Sabqai-dii! (Hello in Lao)

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Today I am extremely tired. I woke up at 6:30am and then got on a bus to Mohan (again, it was that same kind of horrible road with even worse driver where all you can do is hold on and hope you don't throw up - which I was fortunate enough not to). Then I met an English guy who seemed to who only half wanted me around when I crossed into Boten where we waited for a bit until a sawngthaew took us to Nam Tha. A sawngthaew is like a pick-up truck with seats built into the back with a roof overhead where luggage can be placed (or apparently so can people), ours was crammed but not that crowded. I talked with the English man, a Chinese guy (who said there were a lot of Chinese in Nam Tha - although I haven't met too many) and a bit to a Lao man (although not knowing Lao made that difficult).

When we arrived we looked for a place to stay (as we were together people kept giving us the price of one room until they realized we're not a couple). We finally both found a great place called Zuela (not in the book but we have the '05 edition, not the latest). It's like log cabin type feeling but very nice, like Diana and Roy's house. The people here are really nice as they seem to be most places here in Laos.

After eating I took a bike ride around, it's really an amazing place, I've never seen gass so green, people so friendly and animals so tiny all in one place like this. I biked for the first time with one hand on an umbrella (to keep me shaded). Locals kept coming up beside me to talk with me, even at the 2 Wats I visited (very small ones with 24 and 5 monks living there respectively) but at least one of those monks knew English well enough to talk to me. It was a good 20 km bike ride but I really enjoyed going through the villages and seeing the kids so happy. I made up my mind that I want my kids to live in this kind of setting for at least some time before they're school-aged, good thing we've got Cam's village.

When I got back to the guest house I gave the bike back and went across the street to the night market where I tried a bunch of Lao food - some green veggies (not very good), a great sausage stick, some awesome egg roll type things, a sausage like thing in a corn husk, and a 7-up (which they put in a bag with ice and a straw as I was walking around and they needed the bottle - I've never had a drink like that before!) Then there were a whole bunch of dances from different tribes Unfortunately as I'd already seen the dance while coming back to town and it had the same music and feet movement, it wasn't too interesting after the 3rd time (although the women's dresses were pretty neat). So I decided to go to bed and stay another day here in Nam Tha.

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