So, I'm embarrassingly far behind on the blog....It's got to a stage now that I'm kind of scared to write it at all because there is so much to do!!! The reasoning behind this is, we've either been busy, in places where internet was fairly expensive, or not been bothered to go on computers. There the 2 weeks I think it is that I'm behind will really be notes more than anything, with some of the details. This will also depend on my memory, which if you know me well enough, you will realise varies from that of a goldfish to that of a Harvard Scolar...so we'll see where this goes!

So our first day in the Luang Prabang area, we were picked up by tuk tuk early in the morning to head off to a small village an hour or so out side of the city, for our day of 'Home Stay'which we organised the night before. Although we all had fears of being screwed over by the man we organised it with, it all turned out well. The all I mention is myself, Jade and Linnea, who since my last post has become a solid member of our group, by that I mean, we're all friends, and she's travelled with us, since we met her, and has now booked another flight from Thailand to Vietnam, which was meant to be her next destination, so she can come with us to shje the islands in the south of Thailand.

When we got to the village we realised that our host was clearly quite well off in his villagers terms with a fairly large brick house (unusal in his village). After throwing our bags up stairs, he suggested we go for a swim in the river next to the village. We walked through the village and down to the water and found the majority of the children from the village playing around in the water and on the small amount of sand next to it. We all got in, and after a little while, it took the girls less time than myself, but still a small amount of time, we got involved in playing with the kids. Jade had a few games of 'ÍT', I had a splashing competition with some of the boys, and Linnea was holding a few of the really young girls. We got some great photos of all of us, including the kids jumping into thew water off of a rock, before Puma, our guest came down down to the beach and added the theme tune to a great experience on his guitar. As seems to be the way he's heard famous English speaking songs and liked them but never quite got all the words, so the tune was right but Stand by Me was never quite what he was saying.

After enjoying a few of the simple games that kids manage to develope with a lack of toys, such as a sort of catch game with sticks, a differing version to the British version, of hop scotch and ummmm young boys fighting!!! we headed back up to Puma's house, got changed and chilled talking outside at his table and chairs. He made us home made chips, I played him at Ball (the French game with the metal balls, the closest thrown next to the Jacque wins) I won, but I think he may have thrown the game, no pun intended.

Puma also suggested we give some candy to some of the local kids on the part of the village on the other side of the road, so we walked through that area offer our sweets to kids and adults alike. Most of them didn't really know how to react to us, I mean I wouldn't if a bunch of crazy foreigners walked through my village handing out sweets for no reason, esspeically considering we were the first group of foreigners that had stayed in this village!!! I commented that my parents had told me to never take cansy from strangers, but apparently the Laos kids aren't told the same, they loved it!!!

Later that night we ate dinner with Pumas family, including his mother who had come down from the family farm to be there. The six dishes were put on a small stand in the middle of the room and everybody sat ar9und on the floor picking at it with our fingers, we all had seperate sticky rice containers...I also commented at this point that I would have loved sticky rice as a child because it is neccesary for you to play with your food, something I wasn't allowed to do.

We all slept on a wide mattress on the top floor, the light was on all night, because it had been broken, Puma's mother fixed, at they didn't want to break it again so they left it on!!!