Sabadee from Laos

Hey,

I'm still on holiday and now headed into the beautiful Laos.

My first two days were spent on the slow boat down the Mekong. We sailed from Chang Kong to Luang Prabang. On our way we were stopped off at a small sailing village, and saw the real Laos. We saw the locals making a fishing boat, it was amazing to see how skillful and how resourceful they can be. We also got to taste some freshly distilled Rice wine, that was hot not only from distillation, but gave a warming sensation all the way down, probably as we had the first batch which is around 40-70% proof.

I've spent a day trekking through the jungle. High peaks will be proud of me, I only fell over twice (and thanks to monsoon rain got covered in mud! Washing the clay off took ages, but we finished at a spectacular waterfall.

The next day was spent kayaking down the Mekong. Nice and strenuous, I'd forgotten how little exercise I've done lately, feels like a year since I've been at the S10 gym! But had a relaxing massage afterwards, so relaxing in fact I might have accidentally fallen asleep - ooops! The Laotian massaging me had a good giggle at that!

Oh, and carrying on the sports theme we went tenpin bowling, where I managed to win, but with only 98 and 110, slightly with my tail between my legs. Maybe I'll get back to the 150's soon.

All in all Laos has been really fun. We've had pretty good weather for the rainy season, only a few monsoon rains, and the people here are amazingly friendly. Most of them have better English than me.

Wish you were here?

See you all soon!

Mark