Flat Pack Travel

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Today we spend a day at the caves which meant taking a tuk-tuk and then a long boat across the river, post fruit plate of course. The drive was about as dusty as I’ve ever experienced and we arrived filthy but the journey was absolutely lovely - high lightened by the spotting of several elephants out and about. I find this is pretty typical when travelling, you’ll go through the most obscure and uncomfortable experiences to be blown away by something incredible and afterwards you only remember the wonderful. As we stepped onto the boat we noticed two more elephants in the grasses around the river and walked past baby buffalos playing in the mud. The landscape was really beautiful and this more than made up for the heat of the day and the orange dust we were all left wearing. The caves are adorned with images of the budda and flowers, candles and donations are left, leaving the place crammed full of tradition and a character of it’s own. You could climb all around and the cave complex, which were all fitted with tall stone steps, all the way into a bat cave at the top. Once we’d explored the caves and exhausted ourselves, we made the journey in reverse. Our last supper in Luangprabang was in a pretty little restaurant, generously decorated with lanterns and providing loose leaf tea in proper tea pots, something I was delighted with. Catching our tuk-tuk to the bus station was slightly stressful once we’d packed up as the bar which we’d agreed to meet at has – unknown to us at the time – several points of road access. If we’d of missed this by being on the wrong road, the whole journey would have had to be scraped and we didn’t have the time to play with if we wanted to make the full moon down south. However, all was well and off we went. We ate and got on our overnight sleeper bus in which we were literally packed in, it was quite incredible. For the most part you get a small bed where you’re sort of stacked between those around you, you have to see it to believe it. However, the seats we’d been allocated took this even further, giving us what looked like a baggage hold at the back with three seat belts. I have a few photos. So that we had to sort of slide ourselves into the hole which was right over the back wheel. Perfect. For one reason or another I found this hysterical due to the ridiculousness of it all, however, I believe the boys had a tougher time space wise as I tend to be just the right size for Asian design and they come up either a little or a lot too tall. The journey was interrupted and strange but safe and a new experience at the very least. The less said about the toilet the better.

Goodnight and lots of love from Katie

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