Sabaai-dii from the land of a million elephants....

Greetings from Wow Laos!!!

I'm not too sure where my last email left off but if I remember well it was me attempting to cross Thailand to get to Nong Khai to hop across the border in Vientiane and into Laos....Well that worked and I made it, flood and washed out road free to Nong Khai where I decided to hang out a couple of days as it seemed a really relaxed and chilled out place and so it was....

The bus journey to Nong Khai was basically in a luxury fridge and I think the drivers wife must live there as he drove like a loony in the dark and got us to Udon Thani just south of Nong Khai a couple of hours ahead of schedule...this however meant that I was sitting in a deserted bus station at 1.30 in the morning with four hours to kill before I could catch a bus up to Nong Khai.... However, the bus station guard took me under his wing and pointed to a bench and told me to sleep there!!! Hmmmm...in the absence of nothing else to do I chained my bag to the bench surrounded myself with the stray dogs and tried to get some sleep.... Then the guard man gave me a pillow and a blanket and tucked me in on my bench and sat and watched over me...then he'd trot off for a wander around, come back tuck me in again and so went the night.... needless to say he didn't speak a word of English and with my Thai and the use of the back few pages of the Lonely Planet we got along just fine and he showed me the new puppies (Don't any of you send me any crap jokes about puppies and "Do you want to see them?"!!!!! either) they were real pups and they were just gorgeous... at 5.30 he woke me up carried my bag over to my bus and loaded me on and then gave me a massive hug and I wasn't sure he was going to let go but he did so I stuffed him a few Marlies I had left and off I went to Nong Khai

.....I stayed in Nong Khai a couple of days and chilled out in this really cool guesthouse on the banks of the Mekong overlooking Laos on the other side...it is a really cool and chilled out place, a small market....The guest house had a great garden to chill in and it does really amazing food so it was just glorious to spend a couple of days relaxing.... I met a Belgian guy called Fil at the guest house and we are now traveling through Laos together. We hired some bicycles and went to the really quite bizarre Buddha park. It is full of weird and wonderful Buddhist and Hindu statues and quite freaky all round....We also met a couple of other Belgian girls at the guest house so we all decided to cross the Friendship bridge and over the border together and head to Vientiane.

Anyway Laos is awesome, one of my favourite places so far, (but unable to knock Nepal off top slot though!) It is so relaxed and quiet, hardly any traffic outside of the towns. Vientiane the capital only has a population of around 130,000 and it is just awesome. On the front of the Lonely Planet it says "Roads less traveled" I am gonna write to them and tell them to call their next edition "Roads less Tarmacked" There's a heavy French influence all over but being here does give you an insight as to how other Asian countries must have been years ago....it is so lush and green and beautiful. No major highways and the highways here are like winding, twisting, bumpy roads... The people are really friendly and it is just one of the coolest countries I've been to....

We stayed a few days in Vientiane and visited another Buddha Park outside of the city that wasn't as weird as the one in Thailand. We also did the obligatory Wat tour and visited a few in and around the city, including the famous Wat Pha That Luang in Vientiane which is Laos' national symbol....Laos is one of those places though where you just soak up the atmosphere and surroundings rather than go on some sort of museum or sightseeing mission...just watching the world go by in Laos is one of the greatest things to do....

Fil and I caught the "chicken bus" from Vientiane to Vang Vieng which is a tiny little town to the north. As is customary in Laos the 5 hour journey took 7 with one hour spent on the roadside changing a punctured tyre. However for 7000 kip (about 50p) you can't really complain and it was one hell of a ride!

The main attraction in Vang Vieng (apart from getting stoned) is to visit caves, go kayaking or tubing (which involves parking yourself in an old tractor tyre inner tube and drifting out of control down the river through rapids etc and getting thoroughly wet....) Fil and I went for the kayaking option and ended up the only two people on our trip as two cancelled in the morning as they were ill ...(too much milkshake the night before me thinks!) So we and three Laos guides set off for a day of kayaking along the river visiting caves and just paddling through some white water rapids and taking in the beautiful scenery along the way. There were a few water fights along the way too as clearly our guides had decided to make it their mission to ensure we were thoroughly soaked all day long ...Lunch was on the riverbank on a small pebble inlet where our guides cooked us kebabs and vegetable rice in banana leaves.. The highlight of the day has to be going to the swimming cave though. This cave is only accessible if you swim through the entrance way hanging on to ropes to guide you as it's pitch black....once inside you wade through the cave up to your knees/thighs in water and it is really muddy and slippery so falling over is just gonna happen....Our guides took us into the cave with flashlights attached to their heads and then they showed us a mud slide which was about 20/30 feet long up one side of the cave and basically they chucked water up it to make it real slippery and then you scramble up the side of the cave to the top and then just go screaming down the slide and splash into the water below in the dark, go under and then come up spluttering....This was the most fun I've had in ages and the cause of much hilarity as the guides chuck great piles of mud at you as you're sliding down....(one has a rather bruised a**e after this frivolity but hey!) Then another group turned up so a real mud slinging fight took place then and once we were thoroughly covered in the stuff we left and paddles back to Vang Vieng ....It was such a grand day....Loved it....

Next day we met a Dutch guy called Marc who is now with us but he's going north tomorrow and we go south....so we hired bicycles and crossed the other side of the river and went cycling in the mud and along the bumpy roads for a day and got totally filthy again....At one bridge I met an Aussie guy who thought I was an Aussie and when I told him I was from Guernsey he said "Does that make you a donkey or a crappaud!!!" Well to say the least I was flabbergasted but it turns out that Jersey used to be quite an intrepid destination for the hippie traveler in days gone by and he spent 6 months there - god knows what he did there for 6 months but hey! It was just weird to find someone who even knew where the Channel Islands were never mind know the slang names we call each other! We went to a blue lagoon swimming cave place which was really blue (see photos when I get them on the site!) and then trundled back to town.....Anyway after that we bailed Vang Vieng (Jimmie - cheers for the tips darl, but the bamboo bridge was washed away in the rainy season but by jingo you were right about the "shakes"!!!! Yummy!)

We are now on our last day in Luang Prabang as tomorrow we are headed towards the south and Phonsovan. Luang Prabang is also exceptionally cool and we've visited the royal palace and spent a day at the waterfalls where you can swim in the pools and chill out under trees and just totally relax....I have also seen so many Wats in the last month or so that frankly I'm all Watted out and am just gonna take in the views from now on.....

Luang Prabang is an UNESCO World Heritage Site so there's lots of really gorgeous old colonial French houses and architecture and it's right on the banks of the Mekong and really, really beautiful and peaceful...UNESCO will also be making sure that none of those monstrous five star high rise hotel disasters are built either so it looks like it's a town that will be allowed to keep it's charm in the face of development or industrialization.

The food is also spectacular.. really spicy and not dissimilar to Thai but a bit more imaginative as some things you often eat are not easily identifiable at first but always taste great!!!

Anyway tomorrow we leave and so tonight we say goodbye to Mark but he's on his way to Oz so no doubt I'll bump into him somewhere as you often bump into the same people....

Anyway, time for me to go. I'm going to the Red Cross for a sauna and massage and then well no doubt a few Beer Lao (which is really great beer at 40p a 660ml bottle!) ....

Take care y'all, til next time.....

Live the life you love, love the life you live!

Lisa / Lillie

xxxx