Sabaidee!!!

Well, we woke up on our first day in Laos, very excited about the boat trip. We sat outside our hotel and waited for our lift to the dock, and waited and waited and waited! lol. Eventually the guy, Mr. Oud, came to get us and we arrived just in time to get a comfy seat. Really cool boat made of wood, with seat ripped out of cars and wooden benches! After about an hour of sitting and waiting for people to turn up, we got on our way on a very packed boat.... each one of us had been told when we bought our tickets that there would only be 40 people on the boat, but there were at least 100!

The first day down the Mekong, we sailed along stopping at little villages along the banks to pick up more passengers... locals with their chickens and such. At one point, we stopped in the middle of the river, and a small canoe-like boat pulled along side laden with wooden cabinets, which were loaded onto the roof (not too sure if it was entirely legal, we have been told alot of stolen goods pass through Laos)! For that day we mostly had Thailand on the right and Laos on the left, it was so beautiful. Everytime we rounded a corner there would be more and more mountains in front and behind and on each side! It did rain quite a few times and everyone would pull together to pull down these plastic blinds tied up. Eventually we got to Pak Beng where we stopped for the night. It was a tiny little town with loads of guesthouses and restaurants... basically existing for the travellers who would get off the boats there daily. Apparantly in the day time it became a ghost town, and literally everything shut shop. We had a wicked dinner and Ben had buffalo curry!!! It was well nice. The next morning we just about made it onto the boat as our alarm didn't go off properly lol. Luckily we had time to grab a couple of sandwiches and such but unluckily we were so late we got a wooden bench instead of a comfy chair!

That day we met a really nice couple who were also travelling before moving to Australia! They were so sweet and we spent most of the time chatting to them and fidgeting to keep our bums awake. The seats were very hard lol. The way down on the second day was alot more beautiful and towards the end of the journey we started to see big karsts (lime stone hills) jutting out of the river bank. It was such a nice journey, there were even people playing the guitar-like instruments and harmonica and singing up the front of the boat and people were crammed in anywhere you could sit as we picked up more and more people. Luckily they served tea and beer on the boat as it got a little cold when it rained, but is was such a nice atmosphere.

We arrived in LPB earlier than expected, and I (Ben) had a bit of a mad struggle to get our bags from the hold in the bottom of the boat, not that easy when 100 other people are all trying to cram down a small corridor at once. Eventually, once we had all our worldly possesions we started the hunt for a guesthouse. We decided to head to the other side of town, but when we got there, we found the guesthouse we were planning on staying in was very dark and musty so we decided against it. After quite a bit of wandering the street, a bloke on a motorbike stopped in the street and asked us if we would like to check out his guesthouse. He offered us a good price, and the building was really quite beautiful, a cross between french colonial, and tudor... but all very clean and new. We even have a TV in our room, and we are paying less than a fiver a night... incredible really!

Since we have been here we have mainly been chilling out. Its hard not too, as there is such a chilled out vibe. Have spent most of our time walking the streets, sitting in cafe's and eating baguettes! The town is really quite stunning. Almost every building in the old quater is French colonial, or looks French colonial. There are lots of little cobbled side streets with chickens roaming free, and its definately one of our top places so far. We have even done a bit of souvenir shopping and bought some lovely traditional Lao textiles and some like antique boxes!! There are lots of little temples everwhere and monks walking around wearing bright orange robes and carrying umbrella's (they dont like the sun or the rain out here!) Tonight we are going for a drink with the couple we met on the boat which should be nice. The food is really great here, you can get your home comforts such as bread and pastries, really good pizza's, immense cakes, and the Lao food (especially the curry's) is amazing. We even bought some traditional Lao cigars made by a monk hehe. They are rolled in a dried banana leaf!

We have had one bad experience however, we woke this morning and counted our money to discover about 500,000 kip and 20USD was missing!!! We were so gutted because it was hidden in our room and the door has been locked and had a padlock on it! It only amounts to about 60GBP but it's about 3 days money for us. The worst thing is knowing someone has been in our room and I (Nina) was quite upset by that fact. We've certainly learnt our lesson though! We told the guesthouse owners and they reckon it was a guy doing some work for them who hasn't turned up today. Not sure what to believe and we didn't know what to do. Tom (Ben's dad) has really kindly said he will give us it back though!!!! It doesn't seem worth spending the day in the police station, especially as it is our last day here, and I don't think they would do much about it! I guess we're pretty lucky that this is the first time things have gone missing really and we're just grateful they didn't take everything!

Is quite a strange place here at the same time, as we sit writing this one of the staff in this internet cafe is sat watching some pretty graphic porn, with customers on either side of him lol! Is all very friendly though, and even the Tuk-Tuk drivers, who can be a pain are very polite and no-one tries to rip you off to any great extent. If this is any hint at what to expect in Laos, I think we will both very much enjoy our time here. Could quite happily settle here, and although it is half a world a way from the UK, we feel very much at home!

Anyways, we move onto Vang Vieng tomorrow. It's supposed to be the traveller capital so should be interesting! The drive down there is meant to be very beautiful through the mountains, though we have been warned that if the buses break down, they get fixed on the side of the road as there are no tow-trucks here! Should be an experience! Will write again soon, sorry there are no photo's, we have more viruses on the camera! ahhh! New memory card needed very much.

Massive hugs and love to everyone. Missing you all and hope all is well there in England (and France!)

xxooxx