Laos - The 2nd half

Ok so now I'm on a decent keyboard I'll keep you up to date on what we got up to in the 2nd half of our Laos Soiree...

So we left Vang Vieng for Louang Prabang, we were told not to take the bus so we got a minivan, except they put too many of us in the 1st one, and only 3 people in the 2nd one. Luckily half way we got in the 2nd one so it was much more comfortable! All was going well until the storm arrived, We even got hail the size of golf balls!!! It was pretty cool, although the Irish girl we were with got a bit scared...

But we arrived in Louang Prabang, they have an excellent night market so we checked that out for a while. We had an early night, about time for Alan! The next day we looked around the old city, it's a world heritage site as it has so many buddhist temples mixed with old building with french architecture. It's quite a peaceful town and it was nice to walk around. We had a look in the museum of the royal family then walked up a big hill in the middle of the town to get a good view, it wasn't that great though, too many trees in the way. We had a late night at the bowling alley (it's the latest place for all the cool kids to hang out) that night after meeting a few people at the pub.
The next day we went out to a waterfall, it was quite beautiful, and peaceful as well. We had a swim, but it was pretty darn cold! We got back to town and just chilled out for a while, Grant had a really bad lunch so wasn't feeling the best. Never get buffalo stew!

So next it was up to Luang Namtha, it took us 9 hours to get there, it's only 300 kms away but the road is pretty attrocious at points. It was better than the 11 hours on the local bus anyway!

We got to Luang Namtha and organised our trek for the next day. And that night at the restaurant at our guest house we met a few people keen to do the same one, which made the next few days so much fun!

So up in the morning to do our trek, there were 7 of us (2 Poms, a German couple, and the obligatory Aussie). We did about 4 hours trekking the 1st day, then we arrived at a village and had a good rest and a swim in the river and a walk around the village.

The trekking crew by the river

The buffalo that was lazing by our hut

That night we had the most amazing dinner. We all get to eat with our hands which we both loved, and the food is all organic and so tasty! We had the chief of the village join us and we got to ask questions about the village which just made our lives seem so ridiculously and unnecessarily complicated. He was really nice and seemed to enjoy having the tourists visit. Oh and best of all, he's the chief by a vote! A mini democratic society!
We went off to bed early that night, not much to do with no electricity and just candles for company.

Up early in the morning, we had breakfast and started on our merry way at around 9:15. Today was the tough day as there were loads of leeches and the guide almost stepped on a few snakes... Alan was right behind him and was given quite the fright when Ket the guide jumped a few feet in the air! Leeches were just a nuisance, although we didn't get any on our skin, just socks and shoes.
We stopped at another village, was still quite nice, had another great lunch eating with our hands, had a rest and on up a steep hill we went. At the top of the hill we were all very sweaty but we walked along a bit and got views like these above the bamboo trees.

So we had a pretty good day, were shattered when we got back but shouted our guides a beerlao for being so awesome, they thought we were pretty awesome too! And beer kept flowing until around 10 when we all went to bed as most of us were up early in the morning for buses.

Ahhh Public buses in Laos... We got to the bus station at 8, the bus left at 9:30 when it was full (which includes sacks of rice on the floor) and 5 hours later we arrived at the Thai border. The Border is on the Mekong river so we had to cross that to get to Thailand. We got to the other side to find that we had a 2 1/2 hour wait for the minibus to take us to Chiang Mai, so we ate and drank and had a laugh with the lady at the restaurant who admitted that she loved money and wanted us to spent as much as we could there. And we finally arrived in Chiang Mai at 11PM. Quite a long day! So we wandered around the night market which is open until 1AM. But we were in bed at midnight...

So now you're all up to date. Next stop Bangkok, and then to the islands in the sun! Can't wait!