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Crossed the border into Laos by a small boat on July 26th, and spent the night in Houayxai.
The next morning we set off in jeeps to do the 'Gibbon experience', a conservation project set up to protect the local gibbons. Bring on 3 days in the deep jungle, sleeping in treehouses, ziplining around as a means of transport and hopefully seeing some gibbons if we were very lucky. However, the rain was heavy and had been heavy for a few days prior. So, what should have been a pleasant 2-3 hour trek to get to the treehouses in the dry season, actually took us almost 8 hours! It involved wading through rivers, slipping in the often knee-deep mud and pushing the skidding jeep (containing all the food) uphill when it got stuck! After the guides finally agreed it could go no further, the 6 guys in our group, Ali included, had to each carry a huge sack of food for 45 mins uphill in the slippery mud. Our heroes! Eventually we arrived at the reserve about 6.30pm with our 6 fellow trekkers and then went on 4 ziplines (pretty terrifying in the pitch black!) to finally whizz into our open treehouse at 8pm (what a way to make an entrance). Exhausted & really really filthy! Poor Ali was ravaged by mosquitos, and had at least 60 bites all over his legs. However, after a shower, dry clothes & a basic but tasty dinner delivered via zipline (of course), we all got cosied up under our mosquito nets & dozed off to the jungle sounds.
We awoke early to the noisy gibbons singing which was amazing, and we even spotted them swinging through the trees. Apparently it's not that common to see them so we got pretty lucky. After breakfast (sticky rice with spicy veg--takes a bit of getting used to at 7am) we ziplined to a different treehouse further into the jungle. We went out again later in the pouring rain while the others snoozed and returned with at least 6 leeches each. Nasty!
The next morning we had to get up at 6am for the long journey back. The ziplining was so much fun and we were gutted when we finished the last one. An exhausting 7 hour fast trek back finally landed us at a restaurant where they had lunch waiting for us...thank god!! Our whole group headed out for dinner & drinks later, then we enjoyed an early night in a clean bed. Overall a fantastic experience and great fun, but very hard work in the wet season! Phew!
Next we travelled by slow boat for 2 days down the Mekong river to Luang Prabang. Very peaceful and restful (especially enjoyable after lots of trekking) and with beautiful scenery. And thanks to all the rain on the days previous, we zoomed down in record time!
Spent the next 3 days in Luang Prabang. Amazing city -- very peaceful, and swarming with Buddhist temples and monks.
Our 1st day was a lazy day - just loping from temple to temple, enjoying traditional Lao soup for lunch, and filling up at a night market buffet for only 80p.
On day 2 we set the alarm for 5am to witness the daily monk procession. When we walked out onto the street outside our hostel at 5.20, the pavements were already crammed with a long line of locals kneeling. A few minutes later the orange-robed monks dandered towards us, accepting offerings of rice from the locals to take back to their temples. It was a humbling sight to behold, especially when a couple of them shared their rice with a few hungry young kids praying for some food. Just after sunrise we hiked up Phousi hill for views over the city. We were the only ones up there so it was very tranquil, and all we could hear was the chanting as the monks returned to their temples. Later we visited Kuang Si waterfall which is spectacular, with several swimming lagoons. We hiked right up to the top and walked across it, and finished with a lovely cooling dip.
On our last morning we took a tuk-tuk to another waterfall. Not quite as impressive but we were the first people there so it was lovely, and we witnessed some elephants bathing.
Next stop...Vietnam!
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