Basically i had the best day EVER today!!!! After a lot of confusion last night, we eventually booked a boat tour and 3 kayaks for (after the bumpy bike ride yesterday i was in no shape for kayaking! John ended up teaming with Oliver, whose girlfriend - Lisa - was also pretty sore lol). Actually paying was a bit of a hassle too, because it seems like a lot of Lao people have difficulties with basic math, like adding etc. which is a problem when it comes to paying for stuff. During the Vietnam war they had to abandon everything to defend themselves, then after the war they spent ages trying ti rebuild their agriculture etc. So when it finally came time for establishing an education system, not only do many people not have the means for going to school, but apparently there aren't that many people qualified to teach, kind of like the blind leading the blind.

Anyway, we did eventually get everything sorted, and the guy sent us on our way to meet our "little guide", as he called him. We rode a tuktuk for a while to the Nam Tha Rivcer, where Emnuk greeted us - and he really was little! lao people seem to be pretty small to begin with, so I guess this guy was around 4ft. Our boat was like a long wooden canoe, except with a motor attached. We took off our shoes and lay back in the sun, feeling pretty sorry for those poor kayaking b******s as we floated totally relaxed by lush green forests, fishermen, thatched roof villages, and quite a few people washing their clothers and themselves in the river.

After splashing our way through a few rapid (refreshing in the sweltering heat, although we did get a bit whacked by a couple of water-bushes) we made our way to Ban Sope Dute Village. This village was very small, a few houses on either side of the long dirt road. We talked to a shy girl who was working on the "rice mill" , hand graining the rice. Puppies, kittens and piglets cuddled up to eachother everywhere, such a cute sight!!! But then we asked why there were so many puppies everywhere, and it turns out they eat them :( I can, with as open a mind as possible, understand that dog is probably easier and cheaper to keep than cows etc. But I made friends with one puppy who crawled up into my lap, and I just couldn't imagine eating him! They are so cute, surely it must be difficult to stay unattached. But then I guess when you've got hungry mouths to feed, Spot hardly comes top of the priorities....

Everyone escaped the sun by sitting under their houses (which were on stilts) on on their stairs. Megan and Lb had bought some books to give to the children, and when we et two little boys walking home (arms around eachother) they gave them a book and you should have seen their little faces light up!!! They quickly settled down on the steps to their house, pencil in hand, flipping through the pages. We also met their mothers and grandmother (iu think) of those boys, and a couple of kids walking home from school for lunch. It was soon time for lunch for us as well, so we said our goodbyes and headedn back to the boat. After dragging ourselves up the muddy riverbank where we found a small sleeping area used by men who fish at night. Earlier we had all crapped our pants when one of the men went off for what we thought was a toilet stop and all of a sudden a huge tree comes tumbling down with a crash! Turns out he was cutting off some of the 2m. long banana tree leaves - which we used as "tables" for lunch. Enuk plopped our lunch out onto the leaves, along with little packages of rice wrapped up in more banana leaves and...bananas. The food was really good, just slopped some up with my fingers, rolled a ball of stick rice and stuck it in my mouth - too good!!!

Our second village was the slightly larger Ban Sope Slim Noy. I was reallly imprssed watching this little boy hammer his bike back together - there are so many PRACTICAL things i would have no idea how to do that 7 year olds manage out here! These villages seem so independent from the rest of the world - they aren't worrying about how much the dollar is worth, or rising petrol prices - here they grow their own food, make their own clothes, build their own houses. A company called "AusAid" has sposnored this village so hat they can have their own well of clean water - a difference that is so important I would thoroughly urge anyone with the opportunity to donate to those charities for clean water to do so. Ifn you saw how dirty the rivers are here....its so gross!

We met one family of two sisters, a toddler and a baby who must have only been 2 months old. Although the eldest was only 20, it turned out the youngest two were her kids! They must grow up soooo fast here! Btw, one thing I fopund pretty funny was that in the Khmu people's culture it is strictly "Sex Before Marriage". The girl has one year to get pregnant before the marriage can occur. No baby - no wedding! The luang Nam Tha province is full of all different types of minority groups, and in another culture the marriage of two people is determined by their birthdates! We didn't get a chance to visit that village because soon after we waved goodbye (having met up temporarily with the kayaker who all looked like drowned rats) the rain started PELTING down! We all got pretty drenched, but it was still an amazing day!