Hello Everyone,
Well, our bus journey from Luang Nam Tha was interesting haha. The roads in Laos are very undeveloped, basically they are very windy roads around mountain sides. Every so often you will hit a tiny patch of road that is paved then its back to the dirt track with massive pot holes and very bumpy. They also like to drive very fast here, even with the very bad roads and driving round cliff edges lol. We were glad we went for the minivan instead of the public bus with the state of the roads.
After 6 hours we arrived at our destination that was 26km outside Nong Khiaw. We said our goodbyes to Matt and Cassie (the American couple) it had been great meeting them and we promised to keep in touch. We then tried to find a tuk-tuk to take us into the town, first off they tried to charge us 6 times the amount it should be so we said we would wait until he had a full car and it would work out cheaper. After a few minutes a private bus pulled up and some Australian's said they were heading into the town as well so Jonny politely asked if we could hitch a ride (meaning we would pay) and the Australian girl that seemed to be the group leader didn't really have any of it, she seemed up herself and tried to charge us $20 for the 30 minute journey and wasn't very nice about it at all. A simple so sorry we cant help you would have been fine haha, thought Jonny was going to swing for her the way she was talking to him lol. Turned out 5 minutes later the tuk-tuk guy had a full car and we got there on the cheap which was good.
On arriving in the town we felt like the only tourists there. The small town had amazing scenery with mountains all around and the mekong river running right through the middle. There were kids playing on the streets and all the locals were down at the river swimming, it was such a nice place. We found a nice bamboo hut that we rented for the night for cheap, it had its own bathroom so we thought we got a good deal. At night we explored the town and had some nice Laos food at a local resteraunt and then went back to our room.
It wasn't until we switched off the lights that things started to go wrong. We heard scraping and bumping right beside our bed and after listening for a while we decided it must be quite big and sounded like a rat, so Jonny got up to investigate. When he switched the light on something darted across the wall and it turned out the be the biggest spider we have ever seen, not behind a glass in the zoo haha. Shay almost took a panic attack. There was no way we were going to be able to catch it so while we were trying to decide what to do it dropped to the ground and darted so quickly we had no idea where it was, this sent Shay into almost hysterics haha. We decided there was nothing we could do but tuck our mosquito net into the bed and hope the spider doesn't manage to get through. It was a restless night to say the least for B to say the least
The following morning we set off to the bus station to make our way to Luang Prabang. After being in Laos for a few days now we have made some observations: the legal age to drive a moped must be when you can reach the handles. The dog to human ratio must be very nearly the same and some toddlers know how to use bb guns haha, but saying that Laos is beautiful and the people are very friendly, loving our time here.
J+B