Now in Laos

     After a two day slow boat upon entering Laos, I arrived in Luang Prabang where I spent the next 4 nights. From there you can easily get a tuk tuk to a gorgeous waterfall that you can hike all the way up around and swim in the lower pools at the bottom and at the same site there is a bear rescue center that you can watch the bears play around from and it's a really lovely way to spend an afternoon. In the center of town, there's a large hill you can climb with a temple and a nice viewpoint at the top. There isn't too much else you can do in the city besides visit a few temples and go to Utopia but it is a nice place to relax and the night market is really great! Loads of different sandwiches which were nonexistent in Thailand! I stayed at SpicyLaos and the beds are cheap and you meet so many cool people.

sleepy bears

From the top of the waterfall

     From Luang Prabang I took a 3 hour bus to Nong Kiaw with a couple friends and then a boat that's only supposed to take an hour to Muang Noi. Ours took quite a bit longer because it was broken and they had to stop to fix it numerous times. But on our little adventurous boat, I swear Rizzo from Grease was riding along with us, when she lit up her cigarette it was like an epiphany. The village of Muang Noi is incredible. It's small and local and full of locals and plenty of guesthouses, you can do lots of hikes and kayaking and other outdoor activities from here. We went for a swim in the Nam Ou River, trying to reach the other side but we didn't quite make it so we turned around and went back! This river is much cleaner than the Mekong. Our hotel had a deck with a couple hammocks on it so that's where I chose to sleep for the night. :)

 

Inside one of caves

 The next morning after a huge buffet breakfast at our hotel (eating enough to keep me full past lunch time), a couple little Laos kids came in my room and after playfully growling at them they can in and we played and laughed and jumped on the bed for awhile until they got called downstairs by their mum. After I finished my interrupted packing, I left my backpack with a couple guys in town and took my small pack on a few hour hike to a village way out in the countryside. On the walk I passed a couple caves so I went in to explore! They were fun but I'm always afraid of these giant spiders that I hear about in caves so I was totally freaked that I would see one. But luckily I had no encounters. I did however try to help some guys in a field look for snakes. We didn't find any, but when I left one of them asked me out on a date that night to eat snake! haha too bad I wasn't staying in the same village, could have been a good time ;) The little village that I stayed in takes about an hour and a half to walk to and it is well worth every step.

     It's small and you have to wade through a river to get there. It's a little collection of home made bamboo houses with lots of chickens, pigs, dogs and children running around. Everyone smiles and you're easily welcomed into their lives. I spent time playing with the kids and meeting some of the locals. I was amazed by the children; some who were entertaining themselves by rolling a tire down the path and hitting it with a stick to keep it going, and others who had tied a piece of string to a plastic bag and were running around with it like a kite, their faces bright with excitement. I love seeing how people with so little can be so perfectly content and even happier and less wanting than so many others who have more than them. But they are not less fortunate, in ways of the heart I'd say they are even more fortunate, more pure. In the evening we played bocce ball and learned how to cook a few different dishes which we ate that night while enjoying some jungle tea. Sitting around the fire was a perfect end to the day and we went to sleep happily in our little bamboo huts.

     We received a lovely awakening from the roosters at 4 A.M. but luckily I was able to drift off again till we got up at 6 to walk back to the main village and catch the boat back, and then bus. And once I was in Luang Prabang I got another bus for 5 hours down to Vang Vieng. It was windy and upset my stomach a bit but at the stopping point I got some papaya (good for the stomach) and put my music in and the combination of those plus a brilliantly red glowing sunset over the distant hills was enough to put anyone in a euphoric state with no more problems. Peace to all :)