Sunday and Monday was the trek! So much fun. 9am we jumped in a truck, ready to start the first day trekking with Ruby, Rezza and Stew. We ended up with 3 hungover lads with vest tops, tattoos and beer so you can imagine what I was thinking. They were actually a good laugh and not what I thought, so I have learnt not to judge without actually speaking to them and getting to know them. Also picked up 2 couples, 1 french and 1 from Czech republic! They were both on their honeymoon. Stopped at a butterfly farm first (with no butterflies) then at a supermarket then eventually got to the elephants.

Monday night got back and was really tired so Ruby and I made our way to the new hostel, Spicy Thai and chilled there all night and got an early night at about 11pm. The next morning, Tuesday, we decided to chill and plan our week. Ruby thought she lost her credit card which meant she now had no cards at all, as she had already lost her other STA card. So she ended up spending the day sorting that out, as I tried to plan my week so that I had enough time to do the things I wanted to but to make sure I arrive in Hanoi in time to meet Lotts!  (yey, Lotts can’t wait till I see you!) But didn’t get really far with plans, as I ended up going out with 4 guys from the hostel for some lunch. 3 of them (Zoe, Dan and Ana) had travelled a bit together before and randomly kept meeting in different destinations, a bit like Stew and I and the other girl was Dutch and I met her for the first time in NapPark so it was really nice to bump into her. She had gone straight to Pai, and recommended I go there as it was a really chilled place. After lunch I headed back to the hostel to plan a little more, again not getting very far! In the evening we met up with Stew, Rezza, Cal and the 2 other lads Stew had been hanging out with and we headed to the Night Bizarre for a stroll and some food. We found a really classy food market were you pay in money, get a token and then choose from a load of different food stalls – it all looked so good we didn’t know what to get. There was a group from Spicy Thai there already so I sat and chatted with them then went for a drink with Ana, Dan, Steve and Ruby. We watched a parade that was celebrating the Thai festival! It was a very slow parade, but some of the ladies walking in it were beautiful, they made me feel like a tramp!
Wednesday was spent in a Thai village making fireworks and drinking with everyone from Spicy Thai (about 30 people!). The manager from the hostel organised this for us. His uncle was one of the main guys who make fireworks across the country. We all crammed into the red tuk tuk (it has a name beginning with S, but I can’t remember what it’s called or even how to pronounce it so lets stick with tuk tuk). The place was in the middle of nowhere, and it was a very simple place with 2 concrete shelters, and not much else. The uncle showed us how to make the fireworks – we had to put a scoop of gunpowder in a large bamboo tube and then had to bash the gunpowder with a stick and hammer 300 times, or 500 if you don’t hit hard enough as I soon discovered! I wasn’t sure if they were telling me to hit 500 times just for a laugh, but golly my arm ached after! We were in teams of 10, and spent the day filling this bamboo tube with gunpowder. We could also make a mini firework in a small concrete bowl – filled with gunpowder, newspaper, rubble stuff and bashed that all down. Then you rolled some more gunpowder in paper (bit like rolling a joint) and stuck that through and sealed with some red paper. They prepared dinner for us too, a choice of pork broth and veg or chicken. It was good! People just sat around talking, drinking and buying more fireworks from the local shop – these fireworks were incredibly cheap so we ended up surrounded by a load of fireworks going off left right and centre. It was funny at first and good to watch, but as people got more drunk, and boys really started acting like boys, it got dangerous and a little scary! It was a long night of fireworks, music and drink (shots of cheap vodka stuff using a leaf as a shot glass was interesting – I don’t like vodka at the best of times, but this wasn’t even vodka, it was vile!) It was really cool chatting to different people and just chilling with them, I really liked some of the guys, especially a german guy, an oz guy, and 2 english people. A few I wasn’t too keen on, but hey that’s what’s great about travelling, you can choose who you hang out with and drop the others! I must admit every American has annoyed me so far, but I’m not sure if that’s because I have less tolerance because dad has always complained (sorry dad to blame this on you)!
At 11pm we walked to a temple down the road, sat down and listened to monk chanting for about 5 minutes and then headed outside to watch our fireworks go off! A few Thai people were sitting on the grass outside digging holes to put our fireworks in. 3 of them started playing a beat, with different instruments. One was hitting a drum, one had a tambourine thing and I can’t remember what the other had. The next minute I looked around and some guys from Spicy Thai had taken over the beat. It sounded just as good! It created a cool atmosphere, the beat going in the dark and then our fireworks going off. We didn’t know what to expect from the fireworks but it was a crazy big fountain that went about 15ft high...we were all sat against the wall of the temple and the firework was even hitting us! We couldn’t escape. Ruby got hit several times, but I managed to stay safe. We set off all 4 of them, and each team was having some great banter saying that their team had the best firework! Lol. We eventually headed back to the hostel in the tuk tuk. It was midnight and Ruby and I still hadn’t figured out where we were staying so as soon as we got back we went searching for somewhere to stay. There was a hotel not far from the hostel, so we managed to get a room there for 550 baht (about £11) so we split that and it didn’t seem too bad at all. It was the first time of living in luxury – TV, comfortable bed, towels and shampoo provided and a lovely powerful warm shower. It was great just to pull away from busy hostel and crowds and just chill. We grabbed some street food from down the road - pork and rice with a lovely sauce! It’s funny here, you never really know what time it is as people are eating until 2am over here, you lose all sense of time. Great for us as we were starving just gone midnight so filled up on some Thai food and headed to bed.
The next morning we needed to head North to Pai. It’s about 3-4 hours from Chiang Mai. We hadn’t booked a bus or taxi so thought we should just head straight to the bus stop and figure it out there. We walked into a hotel down the road to ask where the bus stop was. The lady there was so helpful. She called a mini van company up to see if they had any spaces for us, she gave me a nice cold refreshing drink a bit like cranberry juice but much sweeter then she ordered us a tuk tuk to take us to the bus stop and made sure he knew we wanted to get to Pai so he took us to the right station. She was so lovely, we couldn’t have asked for any more, considering we didn’t even stay at her hotel! So who do we see at the bus stop at 9.30am...Stew, Rezza and the 2 others all looking rather hungover. We managed to get on a 10.30am mini van so didn’t have to wait long at all. They arrived at 8am, so had been waiting a long time as they literally just missed the bus before. I was glad we got a minivan as the buses were meant to be crazy dangerous and scary so the minivan worked for me, and it had air con. Ruby and I slept through most of the journey. When we arrived we jumped on taxi motorbike as there are no tuk tuks in Pai. The place looked really cool, really relaxed and calm. It was how I imagined Chiang Mai to be, but Mai was a disappointment. Just like a smaller Bangkok, but still surprisingly big. Pai on the other hand was much smaller, not many cars going through the main town, everyone on scooters or walking. There were so many small boutique shops, sweet little coffee shops, bars, just great places to chill out, have a drink and watch the world go by. Ruby and I immediately fell in love with it there. The hostel was cute, very basic wooden huts with mattresses on the floor but it had a cool chill out area with hammocks and places to lie down. The shower was surprisingly powerful and warm, so I really couldn’t complain about the place. The view was incredible too, looking out on Pai centre with the mountains in the background. The lady at the hostel was a little crazy, calling us her daughters and calling Ruby sexy lady. She had the funniest giggle ever, really high pitched, she was just full of energy. She did speak English, but not much. We met the lads at the hostel and headed out to rent scooters (sorry mum, but I’m still alive!) which were 5 minute walk away – 140 baht to rent a scooter in Pai for 24 hours AMAZING! So the 6 of us headed out to explore the area and get used to the scooters. We saw the memorial bridge and then Ruby and I went to the canyon as the lads headed to the hot springs. We headed back to the hostel and ended up going to dinner with a guy from Adelaide. He was sweet enough, but only 19 and you could tell. 2 other guys were meant to be eating with us but they couldn’t find the place so ended up eating somewhere else. We ate in a place that was recommended to the OZ guy, Brodie. It was called The Burger Queen. Ok, so as you know I’m really not that bothered about burgers, I would never order a burger back home so I wasn’t really bothered about having a burger in Thailand. But I decided to go along and be sociable. And omb (an alternative to omg in Thailand meaning “oh my budda” :) the burger was delicious! The best burger I have ever had. BBQ beef, oh goodness I’m drooling just thinking about it. I recommended it to everyone I met there after that! We went for a few drinks after and walked through the town where there was more street food, market stools of clothes, little boutique places, the place looked so lovely all lit up. There was live music in some of the bars. The two main roads were really small so no cars could pass through, it made the area much calmer and relaxing. It was exactly what I needed. Met a couple of girls at the bar who were cool to chat to. They were talking about the elephant trek they went on in Chiang Mai for £55. It was more expensive than the other treks but now I know why...the lady set up the elephant sanctuary to buy elephants off companies that treated them badly. Some of the stories were really upsetting, and how the Thais treated the elephants was shocking. They would beat them up until they did what they wanted, the would poke their eyes and some elephants were made blind from this. An elephants back is the weakest part of their body, yet the tourists sit on benches that are placed on the elephants back, so some elephant had really bad backs – one to such an extent that the elephants back legs were almost being dragged when it walked. It was so sad listening to some of the stories the girls were told, but it made me thankful that I didn’t go on an elephant day in Chiang Mai. I wouldn’t want to support the bad businesses that treated the elephants so badly. It’s slightly confusing how they disrespect the elephants in such a way as I was made to believe the elephants represented wisdom and peace to the Thais, or something like that! They have pictures and statues of elephants everywhere, just like they have temples everywhere and buddas. Mental. We headed to bed at a fairly decent time. We were in a dorm with two 32 year olds, so they were in bed already but we managed to stay quiet so we didn’t wake them.
In the morning, we stopped for some breakfast (my first full English-Thai breakfast) – I say that because it wasn’t quite an English breakfast, with a side salad and the sausages are like frankfurters. No baked beans. Lol. Either way, it was good stuff! Then it was the hot springs (200baht £4) It consisted of 4 or 5 different pool sections, as you went higher up, it got hotter! The hottest spring at the top was 80 degrees (don’t worry I didn’t go in that one!) Only eggs were braving the 80 degrees. That’s right, people went to the top to boil their eggs! Guess it’s cheaper than boiling your own water. Lol. The steam was rising from the top pools, it looked really cool. We planned to meet the lads at a waterfall nearby at 11am, so we headed over to meet them but soon got a message to say they couldn’t find it. Ruby and I found it, so we went to explore. We had to cross a very unstable, disintegrating bridge, rather dodgy but we managed  The waterfall was pretty impressive – the first proper waterfall I have seen I think! Headed back to the Pai town as it started to poor down. We got drenched but it was funny! There were some really cool viewpoints along the way back and funky looking coffee shops, with great views! I’m gutted I didn’t stop to take some photos, but the memories will stay with me for sure! Bloody incredible. I could have sat all day just staring at the views. It’s like when we go skiing, the views are breathtaking, it was like that here, but green mountains, not white!
Ruby and I chilled in a coffee shop in Thai centre, with free wi-fi and a milk ice tea (our favourite)! As we people watched and chatted, we saw lots of people arrive in Pai, several who were from Spicy Thai. It was cool to see them, like a little family we have made! We caught up on what we missed out in Mai as it was a 3 day celebration, so we missed the final day there. It sounded cool with floating candles on the river and more lanterns. That evening we went to watch the sunset at the canyon with the two Oz kids. It was cool – we walked and climbed far along the canyon – it was fun! At night Ruby and I walked through the town, and decided to try the street food – we ended up trying a pumpkin spring roll, a veg spring roll (so good!), chicken kebab and sushi. There was a girl tucking into her sushi at the side so I got chatting to her. Another lovely dutch girl called Nika. Why are all the dutch so stunning, lovely and chilled. I have fallen in love with them, I may go and live there! Lol. She was really cool so we ended up walking around with her and grabbed a waffle with chocolate sauce for pudding  yum! We chilled in a bar, and ended up bumping into lots of people from the previous night, the hostel and from spicy thai in Mai. It was fab. I was sad to be leaving the next day  as I could easily get into the lifestyle there for a bit. I know there were 2 people there who were visiting and ended up staying there for 1 – 2 years! We arranged to meet Nika the next day to explore another waterfall, and we were joined by Lucy, who we met in our hostel the previous day. We enjoyed a great breakfast, warm bread roll with mixed vegetables and feta cheese. It was so funny 4 girls on scooters making their way through the town, and I was leading the way :S Cant believe they trusted my navigation skills but we found our way to the waterfall! Another great waterfall. It was different to the previous one, you could sit on the rocks and take in the view with the sun shining down. Lucy and I headed back to sort our bags out, take our scooters back and grab some food before we got on a very long bus journey to the boarder. I tried sorting my bank out again, as I had to sort Ruby out with some money as she lost her cards and we were parting, so the bank had frozen my card once again. I hate banks! Ruby, Nika and Manon met us before we got on the bus to say bye – it was so sad to leave them, but I know I will see them again soon and we will have so much to catch up on. Bus journey from Pai to the border was hideous – if you can imagine the most windy road and bumpy...well that was what I was on. The minivan driver drove fast too...we all felt so sick we decided to try and sleep through the pain! I slept a little, but not very well as I was stuck inbetween Lucy and a girl from Argentina, I was rocking from side to side, there was nowhere to rest. 6ish hours later, about 2am, we arrived at our hostel where we jumped into bed and fell asleep! Up at 7am for some breakfast and then made our way on a truck to the river crossing, jumped on a boat to cross the border. We then had to apply for visa, so it was a bit of form filling and hanging around. Eventually got on the slow boat! There are 120 people on the boat so they say, but I think that might be between 3 boats as it doesn’t look like there are 120 on the boat right now. So here I am, on my laptop heading down the Mekong river in Loas, looking at the green mountains. There are no windows, just curtains, and you can sit out on the front bit too which is cool. It’s pretty relaxed on the boat, Lucy and I have lots in common and are getting on really well. She’s a cool gal. We are chilling with 2 girls from Argentina, 3 guys from Chilli and 3 girls from Switzerland. Pretty relaxed people too. Stew and crew are a little further down playing cards and a little more hyper with 2 Americans for company. Lol. Think I’m just going to take in the views with some music pumping!
Chao for now.
Miss you all. Seems like such a long time since I spent time with friends back home, I must try and skype session soon. I skyped daddy on Friday, it was good to talk to you pa!
Lorra loves x

6.30pm we finally arrived at Pak Beng! As we jumped off the boat, we were bombarded with men telling us we should stay at their hostel. We found a man who said 1 night 100 baht, so the 10 of us (2 girls from Argentina, 3 guys from Chilli, 3 girls from Switzerland and Lucy and I) agreed to head there. We trekked up the hill through this very small village which I’m sure is only surviving due to tourists stopping off every night. As we walked up the hill my mouth was drooling from the bakeries we passed. These were the first bakeries I had actually seen since my trip, it was heaven. Chocolate croissants, bread, cakes...delightful! I shared a room (double bed) with Lucy and we actually had a bathroom to ourselves so jumped in the shower and headed out for dinner with the others. The 3 Swiss girls had to share a bed, but luckily they are small so i don’t think it was too much of a problem. They got the room for 70 baht each to compensate. We went across to the restaurant opposite our hostel. Everyone ordered Pad Thai and I ordered sweet and sour chicken and vegetables. It was good food! Sebastian wasn’t so keen as he couldn’t eat the Pad Thai as it was too hot for him. He tried talking to the waiter to say it’s too hot...eventually the guy came out with some rice dish that was slightly less spicy, but still not to his liking. He ate it though. The others had come straight from a 3 day trek so they were all pretty drained. It was good chatting with them though, they all have a good sense of humour so it’s good to have a laugh with them. Stew and the 2 lads walked passed us as we were eating. They were drunk and flirting with the 2 American girls. Typical English giving us all a bad image! We took a little walk down the road, drooled at the bakery again, and decided we would come back in the morning for breakfast. We took a while getting everyone’s facebook details and Rodgero said he would take me around Chilli when I come and visit, so I’m definitely up for that. He seems really cool and full of banter. The language is a little barrier with the lads but all the girls are pretty good at English. I feel so lazy speaking in my own language, I feel like I should be speaking to them in Spanish. I was practising some of my Spanish sentences with them and they were impressed considering I didn’t learn Spanish at school and had just learnt from a book. I will definitely try and get a few more phrases from them before I leave. We headed to bed and slept like a baby – as always! Lucy and I were worried the mosquitos were going to havev a good feed that night, so we attempted to put the net up...and what a fail that was. We were too tired to persist, so just sprayed deet like crazy and tucked ourselves in our sleeping bag liners. The next morning we all met in the lobby of the hostel at 7.30am and headed for breakfast...chocolate croissant and a chocolate muffin along with a pineapple! Yum. I’m not sure how long we have on the boat so I am gradually nibbling at my croissant, making sure I enjoy every bite  Our boat is different to yesterdays boat, and none of the seats are actually secured to the floor, so we moved the chairs around so that we were facing each other – easier to chat! The views are just like yesterdays to be honest. The water is dirty brown, then rocks sticking out of the water and then lots of trees and green mountains! It is beautiful here, but I am hoping to see something exciting, even if its an animal. We pass very small groups of huts and pass people who are fishing in the water, or pass another slow boat going in the opposite direction. Apart from that its dead quiet...oh well that’s if the engine at the back would be quiet. It’s rather noisy, but you just forget about it after a while. I started reading up about Laos in my lonely planet guide, and there is so much to see and do I’m not sure where to start! Hope I will figure it out soon. The sun is out today, and it’s rather hot directly in it, luckily there is a roof over our heads sheltering most of it so it’s not too bad. I have trousers on and it’s hot...I really should have packed shorts into my small rucksack. Oh well, live and learn hey!
Oh my, the boat just stopped and a woman walked through the boat with a big fish she had literally just caught! Random. I wonder if we can have that for dinner 
That’s my update for now... xx