Laos: an adventure!

After an absolutely luxurious train trip to ChiangMai (North Thailand), we took the bus straight away to Chiang Khong, a village at the Thai border. The next morning we crossed the Mekong River and we arrived in Laos!

Most people took the slow boat heading south, however, we decided to head North by bus. After a beautiful bus ride which supposed to be the worst road in Laos (which was not the case, because the Chinese just fixed it!) we got to Luang Nam Tha (grab an atlas). Gorgeous place: not many tourists and it looks like Papua New Guinea from what I know from pictures of my brother...I know, that does not help many people to visualise, just my mum and Sjoerd...

Anyway, from there we decided to do a three day trekking in the jungle. Three days of hiking in the jungle, crossing rice fields, walking through bamboo forests, mud, loads of mud and sleeping in the homes of the local Hmong people. The walks were amazing, but staying at the villages was truly excellent. Sleeping on the ground, no toilets (just an hole in the ground), no running water, no electricity, all the curious kids dropping by. The villages were really poor: just wooden houses, pigs, chickens etc running around. Kids not wearing any clothes, or just really dirty ones. The villages could only be reached by foot (after hours of walking).

Our group was quite interesting as well. Of course we are two very direct Dutch girls, so we were accompanied by a socially incapable Finnish guy who could not stop talking about diving (wrong country my friend...), an 1.50 tall Canadian gay guy who felt he was going to die after the first day ( I quote: I feel like a punctured ball), a guy from the UK who always wanted to overtake us somehow and while doing that he fell an awful lot of times and finally a posh UK expat who was hiking in one of his work shirts...Needless to say we had an excellent time with them: it was hilarious! We even drank homemade Lao Whiskey with the village chief!

After the three days we did some mountain biking as well (beautiful!) and a couple of days ago we took a bus to Luang Prabang: World Heritage City because of its beautiful temples. Here we are kicking back (its really hot here, and as most of you know: I cannot take the heat that well...), do some kayaking, sightseeing etc.

But to keep a long story short, some Lao peculiarities:
- Loas has a curfew, so everything is silent after 23.30...
- we have seen butterflies as large as small birds...
- the Hmong villages are very very poor, but they did have cellphones...
- during the trekking we encountered loads of leeches (bloedzuigers): everyone had them, but apparently they do not like me...great!
- Guusje cannot count and using Bath (Thailand), Kip (Laos) and dollars is too confusing for her... - when taking a bus, all your luggage has to be taken with you of course. So if you want to transport your scooter to a different city, you just put the scooter in the aisle of the bus. And if your friend wants to take his as well, you put that one in the aisle as well...
- if the bus stops along the way and you need to pee: just go out of the bus, drop your pants and do your thing...
- needles to say that Guusje and I adapt perfectly to the above Lao manner...
- Lao money notes show the president. He looks like a combination of Boris Jeltsin and Mao Zedong. Seriously, I am NOT joking: weird psychology tricks perhaps?
- Guusje sang to the Hmong children and they sang Lao songs. Very touching...
- The reason why I did not sing with her was because I truly did not know ANY of the songs she sang. I am shocked: I have no knowledge of any songs, just Kortjakje perhaps. I blame my parents...
- Guusje taught me some Dutch lullabies and THEN I sang with her...

Next stop: Vientiane, the capital of Laos!