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Had a wicked time with Jo, Alex and Charlie....lots of eating, beer drinking, chilling by a hotel pool, and not so much sightseeing. (although amazingly managed to drag ourselves up for the monks again!) After Luang Prabang we caught a local bus further north along with mainly bemused Laos, unknown food stuffs and two toads in a plastic bag. Learnt two new things on the three hour trip...what toads in plastic smell of and how to pee unabashed in public on the side of the road during a scheduled rest break.
Once in this tiny town called Nong Kwai we caught a packed longtail boat for one hour upstream to an even tinier place called Muang Ngoi Neua where we chilled out for a couple of days in hammocks and caves. There are only 750 people in the village and they only have electricity for three hours each night between 6-9pm.
Fairly rustic then? Especially when we spotted the chef plucking our freshly slaughtered chicken lunch and watched her skin a giant wild boars thigh for our dinner...which was mighty tasty I might add. We politely declined the offer of sweet wild cat.
Headed across nothern Laos to the border which was a journey not to be remembered. Involved a truck three hours to Vieng Kham, a eight hours stopover in another tiny village where we saw a woman dish up grilled rat (we took the omelette option) and the whole village crowed round the only TV watching some Laos sitcom, and then a nine hour journey overnight to the border town. It was not so bad though, the carsick woman opposite tried her best and the sacks of rice were really quite comfy to sleep on...although it was reasonably terrifying hurtling down the mountain on a dirt track dodging cows and buffalos in dense fog. Apparently the roadside cemeteries are where buses have plummeted over the edge. A comforting bedtime thought.
On the plus side, we had bought a bunch of Laos-English kids books from a charity and spent the day handing them out when we stopped in villages enroute which was amazing. They were so chuffed when they realised they were to keep them and one group of kids even read one of the stories to us in Laos which was great!
Anyway onwards to Hanoi.....xx
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