Well we thought we'd take a rest from blogging after our humungous last installment but now it's all built up rather a lot!

On Saturday we had a nice lazy morning and then set off for a long awaited massage. We've been wanting to have one for yonks but never seemed to have the time/funds!! The Khmu Massage was recommended in our lonely planet and didn't disappoint! We both had hour long full body oil massages which were HEAVENLY even though it was slightly strang having these women crawling over us!!! The oil smelt amazing and we basically just went back to sleep! I then had an hour long head massage (and got a discount woop!) which was very nice but was rather strange as it focused mainly on my face..my cheeks were rolled around and eyelids firmly massaged! Tess had an hour's foot massage which she said was reeeeaally good but rather irritating to have to actually walk again after! We emerged from the spa feeling rather like sausages about to be cooked in oil so spent a pleasant afternoon in a really nice restaurant/bar called utopia which overlooks the Mekong and has cool beds for you to laze about on :) we had a really good curry dinner with a selection of canadian, Dutch and German people who we'd met in the hostel and then had a good mooch about the night market.

The next day we set off for the Kuangsi waterfall as it was rather hot and we were dieing for a dip (it's the only waterfall with water in in the dry season!) it was absolutely beautiful and the water was absolutely freezing - such a nice change! There was also a rope swing over the waterfall which on the whole looked rather terrifying but Tess and I decided we needed to get our adrenalin going so climbed up to give it a go. We were very pleased to get jumping advice from a pro who'd been back flipping off it all day (Tess was close to jumping off in the wrong direction and I was almost too anxious to jump off at all!) Tess made a gracious leap..mine was rather more of a 'help me' but we were immensely pleased with ourselves afterwards :) we then sat in the sunshine and read our books for a bit and got some great advice from others we'd come with for our future travels. We had a late scrummy lunch back in Luang Prabang and a really amaazing dinner in a little side alley in the night market which does all you can eat buffet Lao food for 10,000 kip (£1). Tess and I are also slowly making our way through the cocktail lists as we want to try every one and so spent a lovely evening with a new American friend and drinking cocktails back in utopia and funnily enough discussing immigration..!? All sounds very idyllic and rather pricey but worry not we got a 20,000 kip discount from our tour company which goes a long way on cocktails here!!

This morning we were rudely awakened at 5:30 by the group of Malaysian 60 year olds in our dorm (I know!) who we hope have left now..we were not happy. At 9 we were picked up by a minibus containing a few English grannies and grandpas to head off for our elephant trek and bathing (we're a little obsessed!). It was so lovely to chat to someone from home and we spent a lovely half hour ride discussing universities, travelling and English pleasures :) when we got there we were promptly told to climb up on a platform and put on top of our elephant. We had hoped that we'd be riding them bareback this time but unfortunately had to settle again for the uncomfortable wooden seat but we were more worried about the weight on the elephant..I've been eating rather a lot here!! We soon discovered that our elephant Dong Ba was rather stubborn at 34 years old and slowly but surely made our way on our walk. The Mahout (elephant rider) assigned to us quickly made me sit on his neck and grabbed my camera to give us our own personal photo shoot. The elephant was absolutely lovely and although I had a few hair raising moments when we went very steeply downhill I enjoyed myself immensely. Our Mahout then also decided to take some 'arty' shots of us and so my camera is now stuffed with pictures of us with leaves in front if the camera, in sepia and partly hidden behind a tree..interesting..then it was Tess' turn up front and she had some equally nail biting moments where Dong Ba decided he wanted to go backwards, take us into a tree and then blast our eardrums by trumpeting to his friends. We then got back and the elephants were unharnessed for bathing time. We also had great fun feeding Dong Ba some bananas (yes Tess Cohen touched bananas for this elephant..seeing is believing!!). I was taken to another elephant for bathing as we each got our own and whilst Dong Ba had a whale of a time soaking Tess with his trunk and dunking his head down low to submerge her my new elephant Edin wasn't so keen to get his trunk wet so curled it in a knot high above the water. When we finally got in we all have our elephants a good scrub and had a lot of fun being soaked by them..my Mahout also decided it would be hilarious to soak me from behind as well..they were working against me. You did have to avoid the occasional floating elephant dung but other than that we all emerged rather clean and happy..someone took photos for us again so we're sort of dreading going through them later! We came back and showered and are currently chilling in our fave cafe with a good slice of lemon bar :)

We're pretty exhausted but really LOVE Laos as its so beautiful and friendly, will be strange leaving on weds!

Lots of love and apologies for the odd mash of activities, Flo and Tess x x x