We left Railay with sore arms but equipped with 2 new skills - the ability to lead climb and the knowledge of how to play S***head...floating back to the mainland on a long boat we waved goodbye to the blue water and white karsts. Next destination? A retracing of steps back to Laos - this time to Luang Prabang to meet up with my parents who had decided to come and check up on us, making sure we were eating our greens, brushing our teeth...stuff like that.

The trip from here involved first finding someone to take us to the bus station (bring in the nice lady from a nearby hotel who used to live in the US) and then getting a bus (6 hour wait in the dodgy little station). Finally we got on the bus which took us to Bangkok where we arrived, for the 2nd time in a week, at about 4am on the Kho San Road to find a room to rest in until our bus later that day.

Out of a rather good turn of fortune, Mum and Dad were also stopping over in Bangkok on the same day so we could see them before we continued on some more rubbish buses while they traded safety for comfort on a Bangkok Air Flight to meet us in the famous Laos UNESCO heritige city.

In Bangkok, we managed a few hours sleep in our room before heading to the hotel my parents were due to be arriving in. Subsequently, Dad has claimed that, apparently, he didn´t know anything about his choice being right amongst the strip bars... following the strenuous denials of this, we spent a few hours wandering around Bangkok, shopping on and around Koh San and eating simple street food - Thai curry and grilled chicken and explaining that Beer Chang should be avoided at all costs (unless you want a Changover). All this before our second evening in a row on a bus...
We woke the next day after a loud night of films being played in Thai on the bouncy bus to see ourselves pulling into the station being pursued by a hoard of Thai rickshaw touts, actually sprinting after the bus after seeing us trying to hide behind a curtain at the back. We got off, ignored them and went for a coffee only to find they wouldn´t actually leave us alone. In the end we allowed tiredness the upper hand and just hired one to to take us to the border, so instead (unsurprisingly) he took us to his mate´s shop to try and convince us that we had to buy a Visa there. Total nonsense so we figured out where we were on a map and just walked off and found a nearby bus station with buses into Laos. We jumped on the next bus and got off at the border leaving our bags behind. The bus pulled onto the bridge to Laos as we and the other passengers checked out of the country and then promptly pulled off with our bags but not us...

Fortunately the screaming and waving translated well and someone from the border put us on a minibus in hot pursuit. We got to the Laos border on the other side of the bridge, reclaimed our bags and checked into Laos.

On walking through the border to the Laos side something miraculaous happened, the touting and chaos of Thailand evaporated and precipitated again as helpfulness and niceness - all chilled out and smiley. Excellent. Taxi next to the bus station in Vientianne and then another wait of 4 hours before another 10 hour bus to Luang Prabang. We arrived well after midnight, exhausted by our mammoth trip and collapsed into a comfy bed for a long sleep.

The next day we went to look around Luang Prabang and do some exploring before Mum and Dad arrived on their flight. Luang Prabang was, until about 5 years ago, relatively untouched by tourism. The town nestles between the rivers of the Mekong and the Nam Khan which skirt around its borders cutting the town off from the farmland on the other side of each respective bank. While Luang Prabang is fairly sprawling as far as Laos goes, its picturesque centre remains small. If you wonder around for a day you´ll see hundreds of orange clad monks appear from various alleyways. Upon further investigation, the alleys open up into temple after temple after temple. Each spotless road or street hides yet another well kept colonial building or coffee shop - you can really spend a long time just wandering around.

So, when the parents arrived that´s exactly what we did, a short walk around town. Unfortunately, due to what we thought was a poor curry choice in Bangkok Mum was feeling a little green (we found out later it was more likely to be a side effect of her anti-malarial medication). As such, Mum had an early first night while Dad came to the local street food market. Not the biggest or most variety we have ever seen but still, some grilled chicken, dried pork and beer lao were all eaten up followed by some amazing coconut dumplings steamed into little ufo shaped balls - hot, light and fluffy with the centre being deliciously runny and coconutty.

Some more beer lao later and we walked back to the river (on the other side of which was Dad´s hotel). Refusing accompaniment he chose the as yet unexplored off road route via a bridge, a river bank, a small farm and a mud road. We believe that something odd may have happened on the way home as, for some reason, the next day he had very little memory of the walk back. A witness (Mum) said that when he appeared in the room well past midnight he seemed a little dazed, confused and off balance and when they woke up the next day they discovered that someone, we don´t know who, appeared to have stolen his malaria tablets for that day (almost as if he had taken 2 lots in one day) and, mysteriously, Dad felt a little sick with a sore head.

Putting this down to jet lag, we got on with the next day...exploring some of the many gold gilded temples followed by a trip accross the Nam Khan river on a wobbly bamboo bridge to a village specialising in crafts - scarves and bags made from silk, paintings and notepads made from recycled elephant dung paper and loads of lampshades, trinkets and, well...more scarfs (Mum).

Day 3 and we all decided to go on a Lao cooking course with Tamarind restaurant. This began with a trip in a Tuk Tuk to the local market - a mainly indoor affair with all sorts of fresh vegetables, fruits, dried things (at least 10 different types of buffalo skin for a start)...all very interesting followed by the meat section which revealed all sorts of bits laid out in the warmth of the marketplace, not least big jelly-like mounds of congealed blood (used in soups...yep we´ve eaten it) and clear plastic bags filled with a green liquid which turned out to be bile, the Lao people use it to add a bitter flavour to foods, often using it in Laab, a salad including miced pork, basil and beansprouts (yup, ate that too). This turned Mum a similar shade of green (not much fun when you feel sick anyway) so we continued our trip out to the scene of our day´s cooking trip...

As we got out of town the scenery turned greener and more lush and the roads grew, um, less like roads. Finally we pulled into a clearing on a beautiful man-made lake with a big bamboo shelter covering a long table where big, stone mortar and pestles sat in a long line. In the corner traditional Lao stoves called a tao-lo sat smouldering away - these are shaped like big clay buckets and filled with charcoal, with room for a single pot or grill rack on top.
Following taking in this sight, a full day followed with our brilliant teacher, Joy, who was not only a great cook but spoke perfect English and was able to explain all the little questions we had had on the food (didn´t like all the answers...). Each of us cooked up a lunch of spicy aubergine dip with sticky rice, bbq minced chicken stuffed lemongrass, dill fish steamed in banana leaf and a pork stew along with a buffalo stew (using the buffalo ear to thicken the sauce and add flavour!). This was all followed up by one of our favourite Asian deserts - sticky coconut rice with mango and fruit. Brilliant, lots of fun and lots of food.

Moving on to the final day of the ´Chaperones´.
Laos has a big problem with unwanted elephants. Elephants eat a ridiculous amount of food you see and are incredibly expensive to keep (see wikipedia for definitions of ridiculous and incredibly in the context of elephants). Historically, Laos was known as the land of a million elephants but wild elephants are a thing of the past, instead they were domesticated for use in the logging trade. As the country has woken up to the disadvantages of wide scale logging and are trying to limit and control this activity it has led to what the sanctuary terms as ´widescale unemployment´ for elephants. Being domesticated they cannot look after themselves in the wild and if they do not earn their living then their owners can´t afford to keep them in food. If a domesticated elephant is caste away it is likely to die a slow and painful starvation driven death. One answer is tourism. The sanctuary offers elephant owners the chance to allow their elephants to stop working in the tough environment of the logging trade (elephants can often be given amphetamines to make them work harder and longer), live in rural surrounds, be fed good quality food and still earn their keep by giving elephant rides to tourists. The elephants find this an easy job, they don´t work long hours and their Mahouts (owners) who often build up long and close relationships with their animals are happy that they no longer have to work the elephants so hard. To be frank, if someone paid me to give them a half hour piggy back, I´d do it.

So, we went to see this sanctuary. It was simply amazing. Set in beautiful, rural Laos overlooking a river and lush fields of crops - the place is clean, well run and well kept. Getting on the elephants is aided by going to the 1st floor of an open building and stepping onto a seat on the elephant´s back. The elephant then goes for a stroll down seemingly impossible (for an elephant) narrow paths, through trees and into the river itself. We lumbered past local adults and kids picking out river moss (a delicacy around here) with their bare hands, trousers rolled high while others warmed themselves back up next to small fires which lined the river bank at random intervals. While in the water, Dad was given the chance to move from the relative stability of the chair to the neck of the elephant in place of its mahout. A bit of instruction later and he was perched there, guiding the massive, gentle animal by pressing its ears lightly with his knees. Unfortunately we weren´t able to do this as our elephant was completely blind from her days in the logging trade and would only have confidence in the directions of her mahout. Dad has not let us forget this...

We had to leave early the next day but got up even earlier to see the monks recieving alms (offerings) from the locals at the dawn break ceremony. Hundreds of orange clad monks quietly proceeding up the streets recieving the food as a sign of respect. Sadly, pursued by thousands of tourists who had clearly decided that reading the bit in their guidebook about how to behave respectfully at religious ceremonies wasn´t worth reading before going to this particular one. We watched, we left and that was that, a great few days - lots of fun and we were glad that they made it out for a visit to such a lovely country.

We waved goodbye from the back of a tuk tuk.

What next? Well...
We went to Malaysia where we reminded ourselves that Malaysian street food has to be some of the best in the world and ended up staying a day longer than planned to buy Christmas presents and stockings for the friends we are meeting for Christmas

before

going to Singapore and staying with more friends for a couple of nights and hearing how they are finding their life after London. Overall, a really nice few last days in Asia before we jumped on a plane and flew to Australia where, for the first time in 5 months we won't stick out like...well...like 2 white folk in Asia.