We had the nicest bus from Jinghong to Luang Nam Tha, it was as rickety as any before, as dirty as ever and more jam packed with people and goods than we've ever seen, BUT, everyone was smiling and happy! I can't describe the feeling I got as we stood at the counter of the Laos border, the smells did it, lush, wet, vegetation....the smell of south east asia, it's good to be back. We drove away from the glossy, smart China exit through no-mans land and arrived within minutes at the muddy, wooden Laos entry office and I've not had a smile that big for ages. On the Laos side they've built a huge garish gold stupa as if to say, ok we can do shiny too, it's pretty funny as you go past it and there are little naked kids running round spraying eachother with water....not quite as official looking as China.

So we arrive in Luang Nam Tha right outside the guesthouse we'd already picked to stay at and got a discount straight away.....50,000kip (£3.82). The room is brill, double, clean, fan, hot water, free bottled water, tv you name it....luxury. The first thing we spotted were banana chocolate pancakes, Liz is home :)

We enountered our first thunderstorm in Laos within 4 minutes of arriving which was great fun, no wiping these smiles off our faces!!!! It stopped within twenty minutes which is a good job as the hostel was beginning to fall to pieces.

We had a few beers and watched people scurrying around in the rain then went out ourselves for a curry with an Australian guy we'd met on the bus. He was just doing China so we discussed the place at length and found out some interesting facts, like how 100,000 people are supposedly employed to monitor Internet usage and foreigeners can't get access in Internet cafe's as you need a personal identity code to log on. This means that if they spot any 'dodgy' internet viewing they can find out who it was and where they were and clamp down.....scary! He also told us that there were huge riots a few years back where hundreds of people were killed during riots (not
100% what for but the rumour is that I began when a girl was abused), all the foreigeners in the area were thrown out and the story was squashed within hours so no-one in the world found out, this is also when they pulled facebook, presumably to stop people talking. Now, I'm not sure how much truth there is in these stories as backpackers especially seem to enjoy conspiracies but it's interesting and frightening all the same.

After dinner had ended we purchased bus tickets for the following morning to Luang Prabang, 9 hours away, can't wait to get there.

Lots of love and happy Easter weekend

X