Laos

hello from Laos,
we are here for the last 5 days and must say Laos is fantastic! We arrived across the border from Thailand at Huay Xai to take the slow boat to Luang Prabang down the Mekong River, slow being the word alright, it takes 14 hours!!! But it does stop for a night halfway. The guidebooks all say - don't get on if the boat is overpacked etc, so when we arrived with the 30 or so other people who were staying in our guesthouse to see a nearly full boat, the last one to leave that day, we had a stand off, with all of us on the shore looking for a new boat to be put on. Half hour later and no movement from the increasingly irate driver and someone broke ranks and went on. turns out there was enough seats, but we suspect locals were 'moved' to the back of the boat to make room. Brian & I were last on and thought we'd be standing but luckily got the best seats in the house!! On the luggage. Brian has a photo of this and i'll get him to put it up soon.
locals on the slow boat wondering what all the fuss was about while the standoff was on.

Not much to do on the slow boat but read, watch the world go by and chat to the other people around. another slow boat goes by
Both days the slowboat had to make unscheduled stops to ease the thirst of the boats passengers - see photo!!


Now we are in Luang Prabang, it used to be the capital of Laos and has a great laidback vibe and lovely coffee shops with good coffee and baguettes (french legacy) which makes a nice change to rice!! We went on a 2 day trek and kayaking to the Hmong tribal villages in the mountains for the last 2 days with Lucas from Switzerland and Mark from Sydney and our two local guides Chou and Guy who are brill craic. Met loads of really friendly villagers, especially the kids, and stayed the night in a village chief's house. Great night sleep here after the tough trek but woken but cockcrow, kellogs cornflakes have a lot to answer for, cockcrow doesnt start at dawn, more like 4am!!!!

The chief had been out hunting the night we were there and we were offered jungle rat stew as part of our breakfast, yuck!!!! Brian tried it and I declined, I'll let him describe the taste in his next post!

A nice stroll down the mountain to the river where we went kayaking finished up the day, we kayaked over some whitewater rapids and all of our kayaks ended up upsidedown. Two old ladies in their 70s kept us with us on the walk while carrying a sack of rice each on their heads - amazing!!

who needs bridges!!local kid at work

The Pied Piper of Laos
Brian showing kids photos he took

farming Laos style

A makeshift dam that powers one house on a village we visited





Kids at their front door, the mobile is for catching bad spirits, like a dreamcatcher. Interesting because the Hmong tribe have travelled to Laos from North America - Alaska - Mongolia - China to Laos.
lady at work in local costume

kids grinding corn - and having a great time doing it!


so Brian gives it a go in the next village.


Brian having a game of Rattan (like volleyball but you can only use the head and feet to get the ball over the net) while a local lady looks on.

Brian is gone mountain biking today and I chose to do some shopping (browsing) and pampering - an hour massage plus pedicure for 6 euro, I know the girls reading this are envious :)
Chat soon, hope you all are well, Jeanette