Laos!

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Sorry about the lack of blog postings lately but we've been very busy entertaining our visitors who have come and gone since we wrote last! So after we left Vietnam and said our final goodbyes to Kat & Jay our nam travel buddies...who have since got engaged (!!)...we headed on to Chiang Mai in Thailand to make our way into Laos. We spent 2 days on the slow boat down the Mekong River stopping off at Pakbang a little town...alot smaller than knockcroghery....with no electricity but yet still found out that Michael Jackson was dead....! Slow boat was great, about 130 backpackers on a boat the size of a Dublin Bus and a big cooler full of beers, so lots of fun! Arrived in Luang Prabang with our new travel companions Roos and Lydia from Amsterdam. Got a lovely place to stay and chilled out in the town for a few days. There is a curfew for locals so everything shuts at 11.00 and the only place open is...the bowling alley..lets bowl lets bowl...with a full bar and lots of ladyboys to keep everyone entertained! It was like the rockfords of Luang Prabang, everyone who was on the boat showed up. We organised a trek for the 5 of us plus another American girl we met on the boat. The trek was great, we cycled uphill to where we were trekking from, when we finally arrived uphill in double the time it was meant to take us...we started the trek up the mountains to the 'mong' tribe where a family cooked us a local dish for lunch. We were brought around the village and were made so welcome even with the language barrier. The children gathered around to see who the strange white people were and were afraid to come too close to us! After lunch we began trekking to our overnight stay at another tribe village higher up in the mountains. The children picked us flowers as gifts and we gave them chocolate which they were delighted with. We stayed overnight in a bamboo hut under mosquito nets on the floor which was surprisingly comfortable! Next morning we left the village and made our way to the waterfalls under attack from Leeches! We swam in the waterfalls and headed back to the town. Our next stop was Vang Vieng a sleepy town full of couch restaurants playing friends all day long! We did some tubing down the river here... going from bar to bar on tubes (although we didnt even use the tubes!) hitting some mud pools along the way. The nightlife was really good here and we met lots of great people along the way. Thats all for now, Kellie Dee & Cillian x

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