Laos

Spent two days ambling down the Mekong River by boat. It was beautiful, there were small villages at the side of the river, and water buffalo bathing. It's amazing how easily I can pass 5 hours here without getting restless! We read, slept and played cards (I taught James how to play dirty dozen so now we have an ongoing competition, happy to say I'm winning!)

We stopped overnight in Pak Beng in a "basic" guest house which only had electricity from 6-10.30pm and 6-8am! The lights went out while we were sitting on the terrace having a couple of Beer Lao... drinking games by torchlight are much more interesting!

We arrived in Luang Prabang two days ago. The first morning I got up at 5.30am to see the monks walk through the streets while people offer them food, it was incredible. Next we met Pon, our local guide, at the Museum, but my favourite part was the waterfalls yesterday. We took tuk tuks for an hour to the falls. It is almost Lao New Year and as part of the celebrations the kids throw water over people. So we were prime targets in our open sided tuk tuks, we were absolutely drenched by the time we arrived!

The waterfalls were absolutely stunning, blue water, sun shining, kind of idyllic! We swam in a little pool further down, the water was lovely.

Last night a few of us decided to go bowling in a small bowling alley a short drive from our guest house. You honestly wouldn't think it was a bowling alley from the outside! But inside there were 8 proper bowling lanes. There were mainly locals there, who obviously have teams because they were SO much better than us. In fact it was only my fifth go before I managed to hit my first pin!!! So I was laughed at quite a lot... oops!

It's raining today so the perfect opportunity to catch up with my blog and my diary entries... might amble down to the night market again tonight... I'm enjoying the laid back lifestyle!

We're off to Vang Vieng tomorrow, then down to Vientiane.