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Next is a two day boat trip on the Mekong river, a homestay in a village on the first night then crossing the border into Thailand the following afternoon. Our boat is really nice, really big and just for us. It has a couple of little beds at the front and the seats are car seats but the main thing is it has good toilets.
The first day was 10 hours so everyone kept themselves amused but the view was pretty good, didn't see many people or other boats but occasionally water buffalo swimming. We arrived in Pak Ngum village around 5pm, got off the boat to sandy shore and sunset-there are definitely worse places to spend the night. We walked up to the village and the kids came out to see us, so many children mostly really friendly waving and saying hello, some a bit shy. Without the breeze from the boat it was hot, the girls had to keep legs and shoulders covered up until bedtime. There were 3 tribes living in the village, just over 300 people all together. We walked to each area to have a look round, again the kids came out to see us and followed us around. It was very different to my last homestay, these people really didn't have much at all. The kids all seemed to look after themselves while their parents were out working in the fields, one girl who was five was looking after her baby sister. I didn't see any toys, they just amused themselves. As you wander round there are animals everywhere, pigs, dogs, chickens, goats, cows. We went back to the main house where I was staying and we played football with some of the children till it got dark before dinner. Then they came back and showed off their English skills, one little boy knew the whole alphabet and could count to 20, I don't know many 4 year olds in England who could do that. He had a Gangnam style tshirt on so I found the song on my phone and he did the whole dance for us. Id bought some stickers, colouring books and crayons but felt a bit bad, there were so many kids it didn't seem fare to just give to a couple of them. They really liked the books, the little girl hadn't seen stickers before and was so excited when I showed her she could stick them on her t shirt. We sat and coloured for a while until they jumped up, said goodnight and thankyou (in English) and ran off home.
We each had a little mattress, pillow, blanket and mosquito net...I got in and tucked the net tightly under the mattress so nothing could get me. In the morning the top of the net was covered in all sorts of bugs, we all practically ran back to the boat so we could use the toilet. We're all pretty disgusting thismorning, filthy feet from all the dust, same clothes for 2 days...mine were still soggy thismorning from sweat!
Looking forward to Thailand!
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Sal x That picture says a thousand words x