Feb 20th

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So this morning we had to be up early liek i had said ad packed, then loaded our bags onto ONE tuk tuk.. i swar the thing was going to break!! Then all 15 of us packed into the back of a pickup truck, this seems to be our new found tansportation! Haha my god i thought if we hita bum someonewould eat it! It took about 10 min to check out of Thailand and then we walked down to the river edge and hopped onto a boat. Now let me descrbe this to you.... it is a TINY wooden boat that is maybe 10 inches on eaither side and rather wobbly.. like if i sneezed, then iwould probably cause the whole thing to flip... haha it was a thrill and ahalf doing that! The whole way i was thinking oh sh** oh s*** the whole way across... and for you who knowme well... well lets just say i have YET to have an accident. Once we crossed the river; too abuot 2 min, we were in Laos, and we got stamped in then we headed up the hill to catch a tuk tuk to get to our slow boat... oh jeeze i have a Taylor story for yo =p I decide that i needed to sit with my pack on at that becausei was too lazy to take it off while i waited for everyone else! So when i sat, i payed pack on my pack, and then i went to get up because everyone had made it to the top, ad i was stuck! Like a turttle that was flipped onto its back! My pack was just heavy enough, and i am rather weak in thisheat, and so Niel had to yank me up =P Everyone was laughing at me so hard!

So a slow boat is driven by a family who lives on it... they are rhater large, but we do not sleep on it. From where we were this morhing, it was going to take about 16 hours to get to Lang Prabang, so we had to sleep else where tonight.

It was a nice lazy day of floating down the river and playing cards; i learnt a new game, heart, and it got realy competive andwe played some LCR! I also read a whole book. Just the sound of the boat pluggni throught the waterand the sound of nothing else was exactly what weall needed. A much needed change from the vrooming of moter bikes... that seems to be the #1 way to get arund here!

John and dad you would think the cattle here are the most bizarr thing... they have LONG ears like a rabbit thathang down and they aer so skinny! They are all along the river and not penned in.

There are a bunch of hill tribes along the river, some very wealthy looking ones, with "real houses" and others are very poor... houses made of banana leave trees and straw.

The kids that are playuing alon the river wave and scream whenever we go by.

The place we are staying in tonight is called Packbang and there is only electricity from 6pm to 10 pm and 6:30 am to 10am.... the place runs on a noisy generator. Here the chickens, cows, pigs, and everything are all over and the people are so hospitable.

I ate at an indian restruant tonight and had butterchicken, and it cost me bout $3US and SOOO amazing!!!

The power went out on me tonight as i was wrighting in my journal... haha it was odd... the lights just went poof! And so that is where this entry quit!

I love is more and more every day!

Tomorrow, Lang Prabang!

Love always,

Tay

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