Personal note to self, day 10 is December 3rd. It’s Adem’s birthday, happy birthday Adem, hope you have a great day. Also my nephew Will’s birthday, happy birthday Will, see you soon.

Straight after breakfast (full English with all the trimmings, oh hang on, it was omlette) we left shortly after 9 to go visit Big Brother Mouse. This time is was open and we were beckoned straight in, the young folks eager to capture someone to work with. I sat to work with a young man who proudly informed me he was a monk, and he went off to find a book. I also found out he was 19 and had one brother and two sisters. His spoken English wasn’t brilliant, but he had a pretty good idea of how to read, though when I corrected his pronunciation of some words he questioned me, and I realised quickly that our language makes little sense sometimes. Also the book he had chosen about Greek history did have a rather high number of awkward words in it. I wasn’t sure he understood what some of the words meant so I did a fair bit of miming and explaining. After around an hour my young chap said he had to go and was quickly off. Meanwhile, Mrs Tom had been reading and conversing with a couple of other young chaps before mine had departed, and as I turned to join in she had began with a third who had just come in from school. He was 21 and was in his second year of studying English so his spoken was pretty good. He asked us to explain some words from his exercise book and showed us the work be had been up to. Some pages he had missed because the guest house he works in was busy that day so he didn’t go in to school. He had been a monk already for 3 years but wasn’t any longer, and had once been swept off his feet by an Australian girl who had taken him travelling around Laos and he spoke of her with great affection. Poor lad was a bit besotted. To cheer him up I told him there was an Australian girl who worked in the Tamarind restaurant and maybe she would be just as nice, so I think he might give her a go next. He walked back with us to our guest house and then hopped on his bike and went off to work. It was a great experience being in there with the young people trying to learn English and helping them to do better. Thoroughly recommended.

After Big Brother Mouse we packed up as this was our last day in Luang Prabang and indeed Laos. After packing we dumped our stuff in one of the assigned day rooms and went for a walk along the riverside. We were actually looking for the point where the Mekong meets the Nam Khan as I wanted some pictures, but we walked in completely the wrong direction. Not to be put off we looped back along the main street where we saw Steven, Summer and Darren parked up outside the Joma cafe. We joined them for 20 minutes or so then set off for the riverside again, this time the right way. We quickly found it, but I was also looking for an old bridge built in the communist days, but failed to find it.

Having ran out of time to find the bridge we got back to the hotel bang on leaving time and found everyone else just picking up their things from the day room. En route to the airport we stopped by the Ethanology centre where a guide talked us around a recently opened museum of Lao ethanology. We saw clothes for different groups of people and what sort of places they lived in and courting customs, all very interesting stuff. The Lao people have different ways of classifying themselves, including where they live, the dialect, the religion, ancestry. The different groups often also have different customs and different clothing.

After the Ethanology centre we continued on to the airport and boarded the plane to Hanoi. Unusually for a short flight (approx one hour) we were given something to eat: a couple of ham and cheese rolls, a little donut and some fruit. A fairly uneventful flight all in all.

The transfer to the hotel was much more interesting. Rafaele has a very thorough knowledge of Vietnamese history, and he shared much of this with us on the transfer. For one thing, there is no Vietnam war here, it is called the American war – they wern’t at war with themselves. He must have talked for 20 minutes at least telling stories of how Vietnam came to be were it is today, stretching back a few hundred years. Vietnam has a very interesting history an one which I did not know much about, so I was glad of the lesson.

One thing that is immediately obvious when you get here is the big difference in the numbers of people and how much faster the pace is here. Vietnam is marginally larger than Laos, but Laos’ total population is around 6 million whereas Vietnam is more like 89 million. As a result things are busy and loud. Apparenty there are 40 million motorbikes here too, the primary method for people to get around. Crossing the street is an experience in itself.

We get some practice in crossing the street as we go out for dinner to a place Rafa has booked us in for around 8:15. Around a 15 minute walk we all managed to arrive at the restaurant with only minor injuries and one fatality to speak of. We sit on the roof terrace which is covered and sit cross legged on the floor at a traditional style low table. The food is great and once we’ve paid up however many million dong it is we get a taxi back to the hotel as Rafa goes off out somewhere. We were hoping to be able to find somewhere to have a drink and possibly even buy some supplies for tomorrow’s overnight boat trip, but unless we wanted to go to a karaoke bar we were out of luck. Steven had also scared us off karaoke bars as he’s been reading about “special” ones in his book about China. So, sober, we trundle off to bed having been in a bit of a party mood, though not before checking out Summer’s room as she was keen to share the apparent smell with us. There was no smell, she’s mental.

After breakfast (I’ll let you guess) we set off in our bus at 9:30 headed for the elephant village. Rafa had recommeded this particular place because he felt that this was one of the best as far as the welfare of the elephants goes, which we were all happy with.

Our guide tells us his name is Jey Wan (pronunciation yay-van, spelling guessed) and we get on a tired looking bus from the hotel to the elephant village (oddly, as I’m writing this retrospectively we have just passed the sign to the elephant village a second ago). I soon realise why the bus is a bit knackered as we start to bounce along the the bumpy roads to the site.

Once on site we are pointed to a raised platform where we could sit and wait for our elephants to arrive. We waited a while but then they finally came, elephants with what basically looked like park benches strapped to their backs, the benches sat on a few layers of rugs to cushion the feeling for the elephants. To mount we climbed up onto another platform where we were bench height to allow us to hop across. The guides sit on the very front, pretty much the necks of the elephant. Ours was called Muntim (pronounced moon-teem by our non-English speaking elephant pilot). It was fantastic, and we trekked around for around an hour and a half, plodding through the jungle and eventually across a section of river where our elephant decided to have both a number one and two.

It was a fabulous trek, and once we had finished we bought some bananas to feed to the elephants. Most took them with their trunks, but Muntim hadn’t been trained to do that so we popped it straight into his mouth, though we did feed a number of others via the trunk method.

After feeding time we were back down to the riverbank. Here we were to bathe the elephants, though none of us knew quite what to expect. Here mounting the elephants inolved the elephant lifting its front leg for us to stand on, and we then hopped on as if mounting a horse. The largest elephant was slightly different here, it sat like a dog would sit, and its climber had to scurry up its back. Unforunately Gaynor, a retired lady of a certain age, was tasked with climbing on to this one. Almost inevitably this didn’t turn out too well, so Steven ended up on the big fella. I should mention that this time we were not sat on benches, but on the neck of the elephant as the guides were before, and this time our helpers were behind us commanding the elephants. It’s quite an uncomfortable ride, but bloody good fun.

We wade out into the river and then the guides make them sit down, meaning that we get very wet. The guides are standing now so they are fine, but some us are nearly waist deep. Some of the elephants do more tricks than others, some squirting water, some splashing trunks to create big water showers, it was great fun. Mine didn’t do too much but it was fun enough watching Darren and Steven get drenched, Gaynor and Barry laughing from the side.

It wasn’t long before we were marching back in, but plenty of time to have great fun. The elephants lower themselves again and we hop off, sopping wet, and go for lunch back up at the platform. We discuss our relative experiences while we eat our egg rice with chicken and vegetables. For most of the trek, in fact about 15 minutes into it, Steven had swapped with his guide and was sat up on the neck of the elephant, and remained there the whole way round. I wasn’t offered, and was a bit disappointed as I would have loved to, so was pleased when we got on when we took the elephants bathing. Barry and Gaynor were apparently offered, but declined. After having sat up there for a while whilst out in the river I can say they probably made the right choice given their age, and hats off to Steven for managing over an hour up there. Once lunch was over we hopped back on the bus and back to the hotel.

Still excited from the elephant trip we needed to go pick up our laundry, a not so exciting trip. Yesterday we had taken our dirty stuff to a laundry where they weigh it and you pay 10,000 kip per kilo. Ours was 6.9 kilos and therefore 69,000 kip, around £5.50. However, before we could get our laundry we needed some cash as we had ran out, and had already borrowed 400,000 kip from Barry and Gaynor to pay for our elephant trip. Well, the card didn’t work in the machine, but everyone else, both before and after us, was fine. So, we called the bank and are on hold for 10 minutes before the lady tells me that she cannot discuss Mrs Tom’s card with me because I have entered my security details and not Mrs Tom’s (it is a joint account), even though Mrs Tom is sat next to me and quite willing and able to provide the necessary details. We need to call back and enter the other details. Having informed the lady that this was in fact ridiculous we were transferred to the security team who spoke to Mrs Tom and took the details needed to tell us the card had been blocked due to security concerns. Mrs Tom having made a special trip to our local branch to inform them of our travel plans, we were less than impressed. Note to Lloyds TSB – we will be writing a complaint and you will refund us the £15 in call charges racked up whilst dealing with your stupid red tape and queues. When someone dials the international number, they should be bumped up the queue.

Having stopped at an Internet cafe to sort out our financial woes we had a coffee, then went to collect our washing, finding a bad full of Steven’s pants in with our stuff. We gladly handed them over.

Rafa had told us of a place in Luang Prabang called Big Brother Mouse where visitors can meet with local children and help them to develop their English skills, written, spoken and reading. This was the morning session. The afternoon you could visit to play with the young folks to help them develop naturally through play. We thought this sounded like a great idea so set off in search of Big Brother Mouse. Sadly the children were not there, and we learned that the afternoon play session was not running at the moment, so we decided we would visit in the morning instead.

Our trip to Big Brother Mouse being cut short we were at a loss as to what to do, so Summer, Mrs Tom and I headed into town to peruse the shops before sitting down in a splendid shop that both sold wine in bottles to take away, but also by the glass and bottle to sit in the premises. It was by far the broadest selection of wine I had seen since leaving home with a mass of French wine on offer, most places serving Chillean, Californian if you’re lucky. We had arranged to meet Darren and Steven at 7 so kept an eye out as we sat for over an hour eating snacks and drinking wine, though I had beer cos I’m cool.

During our shop bothering we had booked ourselves a table for dinner in a nice looking place just across the street from where we had just been. Darren and Steven had been missing home foods so when I saw the menu our front with the page open on the steaks I had stopped to look at the offerings. They did a good wide selection of foods and we all had something nice to eat. Darren and Steven both had the steak, I had a soup and a bowl of rice with chilli beef, Mrs Tom had chicken satay (though we did expect somethig a bit nicer as it mentioned curry on the menu) and Summer had BBQ chicken and chips. All in all not that cultural, but what everyone wanted (except me of course, the culture king). We did have some local type fried spring rolls while we waited for our mains which slightly makes up for it I suppose.

Knackered after a couple of energetic days tourism, we packed up early and got a good early night in. I’m going to Vietnam tomorrow Vien! I will pretend that I don’t know you though so I don’t get killed, hope you don’t mind.

After meeting everyone for breakfast (again an omlette with a side plate of fruit) we set off (minus Barry and Gaynor who opt out of the trek part of the trip) in the bus bound for the village where our trek begins. After a 45 minute journey we meet up with our local guide from the village. Sak tells us that although he knows the way it is a rule that a local guide must accompany us. The village is basic as you would expect, but these folks live a little removed from the normal Lao society. The have their own dialect and are descended from Chinese and other immigrants. We see many adorable children and cute dogs and puppies, and even some pigs and chickens. The houses range from thin wooden weave construction with long grass rooves through to brick built places with strong metal based rooves where families have done well and earned enough to afford themselves better living standards.

Once through the village the trek begins proper and we see some beautiful scenery, as well as fields where rice, rubber, teak and several fruits are grown. Although different people own different parts of the land they share what they have, though the majority of what is grown is sold.

Once through the initial part of the walk we trek deeper into the jungle where headroom is low and in many places foot placements are very narrow. We have a couple of drink stops and after our final one move closer to the Kuang Si waterfall.

We reach the top of the waterfall first, with breathtaking views as the water vanishes into clouds of white below. As we navigate the stream crossing, having chosen the wet route, we begin to make our way to the bottom, climbing down steep walkways of footholds carved in the earth. Once on the descention we never really see the waterfall again until we reach the bottom, where we meet with Rafa, Gaynor and Barry. From the bottom the waterfall looks even better with water rapidly tumbling down the rock face into the pools below. Everyone takes a few pictures and we end with Rafa taking a big group shot of us all in front of the falls.

Next some of us have a swim in one of the lower pools, and there is a rope swing into the pool which I use to mark my entrance. It is properly freezing, and takes quite a while to get used to, but is very refreshing after the long walk.

Once dry we take a small walk further downstream to where there is a small bear sanctuary where rescued bears are kept in an enclosure. Much like animals in zoos these guys are obviously in captivity, but are in better circumstances than which they were found. The bears seem a little camera shy and we struggle to get good photos of them but we try nonetheless.

After a quick freshen up at the hotel we wander out into the streets to have another look around the market, and also book our trip for tomorrow, elephant riding. Lunch is a quick bit from the joma cafe and we plod back to the hotel, myself having bought a couple of t-shirts.

Rafa has booked us dinner in a restaurant called Tamarind which is a set menu consisting of some dips with river weed and sesame seed crisps for starters and a huge fish for our main course accompanied by some lettuce and assorted tidbits to go with it. It was absolutely delicious, one of the best meals so far.

Rafa wanted to take us to a club where the locals go, so we hitch a tuk tuk and roll up at the disco, which is in one of the darkest clubs known to man. There is a band on playing traditional Lao songs accompanied by girls singing. I quite enjoy the music, and everyone seems to be having a good time. The dancing system seems a little odd – at the end if every song the floor is cleared and then people tentatively make their way back after the start of the next number, and soon everyone is back in full swing. They also seem to dance in a set routine, rotating round doing a bit of a jiggle facing all four directions. It looks a bit like line dancing, and fun to watch. Steven, Summer and Rafa joined in at various stages, but the rest of us refrained. Barry even fell asleep for a bit such was his approval of the place!

Once out of the club when it closed at 11, Rafa suggested that we go to the bowling alley where we would still be able to get a drink, and if the mood took us have a wee bowl. As it turned out the mood did take us and I ended up winning, being less bad rather than better than everyone else. We got back to the hotel and unfortunately had to wake the owners to let us in. Whoops.

Tomorrow, elephants!

The first thing on the agenda today is a flight to Luang Prabang, the former capital of Laos. Good news is we don’t have to leave until 10:30 so we sleep in until 8:45, get up for breakfast (2x omlette today, paranoid about the sniggering) then pack and get ready to leave for the airport.

Basic is probably how you would describe the Vientiane airport. We take in the shop and then pass through check in. Following this we have a 45 minute wait where we observe the goings on out on the airfield before boarding the 1 hour flight to Luang Prabang. I had enquired why we were flying what compared to the Bangkok to Vientiane train ride seems a short trip. Apparently there are some “mountains” (if that’s what you want to call them) that get in the way and make it a 13 hour drive. No doubt Tim’s Alfa could do it in 2 but I don’t think that the required 11 petrol stations exist en route. The flight passes without incident and we are soon on the ground and on the bus bound for the hotel. I comment that the modes of transport seem to be getting more upmarket as we progress through the tour, this bus being the best so far, and conversely the earlier train in Thailand being a bit “Auschwitz”.

Luang Prabang has a population of around 60,000, around the same as my home town. Imagining it as the former capital is difficult unless you’ve seen the current capital, where things are marginally busier and quicker paced.

Having checked in to the hotel (a very nice quiet little place made up of a few blocks of appartments) we get straight out again and meet Sak who is to be our guide during our stay in Luang Prabang. A gentle and quiet man (as most Lao people seem to be) he leads us to some places where we can get some takeaway lunch to take on our boat trip to the Pak Ou caves. The caves were originally made by the sea thosands of years ago (though the country has no sea borders any longer) and became places of worship, some locals still believing that they house spirits. At some time they were inhabited by monks though not today, the monks having taken up residence in more comfy surroundings. There are hundreds of different sized Buddha statues in both upper and lower caves, the latter being at the top of a lot of steep steps which cause much wheezing and puffing.

After the caves we sail across the river to the Pak Ou village (sharing its name with the caves) where they make laolao whiskey. The stuff we sample is excellent, and with an eye on an upcoming train journey a few bottles are acquired. We buy a small bottle to take home to show our chums back home which is in a nice looking bottle that Mrs Tom will likely use later to make impressive things for parties. Like some other spirits I’ve seen elsewhere there are bottles with snakes, spiders, insects and other crazy things all jammed inside, and we’re td these are all gathered locally to be used in the bottling.

Back on the boat we head back to Luang Prabang. All around us on the boat trip the scenery is beautiful, full of mountains and green, and lots of snaps are taken. On the way back, the sun is setting and we all try to capture this from various different angles. I got a shot which includes a rather impressive looking wake in the river as a faster craft had just whizzed by leaving its trail. I immidiately show off and bore people with it. Just before disembarking, Darren leans backwards into what he believes is the side of the boat, but is actually the doorway. Being certain for an unexpected bath I grab his arm and haul him safely back over the threshold, and am henceforth carried shoulder high through the town and given the freedom of Laos*.

*There is a good chance some of this is made up. I did stop him falling in though.

After a quick stop back at the hotel where we say goodbye to Sak for the day we are off to the night markets. There are many lovely little trinkets and goods on sale, much better and more attractive than the typical tourist junk you see so much of, and we wander through taking it all in. Our intended destination is the food section of the market where we will eat tonight. Freshly cooked meats, fish, vegetables, soups, rice dishes, curries are all on display. Having been fortunate enough to grab a spot where we can all sit together, each of us takes a wander and picks up different bits and pieces to eat, myself opting for a pork noodle soup, some skewered barbecued chicken, some chicken and vegetable kebabs and a couple of tomatoes stuffed with minced meat and noodles. Mrs Tom also has skewered chicken, adding some of the kebabs and some skewered pork. Of course we have a couple of Beer Lao too. Everyone enjoys their food before we clear out and head for the bakery stalls for some cakes, which we take into the neighbouring coffee shop to eat with a cup of coffee (though summer has what turns out to be an outstanding hot chocolate).

As we head back to the hotel through the market we take another look at the offerings, and Darren decides to buy a hat to keep the sun off his head on our trip tomorrow, replacing the one that if I’m honest I saw he’d left next to the computer in the last hotel but forgot to tell him. Back at the hotel we have a quick drink before what will be an early start tomorrow morning for our trip – a 4 hour trek ending up at the Kouang Si waterfall.