Livin La Vida Laos
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Thursday 12th August
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Ah well this is the life! We are currently sitting in a café in Nong Khiew overlooking some stunning scenery that looks as if we have been dropped in the set of “The Beach”. This is our jump off point for the slow boat trip along the Mekong to Luang Prabang and is a great place to chill overlooking the river from our own bungalows and our first encounter with local wildlife. Neill and Kylies encounter with the local rat munching on their fruit made us laugh this morning!
Anyway prior to here was Luang Nam Tha where we had the luxury of cocktails and proper fresh fruit shakes, bliss! We stopped for 4 nights here and all around were perfect places for trekking, kayaking and cycling. We opted for a day kayaking with Mike, Alice and Heather (who the guide took quite a liking to after serenading her, the majority of the trip) plus some randoms who due to their inability to row ended up forcing us into a tree and covered us in spiders. We visited some Lanten villages along the river which remain relatively untouched by the western world and only 2 months ago had electricity connected to their villages. Women are married relatively young and from that moment onwards they have their hair tied up in a bun, and have their eyebrows removed. Saves visiting the beauty salon every few months I suppose!? Lunch was served on bamboo leaves in the middle of the jungle which was rather unusual and Heather can add various foods now to her ever-growing list of new foods on the trip.
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The next morning at silly o’clock, we went cycling with Neill Kylie and Kirsten to visit a Stupa, a temple and some more villages while cycling through some stunning rice paddies. Needless to say most people were rather sore the next morning, including the group which went for a 2 day trek/kayak which included a night in a hill tribe village!
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We celebrated Neills birthday on the last night with even more beer Lao, “yellow monk” cocktails and sweet and sour chicken from a wee restaurant, which consisted of 1 man and his frying pan. He will be able to retire now after having to serve the whole group at once.
We’ve now hit back into backpacker territory and it’s hard to convey to others what we have being doing the last 4 months without Calypso being by our side, so we are hoping Pete can hide Calypso in his luggage for his return. On that note; latest news from Lhasa is that Pete is still evading the police as the Yoghurt festival has kicked off, meaning the government offices are closed till Monday so no permit yet so Pete is getting tucked in to Muller Corners and Frubes as we speak.
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