Laos Continued...

---

Loretta has finally permitted me to share some of the blogging responsibilities - I can assure you however that she's closely watching over my shoulder and that this entry may be heavily censored.

Of all the ridable creatures on earth, the elephant is in most people's top five or so. For me, the Grizzly Bear comes in at number one, closely followed by the Blue Whale and you could imagine my excitement the morning of my first ride on my third favourite - the elephant.

We were picked up in a mini-van and headed down a dusty jungle road about 30kms outside of Luang Prabang. Often it is the seemingly insignificant moments, like this, that leave you thinking "wow, this is kind of exotic". I'm talking about the small things like watching everyday village life in the Lao jungle; kids at school, old men making their living diving for gravel in the river - stuff like that.

We were the only ones on our tour so we got to do things at our own leisure which was nice. We were introduced to our Mahout (def: a Mahout is to an elephant what Loretta is to me, pretty much) who was lovely but couldn't speak or understand a word of english. This lead to some rather amusing situations like Loretta trying to feed a banana to the elephant's tail (sorry, the blog police just issued a warning, I'll try to stay on track). We took a leisurely waddle through the jungle and sidestepping up and down the steep creek banks got a bit exhilarating. Eventually our Mahout asked if we wanted to jump on his head (not the Mahout's, the elephant's) and 'take the reins'. For those who didn't know, switching places on top of an elephant when you're 6'3, 90 something kg's is pretty awkward. Loretta was a natural Mahout, she just seems to have a knack for bossing around big, slow, docile things.

Next up we jumped on a long boat and powered upstream to some waterfalls which I can neither spell or pronounce. The unspellable and unpronouncable falls were beautiful and had very serene and mystical feel about them - I couldn't stop thinking it was all a little bit like that beer ad where the truckie turns up to deliver the beer to those people dressed in white living in the forest and he opens his beer bottle with a dove. Anyhow, it was all very relaxing until a runaway baby elephant trounced through the water hole we were swimming in and unloaded the several dozens of kilos of fruit and grass he had eaten an hour ago (note: it should be known that elephants digest food very quickly).

After lunch at the falls it was time to kayak the semi-mighty Nam Khan river, close cousins with the fully-mighty Mekong river. After a very long winded instructional safety course (which was a variation of the following sentence "you, sit on front, you, sit back, paddle same time... OK?") we were making good time on our double-kayak. The leisurely part of the kayaking (which was a sea-kayak, not a kayak proper) lasted about an hour when we noticed that we were going a lot slower than we should have been and that the kayak was unusually difficult to balance. Two minutes later we were soaked and patching up the hole in our kayak on the side of the river. Loretta was funny - her cries of horror soon turned into lots of laughter as we tried to float us and our waterlogged vessel back to the shore.

Today was spent exploring Luang Prabang on push-bikes. We got to see some beautiful temples and visit some small village areas. We've loved it here. The Lao people are beautiful and Luang Prabang has such a calm feel to it. We've eaten some great food (note: small green chilli's are best left as a garnish and if you find pieces of wood in your soup, don't eat them either), met some great people and hope to be back some day.

---

Photos

Sunset over the Mekong
Once I had worn Loretta out with our cycle, she went to bed for a nana nap. This is what I got up to.

Loretta the Mahout
Loretta shows us who's boss

It's no Murray, but it's OK
The wire you can see across the river is used to transport goods to and fro.

Waterfall
"Ok darling, now when the water gets to about here, shoot. I really want to get that whole Daniel Craig, Casino Royale thing going."

Kayaking
post capsize

Dusty Road
Loretta letting the bike get some rest. Apparently the hill looks a lot bigger in real life.

Comments

[Vicki]

not the murray
Well you big slow docile thing...that was great blog...lovely pics too. Have you heard about the drama in Bankok airport?