everything offline I can just use whatever dead time that is available.  My favorite times for blogging are at night just before going to sleep or while taking one of the many bus rides that we’ve been on – it passes time pretty quickly :)

How has it all turned out?

Apart from the blogging and photo storing it has been nice to be able to watch movies at night or go through our photos together, edit and refine them, when we have the time.  It has also been fantastic to be able to update the iPods once in a while, refreshing the music library or adding new audio books instead of the ones we finish.

All in all it has been a fantastic decision to take the netbook with us and definitely worth the little hassle it has cost us.  I won’t think twice about taking a computer with me on our next trip!


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : South East Asia

All the way from Vientiane to Chang Mai in Thailand

18 03 2010

After the fun in Vang Vieng we took the bus down to Vientiane, the Laos’ capital.  Vientiane is a nice and cozy city but we had heard that there are not that many things to do and see there.  We therefore decided to get a room for the night and head for Thailand in the morning.

At the guesthouse we met new friends when we were going to sleep – there were bedbugs in the bed!!!  At first we saw one and thought that it was just some harmless bug but soon there were others that followed.  Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep that night and hurried away from the guesthouse as soon as possible – after refusing to pay the agreed rate.  What got us even more angry was that they seemed to know there were bedbugs in the room and rented it to us anyway …bastards!

We had seen tickets from Vientiane to Chang Mai in Thailand for 1,100-1,500 baht ($33-$45), which felt way too much for us – the savvy travelers :) so we decided to go on our own.  We had seen that everything seemed to be overpriced in Vientiane and felt sure we could do better when in Thailand.  We went to the local bus station and got a ticket to the nearest big Thai town (Udon Thani) for 80 baht – a good start.  Going through the border was extremely easy and straight forward …and no payment to get the Thai visa, which is nice :)

For some reason most towns around here have at least two, if not more, bus stations and it is not uncommon that you have to get your self from one station to the next if you have to change busses.  On top of that the bus stations are often outside the towns and that doesn’t make things easier.  Anyway we had to take a tuktuk between bus stations and got a ticket to Chang Mai three hours later for 525 baht.  By showing a little initiative we saved about 50% or 600 baht on the fare, which is huge in backpacker terms, and arrived in Chang Mai 3 hours sooner than if we would have taken the Vientiane-Chang Mai bus so we saved both time and money :)

I have to admit that the 14 hour bus ride was no luxury ride, we had one stop after seven hours and that was it.  Twenty minutes to pee and eat.  Apparently we had a toilet on board but that wasn’t really accessible because the bus was completely full with about fifteen people standing in the middle without any seats – some of them were standing for hours.

We were very happy to reach Chang Mai where we knew of a great guesthouse in the middle of town waiting for us.  Chang Mai is the main city in Northern Thailand and offers a lot of tours and activities that we are now trying to decide between so stay tuned!

ps. we have not been taking enough photos recently as you can see by the crappy photos in the last few posts but I promise that we’ll shape up here in Chang Mai ;)


Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , ,
Categories : South East Asia

Vang Vieng and tubing

16 03 2010

Vang Vieng surely is a town one of its kind!  We arrived just when it was getting dark and the town was starting to get lively.  Many of the restaurants where playing Friends or Family Guy on the TV and the guests lounged on benches, sipping beer and watching the shows – it all looked so cozy! 

We were quick to find a room, get rid of our bags and head for a nice looking restaurant.  We had been warned that all you could eat in Vang Vieng were Happy Pizzas, Opium Burgers, Mushroom pasta and the like so we were very curious.  Our menu didn’t have any of that stuff and in fact we didn’t see any of those dishes – not that we were really searching :)  It wasn’t long before we could smell the sweet odor of ganja from the next table.

On our way back to the guest house we met a few drunken kids, skanky girls in bikinis and guys only in their shorts – all too happy to tell us where the cheapest buckets of whiskey were to be had – but the oldies just went to bed ;)

The next morning we headed towards the river for the town’s main activity (besides partying) – tubing.  For the uninitiated, tubing is floating down the river on an old tractor tube stopping at the various bars along the way, jumping into the river on big swings or water slides. 

We bought our ticket and were driven about four kilometers up river.  We kind of thought that we would just be spectators watching the young ones having all the fun but it ended up being a lot of fun for us.  They have about twenty different bars that you can stop at.  Many of them have free shots and cocktail specials and all serving ice cold beer to a thunderous beet of dance music. 

The river was surprisingly clean and the surroundings absolutely beautiful with high cliffs towering over the river between jungle covered hills so no matter what you are looking for – it should be a lot of fun.  Unfortunately we didn’t dare take the camera with us so we don’t have any photos :(

It took us about five hours and a few beers to float all the way back into town.  When we came to town we saw that the town is not so cozy in the daylight – the restaurants are all kind of sweaty and the people either suffering from a hang over or drinking it away. 

After shower we planted us into one of the Friends bar, ate dinner and watched a few episodes of Friends, an excellent evening after a fun day.

We kind of knew that we had done everything we wanted to do in Vang Vieng and didn’t want to stop too long and repeat any of it, always stop while you’re ahead,  so we just took the bus then next morning to the capital – Vientiane – before going back to Tailand.


Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: , , ,
Categories : South East Asia

Laos quick facts

16 03 2010

Laos (with a silent s at the end), the land of million elephants, is the home of 6.5 million people, 70% of which are ethnic Lao and 67% exercise Theravada Buddhism.  Laos is more than twice the size of Iceland or six times the size of Switzerland.  The official language in Laos is Lao accompanied by Lao script.

Laos is a land-locked country between Burma, China, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.  With building of new roads though, you can say that Laos is slowly becoming a land-linked country – a major transport hub between the ever growing economies of China, Thailand and Vietnam.

Laos is, like Vietnam, a communist country but the communist party has since the eighties been relaxing its grip on the whole society.  We weren’t aware of the communist regime at all apart from a few revolutionary flags around governmental buildings.  Laos now welcomes foreign investment and the citizens enjoy more freedom than ever before.  The lack of proper infrastructure is though still hindering progress in Laos even though the country has moved leaps and bounds in recent years.  The country is very mountainous and land travel takes a lot of time – as we have experienced.  Unfortunately water levels are getting lower and lower in the Mekong, after the building of several dams in China, making travel by boat difficult as well.

Rice production still makes up the biggest portion of Laos’ economy but they also grow coffee, tee and opium.  The country is rich in minerals like gold and copper and more areas are being mined every year.  The country is still pretty poor with about 30% of the population under the poverty line.

Laos has the honor of being the most bombed country on this earth.  I read somewhere that during the Vietnam war, the Americans hit Laos by an average of one B-52 bomb load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973.  That is more explosive power than was used in the whole of WWII.

The last fact is that apparently it is not allowed to play cards in Vientiane!  At least we were eating at this restaurant tonight and were playing “Kleppari” while waiting for our dinner when the manager came and told us that playing cards was not allowed in Vientiane?!?!?


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , ,
Categories : South East Asia

Luang Prabang in Laos

14 03 2010

Luang Prabang has been a great relief after all the all the noise in Hanoi.  As you might have heard the Lao people are extremely relaxed and I think that in the five days we have been in Laos only one scooter has honked its horn at us so it has been very relaxing!

The flight from Hanoi was very nice and we even had a nice dinner on board during the one hour flight.  Getting a visa was no problem, we had a minor scare though as we didn’t have any dollars nor Lao kip but the visa guys accepted Thai baht so in the end we were OK.

Luang Prabang is a very cozy town of about 50 thousand people, located on the banks of the Mekong river.  It is quite a beautiful town with a dominating French colonial style.  The relaxed atmosphere is quite dominating and you even have to wake up some of the tuk tuk drivers if you want them to drive you places :)

For the first three days here in Luang Prabang we have just soaked up that relaxed atmosphere and done next to nothing – just wandered around looking at the many temples in town, checking out the very nice night market and chilling in one of the cafés or bakeries here.  We met the Húsavík quartet again – just shows how small Asia really is – and here is a link to their Icelandic blog

Laos has been called the land of the thousand elephants so it made sense to book a mahout training course (elephant trainer/rider) for Elínborg’s birthday.  We booked a two day training course with the Elephant Village, which seemed to us like the most trustworthy company in town.

The elephant village had nine elephant chicks and on the first day we got to ride the elephant on the saddle and after we got comfortable I was allowed to ride on the elephant’s neck.  After the first ride we had our mahout training, learned the lingo and how to control the elephant.  After lunch we were allowed to ride the elephants on our own into the jungle where they spend the afternoon eating their 200 kg. of greeneries before going to sleep (the elephant dongs are in proportion to what they eat :).

In the evening we joined a local party celebrating the opening of a new school in the village.  The party felt a bit strange and after two ladies asked me to dance, we left for the peace and quite at our restaurant.  We could hear the banging music from the party in our lodge well into the night …or at least until about 21:30 when we fell asleep :)

In the morning we went with the other mahouts and fetched the elephants from the jungle and took them for a bath.  Bathing the elephants in the river was so much fun – they are such delicate and fantastic creatures and so much fun to be around.  This was possibly the most fun activity that we have done so far!

After breakfast we went back to Luang Prabang and are now waiting for the mini-bus to take us down to Vang Vieng.


Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: , , , , ,
Categories : South East Asia

Next Entries »