loa loa! loa loa!

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so the journey from chiang mai to the loas border was uneventful - we bounced around in a grotty mini bus for six hours. we'd ben told that the slowboat is a fun way to get to luang prabang (our first stop) as the scenery is spectacular, blah blah blah.....which it is (for the first couple of hours) however fast forward three hours and i was in so much pain i could have been looking at an attractive man or a particularly tasty cake and i couldn't have cared less. i'm talking about sitting in the same position for seven hours. i'm talking about arse ache, something you don't even consider before you leave home but which any traveller will tell you starts to prey on your mind after a couple of 12 hour bus journeys.
we reached pakbang at 6.00pm and after eating something which tasted suspiciously like supernoodles and being offered drugs (''ýou smoke weed...?' úm, no! thanks for asking though') crashed out in eager anticipation of the second part of our journey (another 7 hours on the boat. ouch!)

there don't appear to be any harbours on the mekong so we were kicked off in luang prabang on a huge steep sandback which we crawled up practically on our hands and knees (i was hanging on to grass, quite optimistically in hindsight) happily we didn't roll back down to a watery death and we even made it to a guest house with a television. we watched the news but nothing really seemed to be happeing (for some reason we're more interested in the weather at the moment.....1-? that's chilly!)

luang prabang is a lovely sleepy little town with french architecture and lots of bakeries and a cool night market where we picked up some cheap bits. we really liked it there but will always remember it as the place where we rode an elephant. a real life no fooling elephant!

i wish i could say it was idyllic and wonderful but it was actually slightly terrifying - the elephant was led over to the bamboo tower where we were supposed to get on but he kept on moving away everytime i stuck my foot out. i knew elephants were tall but i'd never really thought about how tall until i thought i was going to fall off one. once we were both securely sat on the bench strapped to the elephant's back (as in, once the stick had been slotted into place) we were off. then we stopped (he'd seen a water buffalo) then we were off again. then we stopped (elephant needed to relieve himself) then we were off! then we stopped (elephant was hungry) once the contrary creature got going it was really interesting to see the jungle from a different persepective (interesting and nerve wracking - all the spiders live in the trees but the elephants doesn't mind if you bash into one - cue ís there a 'spider in my hair?' fretting) if i'm honest i enjoy the memory of the elephant ride more than i did the actual experience - i had a horrible feeling he was going to run off, leaving us squished against trees or worse! with spiders in our hair. plus we went to waterfall, it was so good - it was the johnny depp of water falls. it was hot!

our next stop was vang vieng, a mere three hours over the mountains. except it took seven hours. and we had to get off and use the toilet. except there wasn't a toilet. and there were lots of other girls not using the toilet. i don't mean to be crude but should you find yourself in a similar situation then please, remember this important rule - don't make eye contact. for the love of god don't make eye contact!

vang vieng is the place everyone goes to go 'tubing'- you get driven 3km out of town with a rubber inner tube and then float back to town, stopping at the many bars along the river as you go. tubing is literally the most fun i've ever had in my life - there are lots of swings and ziplines over the water so you can do some monkey tricks or just watch people hitting the water in painful ways ( i tried a zipline and fell straight off - it's quite painful! so i spent the rest of the day watching other people fall off - i'm more of a spectator in these things) hannah loved the swings though and i loved watching her (and hearing her shout cusses at the top of her voice!) sipping a cold beer in the sunshine. bliss. in fact we liked it so much we went the next day as well. we heard from some friends of ours that it's dodgy for girls to come back after dark as it's 45 minutes from the last bar to the town - they told us they left too late and that some local boys came out to push them back to vang vieng but ended up ínappropriately touching' them. they seemed pretty shaken by the experience so if anyone reading this is thinking of going tubing or knows girls who are please let them know - our friends couldn't report it because they couldn't make themselves understood.

we were sad to leave vang vieng but knew we would spend the rest of our lives floating about in rubber rings if we didn't escape its charms quickly so i'm writing this in vientiane, the capital city of loas. we haven't seen much yet though we went to a big festival last night. hannah got some ace photos but her camera doesn't seem to like the computers here so we can't upload them.

we're going to a festival of fireworks and lights on the river tonight (as a surrogate guy fawkes night) so that should be cool, though the owner of our hostle has been telling us stories about travellers getting robbed and drugged!! we trust no-one anyone so we're in no danger!

our next blog will be from vietnam so we'll let you know how much of a bribe we have to pay to get in.

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Comments

[Elizabeth]

Thinking of you!
Hi Girls I enjoy your travel blog very very much! It sounds exciting and fun and sometimes scary and I know you are making memories that will last you a lifetime. Enjoy!

[Gordie & Jen]

Excellent Blogs
Thanks for another good blog - keep having fun.....