Vegan in Hue, Vietnam

I really started to bond with Vietnam during my time in Hue, the air seemed clearer there than in Hanoi, it was certainly less humid and I was finally feeling 100% again. Yay! It was still ridiculously hot every day of course, it hit 38˚C on the day we explored the Imperial City, but when there's exploring to do you have to push through it, ignore the sweat running down your back, and get out there!

The vegan food sitch' in Hue was pretty damned amazing, we just kept getting hit after hit and we didn't even come close to checking out all of the options the city has to offer. First up was Quan Chay Tam Thien which we chose because of it's proximity to the Imperial City. The change in atmosphere couldn't have been much greater though, as soon as we stepped out of the north east gate and crossed the road away from the taxis and cyclos vying for our business we were in a quiet local neighbourhood dotted with houses and street stands selling banh mi sandwiches. There were no other tourists anywhere which was a nice change from being surrounded by tour groups tramping in unison all over the imperial city itself.

The menu was, of course, only in Vietnamese but we picked really well and ended up with a noodle dish and a fried pancake thing that was ridiculously delicious.

The noodle dish was my favourite part of the meal and I was actually grateful that the owner was happy to get all up in my business to show me how to eat it. I poured on some sesame sauce, she poured on more sesame sauce, I nibbled on a mouthful of noodles, she took my chopsticks, mixed the whole plate up for me and made me try again so that I got a mouthful with noodles, peanuts, tofu, lettuce, coriander, basil and faux prawn crackers. It was wonderful. She genuinely seemed to love having two clueless foreigners in her restaurant and I wish that we'd had a chance to return. One day.

We were still a little stuffed from our late lunch by the time dinner rolled around so we opted to stop off at Bo De during our evening promenade along the south bank of the Perfume River. Oddly certain parts of this walk reminded us of London's South Bank with pavement cafes and book stalls lining the walkway but of course it was incredibly different in pretty much every other way imaginable.

We went for a couple of super simple tofu dishes at Bo De because I just looove tofu. The steamed tofu with salt, pepper and lime was my fave' because it's so simple and so damn good. I'm pretty sure tofu's my favourite food. I genuinely don't know what I'd do without it. It's super versatile and whilst I don't often nibble on it raw I'm totally happy to which I am fully aware makes me a little odd even in the vegan world. I read this great article about the health benefits of soy foods, including tofu, written by The Vegan RD the other day, I haaaate it when people talk about how unhealthy soy products are because I know that that's some straight up bullshit but until now I'd never armed myself with enough facts to rebut people's stupidity. Now I have all of the facts so tofu haters can come at me with their frankly ridiculous questions about soy boobs and I can kill their stupidity with my words! Yeah!

Back to Hue and Nick and I managed to dine at Lien Hoa on only our second attempt. I'm not sure what the deal was the first time but we arrived a couple of hours before close and found the doors firmly shut and locked. Maybe they'd run out of food? This time we went at lunch time because who could run out of food by midday.

We were in luck and took full advantage ordering almost everything that took our fancy on the vast menu. Nick chose a fried mecan dish with rice which, thanks to a helpful Happy Cow reviewer, we knew was the translation for wheat gluten, or seitan, and I chose the aubergine with ginger and some summer rolls. I was also really excited to spot fermented tofu "cheese" on the menu so I ordered a small portion of that too.

My excitement was unfortunately tempered when the food arrived and it was packed full of chilli. I'm definitely finding Vietnam to be the place where upon telling someone "no chilli" my food comes covered in chilli. Every time I order I say "I can't eat chilli" and I accompany that with it written on paper because I'm aware that my Vietnamese pronunciation sucks but still, it just keeps on happening.  My stomach is pissed and my joint pain is flaring up which is frustrating. Telling people I'm allergic is even worse as I just get blank looks, I'm guessing the concept of a chilli allergy isn't really a thing here because, well, it's not really a thing anywhere! As well as trying super hard to get my point across I'm also trying to order things that I think probably won't have chilli, hence the aubergine with ginger and the fresh spring rolls, but of course, as you can see, that isn't always working. Thankfully I'm travelling with the best dude ever who is happy to take one for the team and eat far more than his fare share of spicy food about 90% of the time (he's never gonna eat my too spicy aubergine!) whilst I chow down on the steamed rice we always try to remember to order just in case. Sometimes I just have to eat some food with chilli in to avoid being horribly rude, putting us in an awkward situation or ending up starving. I have on more than one occasion tried pointing at the dishes on the table and asking again whether there is chilli and I still get the same answer. There is no chilli! But there is! I can taste it! I can see it! Damn my stupid allergy for making travelling in Asia more challenging than it would be otherwise. I do feel lucky that it's an allergy that affects me slowly and builds up the more I eat of the foods that I have issues with rather than one where I can go into anaphylactic shock. That would be much worse so I'm counting myself lucky and looking on the bright side!

If you're thinking of dining at Lien Hoa I would highly recommend the fresh spring rolls if you're a friend of chilli as the wrappers were obviously super fresh and the peanut dip they came with was glorious. The fermented tofu cheese was a huge win and I kinda want to make it my go-to condiment for everything always. I found the smell totally off-putting but the texture was silky soft and flavour wise it was strong, bold and cheesy and I loved it. The steamed rice was also very nice!

I did manage to kick our vegan foodie experience of Hue up a notch on the last night when I took Nick on a long walk down a dark alleyway to find vegan hot pot at Thanh Lieu.

This was our first ever hot pot experience anywhere in the world and boy was it a good 'un. Firstly this restaurant was massive and packed and every single group of people was devouring steaming, bubbling pans of hot pot. I knew this was a good sign as soon as we arrived. It also had the added bonus that we were able to watch what everyone else was doing with their hot pot so that we didn't make some kind of hideous faux pas.

I totally would have thrown the noodles into the pot because I'm an uncultured fool but no, you put the noodles into your dish and then ladle the hot soup over them so that they are perfectly cooked and not ruined like all of the pasta I made those first few years (ahem, 10 years) of cooking for myself. The broth was rich and tomatoey and waiting for it to boil before we could pop the lid off and add handfuls of greens was kinda torturous. I also felt like a food witch with my little bubbling cauldron of soup which I loved. As you can see in the top picture our hot pot came with a little side of fermented tofu which by this point was swiftly becoming my favourite food. I think this is up there with the best things I've eaten all year and I would be surprised if it doesn't make it onto my Top Ten List for 2015.

Vegan in Halong Bay (via Cat Ba Island)

I'd been dreaming of visiting Halong Bay for years before visiting Vietnam. It was high up on the must-do list for this trip, my first ever to South East Asia, but for some reason I hadn't really thought about the logistics. One of the things I've discovered about long term travel is that you kinda have to plan as you're going along which is a huge change from my usual super well researched three week sojourns to countries around the world. There really is only much planning you can get done in advance when the length of your trip is indefinite and this is especially true if you're also in the midst of packing up / selling everything you own and saying "See ya later" to most of the people you love. This meant that a few days before Nick and I were due to leave Hanoi I started frantically googling trips to Halong Bay and wowza, they're expensive! Not ridiculously so, on a short trip we coulda made it work, but the prices were way outa the ballpark for our new lives as a full time travellers. The majority of the trips were also overnight (I get SO sea sick) and included visiting pearl farms and fishing villages as well as providing all meals. I really wanted to find a way for us to do this without compromising our ethics or paying for a trip that included meals and ending up hiding our cabin scarfing Clif bars after another unsatisfying meal of plain steamed rice. I found one company, Indochina Junk, who said they could cater to vegans and who we would definitely have taken the trip with if we were working with a more generous budget; even with their 20% media promotions package discount it was still well out of our price bracket so we moved onto the next idea. We eventually settled on basing ourselves on Cat Ba island (there's even a veg spot listed there on Happy Cow) and taking a day tour with Cat Ba Ventures, one of the companies recommended in Lonely Planet, to both Lan Ha Bay and Halong Bay. 

The day began at Cat Ba Ventures centrally located office at 8:30am sharp where everyone from our small tour group collected their complimentary 1.5L bottles of water before hopping into a mini van for the short journey to the pier. We were almost the only people who hadn't also brought along copious amounts of whisky and wine which I honestly found a bit baffling. Yet again I found myself asking the question "Why does everything have to revolve around booze?!". I do drink alcohol but I can't comprehend why everything has to be all about it all the damn time. Ugh. There was also free coffee but soya lattes aside I'm still not sold on the whole caffeine buzz thing. 

We were soon sailing away from Cat Ba and out into the dramatic limestone karst filled seascape. 

First we first passed through a floating fishing village located just off the island. It seems that every single tour in the area goes through a floating fishing village but we were assured that we wouldn't have to deal with any awkward "having to turn down seafood in someone's home" moments and this turned out to be true. I also chose this tour because it didn't stop at a pearl farm something that it's even harder to explain your objections to than the meat industry! The boat did stop at one floating house / fishery to pick up our kayaks and people were able to get off of the boat and look around the guy's small fish farm if they wanted to. 

Nick and I did hop off of the boat because there was a cute dog and I just had to pet him! We learnt that the dogs that live in the floating fishing villages are treated better than a lot of dogs in Vietnam because the people there have no need to use them for food, enjoy having them around for protection and see them as part of the family, There was a great moment when we were sailing by and I saw some pups jumping from house to house to play with each other.

Once we'd collected our kayaks the boat continued through the stunning seascape and I soon realised that we'd totally lucked out with our tour guide because he used to be a teacher. That meant that he knew a whole lot about rocks which may not sound that great but I loved geeking out and learning how the karsts were formed and the differences between a grotto and a cave. Yeah, I know that that's kinda basic shit but I didn't pay much attention during geography at school because my teacher was a total arsehole.

The karsts were beautiful and I loved gazing out at them from the top deck of the boat. The morning mist made me feel a little like I was in some kinda old world pirate adventure which was pretty cool.

Once we were far enough out in the bay we hopped off of the boat to do a spot of kayaking through some grottos. Our guide prided himself on being a bit of a renegade but also having a lot of local knowledge and understanding of the tides which meant that we went through grottos with signs saying stuff like "DANGER DO NOT ENTER"! I was a little unsure about this at first but his explanations made total sense so I went with it and it was super cool. We ended up exploring some secluded lagoons that were super peaceful and free from boats and other tour groups.

The person in the back of the kayak had to be the torch wearer and I think Nick looks rather fetching in a massive head torch!

This was the first time I'd ever been in a sit in kayak, it was a lot easier to hop into from the ladder of a boat than a sit on kayak but I think they're harder to deal with if you end up capsizing. Luckily we avoided that disaster but we did manage to get stuck on a huge rock at one point which was pretty silly, we were bringing up the rear of a small group (our kayaking group halved after about an hour because the whisky was calling) and nobody noticed that we were stuck! Thankfully Nick's great at staying calm in a crisis and managed to get us off of the rock and back to the boat in time for lunch, what a legend!

Lunch itself was a tad uninspiring but with about 12 hours notice I wasn't expecting a whole lot. We were sat at a table with some meat eaters and I couldn't get any non-meaty pic's but we ate deep fried tofu, steamed white rice, sautéed potatoes, mushrooms with sesame seeds and some of the worst spring rolls I've ever eaten. Seriously, I didn't know it was possible to screw up a spring roll that much! Oh and there were bananas. It was fine though and I didn't need to dig into my emergency snacks so I'm calling it a vegan win.

Towards the end of the day we had time to do a spot of swimming and some lounging on this secluded patch of sand, the water was a little cool and choppy due both to the time of year and global warming so I didn't spend a tonne of time in the water but it was nice to ease my diminishing but nevertheless always present sea sickness by hopping off of the boat again!

The only small issue I had with this trip was that because of the lower than average price and the fact that the tour group are mentioned in the Lonely Planet South East Asia on a Shoestring guide book a lot of the other people taking the tour were booze focussed 20-something year old Western backpackers. There's definitely enough space on the boat to get a little distance from this malarky but it's a downside I feel is worth mentioning. Overall though I definitely rate the experience I had on the trip and I'd recommend the one day Lan Ha to Halong Bay sailing and kayaking expedition as a good budget friendly (632,826 VND / $29 / £20) way to check out the area.

A Whirlwind Vegan Tour of Hanoi, Vietnam

Despite spending almost two weeks in Hanoi I was sick for almost the entire time which a) totally sucked and b) means that I have far less fun stuff to tell you about than if I'd been on top of my eating 'n exploring game. So sad! I've never really been sick whilst travelling before and it was definitely challenging. It was the first time since leaving Brighton that I wished I had a home to go back to...  one with fluffy blankets and my panda and a fridge full of comfort food. I actually left Luang Prabang with what I thought was the end of a cold which morphed into an intense headache at the (very brightly lit) airport. That calmed a little and I managed to pop out and eat and then boom, food poisoning that lasted a whole week. I ended up visiting a doctor at Family Medical Practice who ran some tests and confirmed that as well as food poisoning I also had a sinus infection. Both are apparently common amongst westerners in Hanoi because of both food hygiene and air quality issues. I feel pretty lucky that this happened in a city where bottled water and vegan baguettes are easy to come by and I was super grateful that we'd chosen to stay somewhere with air con. We actually upgraded to a bigger, nicer and less damp room after six nights because I literally couldn't handle staring at the same four walls any longer!

During those first few hours where I felt okay enough to explore Nick and I walked around a small section of the city. We checked out the Old Quarter and Hoàn Kiem Lake where Nick bought me a balloon to cheer me up! I love balloons!

We ate at Zenith Yoga Cafe about 24 hours before I got sick and I'm pretty sure it was their salad rolls that got me because they were literally the only thing that I'd eaten and Nick hadn't for days. The service there was awful too (and I'm British so trust me, I'm used to a certain level of crappy service!) and Nick said that his burger tasted like it had been grilled the day before and then microwaved. I assumed he was exaggerating and took a bite and had to agree, it was the kind of thing that I'd have thrown away if I'd made it at home! It was such a shame because Zenith is a cute, chilled out space in the midst of a loud and busy city and it could have been a nice place to spend more time. It was also the only all veg place super close to where we were staying so it was definitely frustrating that I didn't trust their food enough to venture back there. We also managed to check out Bo De Chay where we shared one order of Salted Chicken with a side of white rice and another of Seafood Spring Rolls. Neither dish was what we were expecting but they were enjoyable none-the-less.

Despite not being able to eat anything other than plain baguette for three whole days I did manage to pop out for some walks around the neighbourhood. We were staying in the Old Quarter so the streets were bustling at all times of day with motorbikes and street vendors.

 Did I mention that I love balloons? Seeing whole bunches of them being transported is my fave'.

These train tracks run right inbetween the houses, so close.

Once I was feeling 95% again (it took another week or so for my appetite and energy levels to hit 100% again!) Nick and I knew we only had two days left so we needed to prioritise! We went on one whirlwind sightseeing day fuelled by the blandest food we could find for my poor stomach, the veggie fried rice with tofu from Cari Truong in the Old Quarter which, whilst not being the best food ever, was a great option. Oh and if you can sit on the balcony upstairs it's a really fun place to watch the world go by whilst you enjoy your meal.

The next day we met up with Cici from Vietnamese + Vegan. I love meeting other vegans when I travel and I discovered Cici's blog thanks to a guest post she wrote for Vegan Miam. Coincidentally I just wrote a guest post for her too proving that it really is a small vegan world! We met up at Loving Hut because it's one of the few places that you can be guaranteed some fun Vietnamese eats minus the animal products. Cici ordered some Bánh Xèo for us to share as well as some delicious fresh spring rolls that I forgot to photograph. Nick and I also couldn't resist the Beef Pho. 

The Pho was delicious, I like mine with plenty of lime squeezed in, but the Bánh Xèo was the star of the show. The Vietnamese pancake is stuffed with lightly cooked veggies and mock chicken and you pop a piece of that and some salad leaves and herbs into a rice flour pancake before dipping it into the mock fish sauce to get the full on taste sensation. So delicious.

After lunch we took a walk to West Lake where Cici introduced us to Bò Bía Ngot (my computer just won't do the proper i in bia but you can see it below) which are simple rice flour pancakes filled with pulled sugar, toasted coconut and black sesame seeds. We stopped and watched to make sure this was what was going into the rolls (My googling tells me that there are also non-vegan savoury Bo Bia) and then went for it.

This is one treat that is more delicious than the sum of it's parts. I am genuinely quite sad that I discovered these on my last day in Hanoi and have been looking out for them ever since.

Cici also told us about bánh rán mat which are Vietnamese doughnuts filled with mung bean paste sold by street vendors all over the Old Quarter. 

The salespeople can be a little pushy and we found it impossible to stop the woman we were dealing with from putting a non vegan fried pineapple thing into our bag. These were incredibly sweet and whilst I'm not at all averse to a sugar hit these were a little much. If I'd had the chance I would have liked to try their sesame covered counterparts bánh rán vùng which I would assume would be a little less sugartastic.

I also found some decent things to snack on in Hanoi, this haul was from QT Mart (such an adorable name!) on Pho Quán Thánh just down the road from the Loving Hut. Peanut Butter is quickly becoming one of my travel essentials especially in a country where the baguettes are almost always vegan. Nick also found some of his fave' accidentally vegan Lindt chocolate.

The biscuits pictured are on the not-too-sweet side and are flavoured with butter aroma which I hate the smell of but they made a great kinda bland snack. Nuts are always a vegan mainstay (cashews forever!) and Nick and I were both excited to find these Oreo Wafers (the pink filled one's aren't vegan but these are) and some knock off Pringles-style crisps which turned out to be kinda gross because sugar shouldn't be in crisps. We also grabbed cereal and soy milk from the Intimex supermarket by Hoàn Kiem Lake. 

On our last night we popped out to vegan friendly restaurant Aubergine for dinner where I obviously had to order the fried aubergine with garlic.

This place was on the expensive side for Hanoi but it was still really cheap from a western perspective, the portions were large and delivered exactly what the menu description said they would which is something I always appreciate. Everyone there spoke ridiculously good English so we had quite a lot of options as they were able to understand veganism and could have modified dishes from all over the menu not just from the vegetarian section. The slightly caramelised and super tender aubergine was delicious and I really wished I hadn't only discovered it on my final night in the city.

I was a little sad to be saying goodbye to Hanoi just as I felt that I was getting to know it but cleaner air and adventure were calling us and we decided to make our way to Cat Ba Island. To get there we took the train from Long Biên station in Hanoi to Hai Phong, walked across town to the port and then took the fast boat to Cat Ba.

The whole journey was surprisingly simple and problem free despite a screaming child in the seat behind me on the train kicking me in the back for three whole hours followed by my realisation that I hate hydrofoils (it got super bumpy as soon as we hit open waters) about 10 minutes into the crossing. Once we arrived on Cat Ba we checked out the beaches and then booked a day trip on a boat out to Halong Bay which was something I'd wanted to do for so long, more on that next time!

Vegan in Luang Prabang, Laos

Time for some real talk, Luang Prabang is freaking beautiful. If you were only going to check out one place in Laos this would be my recommendation. No hesitation. We arrived here fresh off of a mini bus from Vang Vieng and were immediately under the impression that we'd left the best of Laos 'til last. 

Backtracking a just a little Nick and I managed to find THE BEST way to get from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang. Most of the mini busses and all of the regular sized busses are still taking the old road between the two but we managed to find a couple of companies that run one or two busses a day to Luang Prabang using the newly resurfaced road that forks left instead of right about halfway through the journey. This cuts out a huge swathe of road that's full of potholes, hairpin bends, huge drops and is prone to landslides. I'm so happy that we discovered it! We booked the 9am Japanese bus (it has seat belts!) from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang with a tour operator on Ban Savang. (Directions: Starting at the place you rent tubes from because everyone knows it walk towards the river, follow the road around to the right past a few air conditioned mini marts and two bars showing Friends and it's there on the right opposite the Domon Guesthouse.) I would strongly suggest that it's the only way to do this journey! Everyone I've ever spoken to or read about who's taken the other road has hated it, why would you do that to yourself?!

Back to Luang Prabang and the first place Nick and I ate was Indigo Cafe which we chose because they actually have a vegan page in their menu.

Whilst our first visit was farcical due to a huge language barrier between us and our waiter, who kept bringing us beer no matter how many times we asked for water, the food we ate hit the spot. Nick went with the Indigo Fried Noodles, no egg, which is a little like a room temperature pad thai and, despite the silly plating, is apparently tasty enough to order more than once.

I wanted something that I could be assured didn't have chilli so I chose the Khoa Khng Taohu which is a coconut based sauté flavoured with ginger and lemongrass.

This was actually kinda bland the first time I ate it and then intensely gingery the second time around. The third time I ordered it my cold was so bad that I couldnt really taste anything but it made great comfort food. On our final visit I decided to branch out and try the Lap Hmak Kheua with no chilli which kinda worked in that the chilli was there on the side and I could move it.

Now from what I know about the traditional Laotian minced meat salad Larb I think that this was Indigo Cafe's vegan take on it. I was excited to have finally found somewhere I could try it sans chilli and it was definitely enjoyable, it came with a side of rice but I wished there had been more lettuce to make little crunchy salad pouches with!

I had been warned by a Happy Cow reviewer to avoid the spring rolls as they were served a pork filled variety and I can definitely see how that mix up could happen here, the menu item "spring rolls" is in both the meat and vegan sections of the menu and, having been in a hidden pork situation before years ago, I decide to skip them. 

As with almost every other city I've visited in Laos or Thailand there are beautiful Buddhist temples and Monasteries all over the place. The French influenced architecture is gorgeous too and there's a really special feel about the city. I don't really know how to explain it, it's kinda peaceful whilst being busy and despite being packed full of tourists it didn't seem like they were over-running the city and ruining everything. I might have felt differently about this if I hadn't decided to skip watching the monks receiving alms early in the mornings, the more I read about how they feel about this tradition and how much tourists have ruined it I just didn't want to play any part in it. Not everything is for westerners to gawp over.

We chose our hotel really well, it was in the perfect location right by the morning market which is just one street south of the night market. It was also right by Wat Mai at one end of the street and the Mekong at the other. Lao Lu Lodge has cute rooms which are a little noisy in the mornings but they have air con and everyone working at the hotel was super lovely. After we extended our stay we ended up in a twin room which was kinda cute and turned out to be a good thing when I got sick during our last couple of days! 

Breakfast every day was bread and jam with fresh fruit and juice. I usually subsidised this with Peanut Butter from my stash or something from one of the many juice spots around the corner.

The night market quickly became our go-to for dinner once we'd realised that you can't rock up 30 minutes before closing and expect there to be any food left. This all vegan buffet is a fill your plate as high as you can deal and it costs 10,000 kip which is about 80p / $1. Crazy.

First night plate, I think I did a pretty good job of piling my plate high with delicious noodle dishes, tofu dishes, rice and deep fry. They even had deep fried bread. Like, battered and fried. It was great! I think my second night plate was more impressive though. 

I really enjoyed their fresh spring rolls, the macaroni style pasta dish, the steamed butternut squash and the veggie fried rice. Oh and the deep fried bread of course. I didnt take third or fourth night pictures because we ended up there after dark but rest assured that I made the most of the buffet! If spicy food is your jam then everything here will probably be a little bland but they have you sorted and the long communal tables have a variety of hot sauces for you to choose from.

Just down the road at the beginning of the street the night market is on is a whole row of juice and baguette sandwich places. We came here a lot so that we could offset the deep fry with 80p fruit juices. Our favourite stall was Nancy's whose stall we went back to over and over both in the evenings and at breakfast.

Both the Apple, Lime and Mint and my own off-menu creation, Orange and Mango, were my favourites and Nick loved Orange and Pineapple.

Our week in Luang Prabang was totally like doing a juice cleanse just one where you intersperse the juices with deep fried bread. I think this could totally catch on.

I don't often drink booze but I find it hard to resist quirky bars and drinks that are delicious so when the two come together I tend to cave. As soon as I spotted a mojito on the menu of this pop up bar in the middle of the night market I couldn't resist.

Yum town. 

Food and drink aside Luang Prabang's environs are gorgeous and we knew we had to take a trip out to Kuang Si Falls because holy wow is this place gorgeous. It totally lived up to every picture I'd seen of it on the internet, it makes the Blue Lagoon from my last post look like a random puddle.

You reach the falls via a trail and even thought the first two pools look beautiful keep going all the way to the bridge. It just gets more gorgeous. You can swim in the majority of the pools although some are closed because they're sacred sights.

This was yet anther place where other tourists wanted to take pictures with me, this lady was hilarious. She'd just taken about a million highly posed pictures on her own and then she insisted that I joined her!

Another reason to visit Kuang Si falls is that right there at the entrance is Tat Kuang Si bear rescue centre. Now I didn't take many bear pictures, certainly none that are good enough to share, because I was far too busy squeaking internally to focus my iPhone. This place is small but really wonderful. 

Tat Kuang Si bear rescue is run by Free the Bears and is a haven for both Malaysian Sun Bears and Asiatic Black Bears who have been rescued from the illegal bear bile trade which I didn't know a whole lot about before my visit. Nick and I were actually really lucky because we arrived at just the right time to watch two bears playing together in a small pool. At one point one of the bears left and came back with a snack for their bear friend. It was an amazing moment to witness especially knowing what kind of lives the bears would otherwise have been living if Free the Bears hadn't intervened. Laos Free the Bears work really hard to improve the effectiveness of the response towards the illegal wildlife trade which is sadly still rife in Laos as well as working to increase environmental awareness among local communities and school kids. If you're in a place to help a bear in need you can make a donation here.

Overall I really enjoyed travelling through Laos, as a country it was super different to anywhere I'd been before and I definitely found some aspects, like the fact that there isn't a train system, challenging but it's totally a good thing to push your boundaries now and again to see which things are just deal breakers. I also liked that every place we visited was totally different from the last which kept me on my toes and made the whole journey super interesting.