Greetings and Happy New Year from the land where brightly coloured soft drinks are served in plastic bags!! I trust you all had a Merry Christmas and a good start to 2006. Since my last update I've found myself in some amazing situations that surpassed even my wildest dreams of contentment. In Pai, north Thailand I spent some time on a little organic farm where I joined a community of hippies sharing some land amongst the misty mountains, paddy fields & fruit trees with natural hot water streams & waterfalls nearby. Beautifully spiritual people of absurdly different personalities working on the land & communing happily and effectively sharing time, space and energy - good times indeed but with my visa running out I left with a promise to return in a few months time. After a day on a bus I made it upto Chiang Rai and spent a few nights in a small hill tribe village on a mountain surrounded by bamboo forest, waterfalls & serenity. The locals were brilliant and keen to practise their English, we spent our evenings around a campfire making music under the stars. Across the Thai/Laos border this intrepid traveller s now wallowing in the glorious splendour of South-East Asias most laid back and unspoilt countries. Laos is that little sparcely populated country squished in between Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, China & Cambodia - it's bloody lovely here! Having spent 2 days on a slow boat with 100+ other travellers, some sacks of cabbages, a few locals and several bicycles travelling down the scenic but incredibly brown Mekong river (10th largest river in the world) I arrived in Luang Prabang. With saffron robed monks wandering between its many gleaming temples, the French architecture and a multi-ethnic population of tribal people, combined with it's mountain encircled setting, a good bunch of friends and a wonderful guesthouse made this the perfect place to spend a very non Christmassy Christmas. However on Christmas Eve after attending a culturally enlightening production of traditional Laos ballet at the palace theatre (nothing like you could ever imagine) I did manage to get suitably sloshed and gorge myself stupid on Laos style BBQ. It seems that everywhere you go in Laos, the very hospitable restaurant owners offer free shots of home brewed 'lao lao', a rice whiskey resembling poor quality paint stripper to everyone at any given moment. The first shot is often poured onto the floor or a used plate to appease the house spirit and unfortunately it is considered offensive to decline this hospitality. Strictly speaking this moonshine is illegal but no-one seems to care or know it's strength. "LAO LAO" - cheers! On Boxing day I left town and as the bus made its way along the winding mountainside we passed through many bamboo villages with smiley waving children and more evidence of a very simple happy lifestlyle. My next stop Vang Vieng is a fairly ugly touristy town nestled along a beautifully scenic bend in the Nam Song river, I found a glorious organic mulberry farm a few KM out of town where I'd hoped to do some work exchange, however although there was no work available on the farm I got myself involved in the community English school. Helping out with a few lessons and at the new mudbrick library I mucked in with the cleaning and moving/organising of all the donated books. I also had enormous amounts of fun kyaking down/ splashing around in the river and hiking around the countryside. I met some really neat people here including a lovely English couple that are riding around the world on a huge motorbike - this is year 4! I am now in Vientienne, the capital city of Laos situated on the border to Thailand. So on the turn of 2006 I sat under the stars on the Laos side of the river watching fireworks being set off in Thailand - Magical! I've been hanging out over the holiday waiting on the embassy to re-open so I can apply for a business visa to Cambodia, then it'll be onwards down into southern Laos in search of traditionalist highland communities, coffee plantations, limestone waterfalls and some rare freshwater dolphins - Bring it on!! So here's to a New Year, I hope you all remebered to include 'keeping in touch with your distant friends' amongst your new years resolutions. I look forward to a record responce to this one........... ************************************* p.s Sabaai-dji means hello, goodbye, how are you and I'm fine, in Laos