Bonjourno amigos, how's y'all doing? I am now in Laos' capital, Vientiane, having returned from my trek and Chiang Mai and travelled the "12" hours it takes to get here. Just how leaving Chiang Mai at 7pm one evening, and arriving in Vientiane at 3pm the next day constitutes 12 hours, I'm still trying to work out, but arrive I did, and glad I was.
The trekking in the Pai region in northern Thailand was absolutely fanterrific - good word - having ended up with yet another good group of campers - 13 in total if you include yours truly - and a couple of very sound guides. The first day of the trek was pretty easy to say the least, if a little slippery underfoot thanks to the previous few weeks of rain, and after only an hour or so of walking we arrived at the village we were to stay at - where we stashed our bags in the bamboo hut (quite literally everything we encountered in the jungle, that was man-made, was constructed from bamboo), before sitting on the bamboo floor with the bamboo fences, and commencing the get to know you drinks and cards. After a rice dinner, we were entertained by the village kids singing and dancing some traditional Thai ditties. Swaheet. V cute, if you like that sort of thing. The next day was much better in terms of trekking - a good few hours before settling for lunch and waiting for the elephants to roll in from the surrounding mountains to give us a lift further down the trail. We spent an hour and half on the backs of those puppies, and big'uns they were too - one piece of advice though - when riding an elephant, never, I repeat, NEVER, volunteer to sit on the neck. I had nothing but the ears to hold on to, and the sparse, bristly hair that somehow got through my boardies was no friend to my inner thighs. Then our elephant (Nellie - of course) thought it would be amusing to tear a few branches of trees and plants to swat at me and the flies with, putting my powers of balance to the test for approximately 60 minutes. My thighs are now made of steel. Or bamboo.
The third day, after a few more meals of rice, brought us to the rafting (on, guess what, rafts. But made of bamboo.). This started off pretty leisurely, just floating down the chest deep river, going over a few fairly tame rapids, and then the guides decided it was time to get the farangs wet. So into bushes and overhanging trees we were guided, and eventually all-out war broke loose as we boarded each others rafts and threw everybody in. Good job the rivers round this way aren't snake, rat and other vermin infested - it's good to be swallowing disease-free river water for a change By the end of the rafting, there was only one raft left together, the others having all fallen apart, either accidentally or thanks to some skulduggery or other on the part of some scallywag. Thankfully, I managed to board said raft, and floated triumphantly to the bank, only to slip back into the water as I tried to make my smug, victorious way ashore. Serves me right eh?
So from Thailand to Laos, where I managed to meet up for the third time with friends from Ko Tao, Marsha and Jenn, for an evening of merriment and mirth with some other friends of theirs.
They left this morning (on a flight, would you believe - what has backpacking come to? Snobs.) and it's now for me to decide where to next? Either tubing and kayaking down the river in Vang Viang, or some more trekking in Luang Prabang (or somewhere that sounds/looks vaguely like that collection of letters). I think a massage may help me decide.
Hope you're all as well as ever, keep the messages coming, and my thanks to the money shark, sorry, I forget your name, offering to lend me any amount of money on my message board. It's good to know you have my back, amigo.
Lots of love, xxx