Tubing... and more

Hey hey there,

Well... the following day we rented out our tubes, and got a tuk tuk with the tubes attached to the roof, to the river. Started at the first bar (actually the 3rd one, Banana bar), where the family were soooooooo friendly, offering us so much food - free bananas, and asked if we wanted to join them to have lunch (probably because she was so motherly and wanted us to line our stomachs!)

We started drinking buckets (whisky and soft drinks, I think), and were given free shots at every bar. A recipe for disaster! In fact the lovely motherly lady gave us the bottle of spirits to help ourselves to shots. With a huge millipede in it. Photos to follow.

We resisted the rope swings (having just met a girl who didn't 'swing' on it, fell straight down and horribly bruised her legs!) and started floating down the river, being hauled into different bars by people with ropes. So much fun! Mud swimming pools followed, as did 'tug of war', lots of drinking, lots of chatting to fantastic people, lots of floating and general mayhem.

When we woke up the next morning we had to do an inventory of ourselves... bruises, grazes, cuts and achyness, but we survived, and had a thoroughly great day. (Well as much as I remember)... Photos from my waterproof (and mud proof) camera to follow tomorrow!

Bus to Luang Prabang... so windy and 6 hours long. So windy! Beautiful scenery and stunning mountains. Luang Prabang is such a wonderful town... so beautiful, with many temples and a strange French feel. We had great fun just chilling out watching films, and meandering around the wonderful night market and food stalls. So many sumptuous and gorgeous textiles - from placemats to scarves to quilts. Beautiful. Spent a couple of days there relaxing, especially in our lovely hotel - so pretty. We even got fresh flowers on our beds! That's better than chocolates! We never get that, they are normally reserved for 'expensive' hotels. We felt very spoilt.

So... another overnight bus to the Laos/Thailand border. Not the most comfortable, and we then had to stamp out of Laos (no problem) and get a boat across the very fast moving river to Thailand, to get stamped in (luckily no problem either). Another local bus down to Chiang Mai, where we are now, in the north of Thailand.

Chiang Mai is 10 hours bus ride north of Bangkok, and is quite huge. We feel like we've hit civilisation again, with 7/11 shops and Starbucks! We can use Starbucks' vouchers and air conditioning, very exciting. The city is renowned as a trading place between countries and tribes, and has beautiful crafts here - much is taken down to Bangkok and sold at inflated prices. We're going to check out the famous night market tonight, and grab some food in the food hall there. Can't wait - Thai food is gorgeous and so cheap! Nothing like England... Pad thai for 50p, pretty great.

So many things to do here, finances permitting. Will put up more photos tomorrow of the tubing - the rest are up. Enjoy!

Loads of love to you all, from us all,
Al xxxxxxxxxxxxxx