Sabai di From Laos!!

We are now in Laos and having a wicked time. Despite being right next to China, it couldn't be more different. It is a hundred times more laid back, even the Lao people say LDR - Laos don't rush! The countryside is lush and the rice crop is the brightest green. We love it already!Now to sum up the lastweek or so in China...

Chengdu:After a long overnight train journey we checked into a great hostel - it had a garden, pond, games room, gym, roof terrace, dvd room and bar/restaurant. Jonny was overjoyed to see a ping pong table and was even happier to win all the games we played!! We met some american and canadian people who we had a drink with. The next few days were relaxing as all the travelling caught up with us! However, we did not miss out on seeing the famous giant pandas!! They were gorgeous! The bigger ones were being fed while we were there - they were so lazy as they were lying down to eat the bamboo!! (see jonny's video) When they weren't eating they were more agile than we thought they would be. The baby ones were the cutest things we have ever seen. One was in an incubator while two others were curled up on a bed :) Jonny was hatching elaborate plans to steal them! Alas, we did not, so settled on buying a cuddly toy souvenir!The onsite museum provided us with plenty of laughs - the panda penis was a tad unnecessary and the stuffed animals were made out of paper mache! Not to forget a random pic of john prescott with a panda!!

After we slept for 5 hours as we were exhausted! We decided to taste the province speciality 'Hotpot'. Jonnys description:

Hot Pot involves sitting at a table with a large gas ring inset in the top.A huge bowl of boiling oil is brought out according to your taste. We chose a wussy hot pot - the large bowl of oil brought out had 2 compartments - a super hot, standard outside rim which was filled with hundreds of chillis and spices and a less spicey middle compartment of shrimp soup!Your food is brought out raw - we had beef, fish, bamboo shoots.etc and you cook it by boiling it in the oil of your choice.I loved the spicy outside bowl and the milder oil resulted in a nice taste too!After a while the spices got to me and I could not stop sweating- it really was hot!Needless to say, the toilet trip the next day was also a hot one!

Back to me: I was not so keen!! Not a spice fan, i found it way too hot! To make it worse jonny forced me to eat a chilli! Ahhh! The middle bowl was alright but i did enjoy the shrimp dumplings! I did not go hungry though as we ordered chips at the hostel!

Kunming: We did not do much in Kunming as Jonny was ill again. He had horrific diarrheoa and sickness (he claims he went to the toliet 35 times and used 4 loo rolls!) However, we did manage to get up early on our last morning to catch some Taichi exercise in the city park. The park was busy with a lot of older people doing taichi, badminton and aerobics. Was cool to watch.

We caught another overnight bus to the border - which was the worst journey ever! We had uncomfy beds designed for 5 foot people! There was even bugs under the beds! Interestingly, we met a guy from Bournemouth which was cool! The border crossing was interesting. The chinese side was militant with bag searches and thorough passport examinations, whilst the lao side consisted of a bloke sat on a chair checking our passports. In between we collected our visas which cost us $37 (should have been $35- but had to pay a little extra to the man returning our passports) - amusingly a French couple we were with paid $44 for theirs!

Laos

We arrived at a horrible border town called Boten where we found ourselves stranded for a bit. We didn't want to stay long as outside one of the shops there was a monkey in a cage!

Luang Nam Tha:This city is said to be the biggest built up area in North Lao - it was one street!! On our first day, we hired some bikes and went out into the countryside and toward a waterfall. The waterfall was a little disappointing but the journey was great. We rode alongside the bright green rice paddies and through traditional villages. The Lao people, especially the children, are friendly by waving and saying hello. Jonny and I stopped at a river to skim some pebbles and a few young boys joined in! Sadly, the villages are poor where the people live in bamboo huts. There are farm animals roaming around and the people wash their clothes (and themselves) in the nearby river.

The next 2 days we booked to go kayaking... (To be continued) (2nd and 3rd October) and tomorrow we are booked to go on the Gibbon Experience, so we will fill you in on these in the next installment…

(SORRY for no photos or videos-the internet is pretty slow here! We have so many great pics and vids to upload aswell!)