So we had the two day boat trip along the mekong river which was AWESOME! the scenery is just incredible. massive picturesque mountains covered with forest on either side with clouds all floating in between them. loads of fisherman and tiny villages dotted around. often you would see 20 children all swimming in the river and waving at us. Herds and herds of water buffalo splashing about too. they are kind of like a cow crossed with a hippo. they do that really cute twitchy thing with their ears that hippos do -i love that! sam and i managed to get some comfy aeroplane style seats next to this american guy called Dave (26) and opposite two girls from leeds (verity and cara - 19) and Walter from Holland (19) We ended up chatting to them for the 7 hours down the river it took to get to Pakbeng (our stop for the night) played cards and drank lots of beer lao! We are actually still with all of them!
Very strange, they stop the boat a lot on the way down the river to let the locals on and off at remote villages and carry goods between. (even giant lizards!!!) At one village we stopped in about 20 kids aged around 10 got onto the boat with baskets of beer, cigarettes and food and were trying to sell it to you so there was lots of shouting and haggling going on! really exciting to watch but a shame these kids have to do this every day.
We got a nice room in pakbeng - went out for a great curry with everyone from the boat. it was so muggy that the weather broke that night and there was the most almighty storm at am, cutting off all power to the whole village! there was about 20 lightning flashes a minute and the loudest thunder i have ever heard! and our fan had stopped working so you kind of laid there listening to the storm and trying to sleep but sweating so much! thankfully that storm broke the weather slightly and the next morning was cooler.
Back on the boat again at 9am - 630pm - napped, played cards and read again with our new friends, also met a couple from New zealand called ben and miranda who joined us too. when we arrived in luang prabang we searched or a guesthouse for ages but eventually all of us filled a family owned guesthouse for 40,000 kip a night per room (3.50) it was only a fan but a really big ceiling one! sam and i have pretty much decided to downgrade to fan rooms to save money and treat air con as more of a treat now and again as its eating our budget and we were finding ourselves with not much money to do trips. After check in we all went for dinner and had a wander round the extensive night markets that seem to be in every town! and sell everything from t-shirts - lamps - jewellery to snake whiskey (yes there is an actual cobra in the bottle!!! - apparently the venom in the snake makes the whiskey so strong you hallucinate!)
Bite wise things are are a little better but not much - get around 5 new ones each day despite being covered in spray and reapplying 6 or 7 times a day!! but no bedbugs for the last 3 nights so have got some sleep which was good! only really bad thing is i have so many bites on one foot that its swollen to twice normal size!! the heat makes everyones feet swell but this is worse! my ankle is literally a golf ball!! its been really painful to walk so ill probably hit the doctors in vang vieng if it doesn't get better in a couple of days.
Yesterday we went up to the waterfalls which were just so beautiful and the main attraction in Luang pranbang. there was a bear sanctuary at the bottom which was nice as they have been rescued from poachers but the waterfalls are truly the best bit! massive blue pools of spring water that you can swim in and rope swings to jump off the rocks and in. loads of fish in them which nibble your feet if you stay still too long! Sam hiked all the way to the top! when i say hike i mean hike! he had to climb up and through the waterfall itself in flip flops! he went with dave whereas my foot was bad so i couldn't do it so i stayed at the bottom with walter and the girls and swam. the spring water really helped all my bites tho which was nice. until i bashed my foot on a rock while jumping in just before we left and bruised it all as well!!! typical!
We had an hour long massage yesterday at a spa here for 40,000 kip it was a thai-lao massage whatever that means but it seriously hurt! the whole process was really painful but you can feel the benefit after! i think ill go for an oil massage next time as thats the realxing one! We went out to a bar called hive last night which was really cool, owned by a french guy and a guy form manchester so the music was really good. but rules are so strict here that everything and i mean EVERYTHING completely shuts and boards up by 11:30pm! by then me,sam, dave and walter hadnt finished drinking so a tuk tuk diver convinced us he would take us to a club outside of town. it turned out to be a local gay club full of lao men on the pull who were very happy to see the boys i came with. ; ) they all got chatted up it was so funny, but all in good spirits and not dodgy at all. we danced for another couple of hours and were all in a big circle with the locals having dancing competitions. really good fun. woke up slightly hungover this morning and am off to get some food to take on the bus in a sec. we leave for vang vieng (7 hours away) at 1pm (12pm now) on a minibus with the others. not really looking forward to it as the ride is supposed to be really bumpy and in the mountains. hmmmm.
will sign off now!
for map followers.
chiang kong - pakbeng - 7 hours
pakbeng - luang prabang - 7 hours
next stop: luang prabang - vang vieng - 7 hours
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