Village homestay and a magical bus ride.

We left Louang Phabang early in the morning and got on a boat, well three boats actually. Walking the plank to get to the little longtail boat was rather terrifying and predictably I freaked out and burst out crying. In front of 20 people...it was a little embarrassing. The boat ride wasnt great for me in general actually. It was chucking it down and it was really cold and I have brought nothing warm apart from a yellow cardigan with me. The cardigan has seen so much use it is now brown, despite being washed. nice? Anyway it was raining and windy and just horribly miserably cold. And I wasnt feeling 100% and spend most of the journey lying on the floor of the boat with a fleece over my head trying to keep the light out. I think possibly I was having a migrane. Anyway after a few hours it brightened up a bit and we got a chance to see some scenery. Laos is seriously stunning I think, very different to Cambodia or thailand, very montanous and very sparsely populated. 6 hours of boat later we arrived at a small little village somewhere where we were to stay the night. That was really nice actually. We wandered about the village stopping and gawping at people doing things they do everyday, like grinding rice and stuffing matteresses. It was very good! All the Laos people were really smily and friendly and there were gorgeous kids running about everyone. One little girl just kept smiling and waving at us and saying 'bye bye', when we'd just arrived. We were sleeping in two houses - I was in one with 5 others where you basically just had a matteress and a mosquito net. Simple but absolutely fine.

The local village (mayor?) and some of the other villages gave us a traditional welcoming ceremony which was fun! We all had to sit around in a cirlce and he tied rope around us did some chantings which Kit (our tour leader) said were blessings for good health etc and flicked whisky on us. He then came to us individually recited something and tied a white piece of string around out wrists. I think there were four other guys doing the same thing and a couple of them did me twice so I ended up with lots of string aroung my wrist. They looked like bandages. We also obviously had the obligatory Lao Lao shots.

We all ate together and there was a big fire and we played charades and drank some more beer Lao. It was a really good night.

The next day we had another boat ride for a couple of hours and then a bus ride which was supposed to take 3 hours. Up until this point we had been really lucky with our transport - Kit had been fantastic and instead of having local buses we were using lovely airconditioned minibuses. Not this time! We squeezed onto a little bus with mini seats and the bus wouldnt start. So off the driver went to get another battery. It wouldnt start with a new battery either. So for good measure he thought he'd try the first battery again. No joy. Then his mate came in and poked the battery. Still no luck. At this point it looked like it might be a while so I nipped off the bus to powder my nose. As i was 'powdering' I heard the bus roar and when I got out the bus was heading up the road. Eviendently it had started but couldnt stop so I had to jump on as it reversed past me. But the fun was only just beginning! We then stopped a couple of times to collect some stamps, and then to get the bus drivers wife and then we were off. Half an hour later the bus overheated so we had to stop. We stopped about 2000 times after that and arrived 8 hours later at our next destination. The bus journey was so uncomfortable I was fairly certain I had a broken bottom and would never walk again. This was another transit town, a place people only go there to catch boats to places. Not that we saw much of the town really as all the electricity shuts off at 10pm. We were frantically trying to eat our dinner before lights out. What a fun day!!!