Laos

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November 4th 2006

Published: November 12th 2006

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JPSTEWART

Mekong River

Cruising down this beauty for 2 days!

Laos is the most beautiful country I have ever seen. I was told I couldn't go up North due to flooding on the roads. Of course That was crap and I'd just been conned again but not worth taking the risk.

So I took a two day boat up down the Mekong to Luang Probang. I met some cool Canadians and we spent a few days exploring caves and waterfalls as well as doing some crazy bicyling to outside villages. Laos is such a third world country and is yet to be hit hard by the western world. It's probably now like what Thailand was 30 years ago. As such travelling is really hard and extremely slow! Dangerous too.

I managed to convince one my new mate Jorden to come up North and we went to Muang Ngoi. What a place. We hooked up with some Swiss girls and another Canadian and decieded to trek to all the nearby villages for a few days. The 6 of us stayed over in Ban Huay and Ban Na. Here noone spoke any English and Jordan and I were dying for some meat. Although these villages have a lot of animals running

Kaon Si Falls

My mate Matt at the falls!

around they don't seem to kill the animals. We hadn't had meat for 4 days. We danced around pretending to be a chicken and we thought they knew what we were on about. We got meat alright but definetely 100% rat. It was fine when washed down with their local Laos Laos which is like methylated spirits. However I did projectile vomit 3 in the morning. At least the chickens cleaned up my mess as I was unable to make it to the 4 fott high bamboo squatter. You can't see either as of course none of these places has electricty. If your lucky one or 2 huts might hace a generator for a few hours a day.

The following day we went in the hunt for waterfalls. Hours trekking through rivers and the girls had to go back because of the leaches. I wasn't bothered as I've had my fair share of leaches in Sumatra jungle trekking a few years back and knew that the best thing to do was leave the buggers until their full and they'll fall off. However when we got back to Muang Ngoi at nightfall I went for a shower (that is a

Mekong

2 days in these things!

saucepan to pour frezzing water over my head) and found 6 of them had made it to my ass hole! I then spent 3 days checking my shit for leaches buit I was OK. I was the only one wearing trousers while the other lads were scraping them off with the big knife as we went along. I know for next time!

I then spent another day going to Luang Prabang and then the following day I travelled down to the capital Vientiane on an overnight bus with a lad from Manchester called Greg. This guy is a nutter but great fun all the least. The 11 hour bus journey was the hairiest thing I have ever done. We had a tyre blow out, got scraped by a truck and the driver had to swerve back onto the road a couple od times. Never again! We had a blast there for 2 days and I just arrived in Bangkok today. The plan is to go to some island for a couple of weeks before heading to NZ. Although I travelled Thailand extensively 5 years ago, Thailand still has to be one of the best places for island beauty!

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