So I arrived in Perth, western Australia on Saturday 3rd of December at around 5.30 am after a very comfortable flight with Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur, the landing was a bit on the windy side (actually had to abort the 1st landing 30m from the ground as the winds were pitching the plane around so much that the pilot couldn’t get it straight), but after circling the airport again, we landed smoothly on the tarmac. We made our way to the arrivals area to sort out our on going travel plans and to buy yet another sim card.  Within an hour my old friend John Casey (from my checkpoint days) and his lovely family had arrived to pick me up and take me back to their house, this was the time I had to say goodbye to my dear friend Nuria, the lovely Spanish girl who I have been travelling with over the last two months, We both cried, as we had no idea when we would see each other again, a very sad moment, although we have vowed to meet up again somewhere in the world as and when we can. My good friends John, Margaret, Rebekah and Naomi made me feel so welcome in their house, over the next few days we spent time talking, eating, drinking and generally catching up with each other, they took me places and continually spoilt me, it was great !!!

       While I was here I had to plan how I was going to get across to Melbourne then on to Tasmania, so the good old internet was put into action and after a while I found the ideal thing, its relocating vehicles for hire companies ! they issue a new list every day, you get in contact with them, pay a small holding fee, then turn up at their offices when you are supposed to, and get your vehicle, simple !  I was lucky, I got myself a two berth camper van for $5 per day instead of the normal price of $120.00, bargain plus they gave me $250 towards fuel costs !!!!  So my transport problems were sorted, threw my rucksack into the back and headed off on my 3600km solo drive across southern Australia.

      My first stop was the supermarket to stock up on food, water and the most important, wine ! so with the fridge stocked, cupboards filled with pasta and tins, 5 gallons of water, I hit the road, and what a road it was, seemingly its one of the great journeys of Australia, crossing what is called “the nullabor”, a vast piece of virtually uninhabited land between the west and the east.

My home for the next week or so.

The trip was another amazing experience, after the first day of getting used to driving again ( I have not been behind the wheel of a car for 5 months), passing through the odd small township, I eventually reached the start of the nullabor, over the next four days I drove for sometimes 12 hours, stopping only for scrubland toilet breaks and to fill up with fuel at extremely remote garages. The road at times was just  one long, long straight, one of them being 90 miles long !!

Some of the warning signs were a tad different to the ones I was used to back in England !

The scenery along the way was constantly changing, going from the typical “outback” type red sand and scrub, to virtual desert, to forest, and then to coastal scenes, quite a wonderful display of nature.

Wave rock.

2nd largest granite outcrop in Australia after Ayers rock !

Me on the top !!

All along the journey there were plenty of places to stop and admire,  One day I ended up in the Flinders mountain range, followed a small track for miles, and ended up at a very desolate spot with no one around, so decided to spend the night, and watch the sunset followed by the eclipse.

Next morning I headed to Adelaide then made my way south to the “great ocean road” and spent 2 days exploring this magnificent coastline;

What a beautiful coast ! every five minutes you felt you had to stop and take photo’s (which I did) and wonder at the scale of this place, I ended up staying over night in a sea front town called Apollo Bay, it was dark when I got there, so a quick bite to eat and to bed. The next day seen me travel along more coast roads all the way to Melbourne.

On arrival in Melbourne, I got rid of the hire vehicle and walked across the road to the airport where I booked on the next flight to Hobart in Tasmania, rang my sister and told her I would be there in the next couple of hours, so had a sit in the departure lounge for an hour, and then boarded the plane for the 70 minute flight. It was lovely to see my sister again, its been 6 years since I last seen her and her family, so I’ve spent the last three weeks catching up with their lives, meeting old friends and of course living the Tasmanian way of life (eating and drinking lots). Will probably be here till the end of February, so maybe wont be so much to blog about, but I will endeavour to fill it with some sort of crap !!

Later, it was time to eat, go back to my hostel, shower and pack again as I was leaving Cambodia the next morning and needed to get up at silly o clock to get to the airport. So at 5.45am I got up, sorted stuff I had forgotten about, and checked out of the hostel, my taxi was waiting for me, so off we went to catch my flight to Kuala Lumpur. The flight was only two hours, so no sooner had you got up in the air, had a quick snooze, you were on your way back down again !

Getting into K.L. was easy considering the airport is about 60km away, you just jumped on a non-stop train and within 28 minutes, you were in the main transport hub of the city, so once there, it was just a case of finding somewhere to stay. The first place was a nice hotel (thought I would treat myself for a couple of nights ) and at £20 per night, I decided two nights was enough extravagance ! I moved onto “Pods Backpackers hostel” after that, and at £7 per night, was more to my budget. I spent the next three or four days meandering all around K.L. exploring the transport system, the shopping malls and even a local pub (that was an experience).

The hostel was an amazing place to meet people, being in a twelve bed dorm isnt the place to be if your a loner ! I met a young australian guy who has given me tips on visiting Melbourne, and even offered me his house to stay in when I get to visit his city, which might be early next year, depending when I leave Tasmania.

On the fifth day in K.L. my dear friend and travel pal Nuria arrived and booked into the same hostel, It was great to see her again even though we had only been apart for about a week , so the next couple of days were spent showing her around the city and its parks, eating good Indian food and of course sharing the odd bottle of wine. On the second of December, we again had to pack and make ready for the next leg of our travels, I had persuaded Nuria to go to Australia seen as she was so close, so we both boarded the night flight to Perth for the next adventure.

The following morning we headed up to the lake to see the “floating villages”. On the way we caught a glimpse of the local transport system;

If you look closely, you will see five people on this bike !! all wearing the compulsory safety gear of course !

Next was the local timber lorries;

We were then accosted by a Vietnamese woman who insisted on us using her boat to see the sights, so for £4.50 we were treated to an hour of meandering by female hand powered canoe, through this fascinating world of a lifestyle which can only be described as “serene”.

We bought some fresh mangoes from the street market on our way back to the guesthouse, and coupled with some peanuts and biscuits, had a  very late lunch. Later, we were sat at the guest house when about six Aussie guys rolled up on motorbikes, so I sat with them and chatted “bikes” as us boys do, they had been all over Vietnam and Cambodia. We were up early the next day to catch a bus to Phnom Penh, but they were all full, so after brunch, we at last got a bus to take us the two hour ride to the capital. We were hoping to catch an onward bus to Kep when we got there and we were so lucky, we stepped off one bus, went to another bus company along the road, and were told to get straight onto the bus in front of us. After three hours we arrived in Kep on the south coast, booked into digs and walked along the coast road for about two miles during the sunset to find a wonderful restaurant on the beach front where I ate fresh crab with pepper corns.

The next morning,we packed and headed for the small port in Kep where we boarded a “Hammond’s pond” boat to take us the half hour crossing to Koh Tonsay (Rabbit ) Island, where we decided to go to have a rest from all the travelling. As we approached, we both knew we would probably spend more than the two days we had previously planned, it looked so peaceful;

On arrival, we checked in to a wonderful little bamboo hut and, started what was to be, a week of sheer bliss ! The island was so quiet, especially first thing in the morning and after four in the afternoon, as between those hours, there would be a few other people coming over to spend a few hours there, then return back to the mainland. My days were spent getting up around 5.30 to watch the sunrise, chill out for an hour or two, have fresh fruit for breakfast, swim, read, have a light lunch of fresh seafood, swim some more, walk around the island, walk up the hills of the island, spend time with the local kids on the beach, laying in the sun for an hour or so, then watching amazing sunsets before having dinner around 7pm (more fresh seafood) and a couple of beers and chatting to other travellers until around 10pm. You only have electricity between the hours of around 6pm and 9.30pm, this is provided by a diesel generator in a shed back from the beach, and when its turned off, the whole island is plunged into total darkness and uncanny silence, it is beautiful. Laying out on a hammock watching the stars put in another hour or two, then its off to kip for it all to start over again the next morning.

Nhari, one of the beautiful children we were so lucky to spend time with.

The remains of a Khmer Rouge gun tower at the top of the island.

One of the young village lads collecting coconuts !

Eventually, the day came when we had to say goodbye to the island and its people, and head of back to reality.

We headed to a town called Kampot for the next evening, a short bus ride followed by a trip to the bank to get “beer money” out, then found a guest house, food, beer then eventually sleep. The memories of “rabbit Island” will stay with me for a while I think.

The following morning we decided to attend a cookery class, to learn how to make some of this wonderful tasty local food, so at 10am we showed up and were joined by 4 other girls, an Italian, 2 Germans and an Ozzie girl who also wanted to learn, so, first thing was to choose what you wanted to make, then a trip round the local market to buy your ingredients, then back to class where you were given an apron and a hat and then we were ready to start.

I made fresh spring rolls with prawns followed by prawn “Amok”, a traditional Khmer dish, it was a very interesting course lasting four hours, but the best bit was sitting at your table with everyone else and eating all the food we had made (with a large beer ). Of course, after all that eating, it was time for a siesta. Later on we decided to be up early in the morning to go and see Angkor Wat.

5.30am, (silly o clock)we arose, got our act together and strode off in search of transport to get us the 8km to Angkor Wat, within about 15 minutes, we came upon the ideal thing, pushbikes ! ( nice baskets )

So after handing over our $1 for the hire fee for the day, we set off down the long road to our first destination, and also getting caught in a quick downpour ( which is quiet fun as its warm ). It costs $20 for a one day pass to see the temples around Siem Reap, but to be honest, I only wanted to see two of them, one of the things about travelling south east Asia is that there are temples everywhere. We arrived at Angkor Wat as the sun was rising, and seen this amazing place firstly shrouded in a fine mist and then gradually getting basked in the sun.

An absolute must to see if your ever anywhere near, it is so big, and the whole thing is surrounded by the biggest moat i have ever seen ! We headed on down a straight road to see the next temple, Angkor Thom, this one was in a worse state of repair, but it was equally as mind blowing, we spent a good couple of hours or so wandering around this one,

Now, templed out yet again, we rode back to town, I dropped my bike off as soon as I could ( now I know why I prefer motorbikes )and headed back. The next few days were spent just messing about, using the rooftop gym at the hostel, eating, drinking and walking but eventually craving the peace and quiet again, so booked a bus journey to a place called Battambang.

The morning of the 11-11-11, we joined a bus load of people who were also heading for Battambang, and after around five hours, we arrived in what is supposed to be the second largest populated place in Cambodia, to me it was smaller than Carlisle ! But  an nice place nonetheless. We found a nice hotel for about £6.40 a night (£3.20 each).

We had a walk around before dark, then decided it was time to eat, we chose an upstairs restaurant as there was a street wedding going on below, so while we enjoyed our food, we also watched the wedding reception/karaoke/line dancing sort of thing that seemed to be the norm at a local wedding.

Next day we spent most of the day walking around the parks, wats etc. and  then in the afternoon we decided to take a tuk tuk to the “killing caves” a reminder of the horrendous atrocities inflicted by the Khmer rouge. These caves were used by the Khmer rouge to get rid of over 10,000 people, men, women and children, by throwing them, blindfolded and bound, through a hole in the top of the caves, into the bottom, some 30 metres below to die a slow death.

It was quite a harrowing experience, there were cages full of skulls and bones from some of the remains found,

There were other cages which held the remains of children and some of their clothes, but I couldn’t bring myself to photograph these.

After this visit, we descended back down the mountain to witness a wonderful sight just as it was getting dark, thousands upon thousands of bats started emerging from a cave hole in the side of the mountain, it was like a long black ribbon swirling around above you then heading off in the direction of the lake to drink and feed on mosquitoes’ we stood gobsmacked for a while until it was too dark to see anymore, then jumped into our tuk tuk to head off back to town for supper.

Sunset over the Mekong in Kratie.

Now that’s what I call a canoe !

Next place we moved onto is a place called Kampong Cham, about three hours further down the river, we arrived around lunch time, so after a quick bite, we went wandering around the town and market place, then because it was so bloody hot, we went back to the room for a half hour power snooze. I woke up hearing a thunder storm, so went onto the balcony to observe, then the rain came ! one minute it was fine and dry, then within fifteen minutes the place was nearly flooded ! but it didn’t seem to bother the locals much, they just carried on as normal.

The kids just played around as though nothing had happened, they are obviously used to this,

there was also an expensive river cruise boat moored up, but when the rain came, you should have seen the rich folk return from their shopping trips in a bloody hurry. I stood and watched the storm for a good hour, watching the roads slowly disappear under a few inches of water, while the young girls and boys were having a great time riding their motorbikes through the deepest parts to see how much of a bow wave they could make. As it tuned dark, the cruise ship untied its mooring string and headed off up river somewhere,

We didn’t walk far that night, roads still six inches deep in water, so we ate at a riverside French place as it was only ten meters away from our place, ( far enough to get soaked though ).

In the morning I went to a mobile phone shop to get a sim card that could access the internet, as its always handy for looking up accommodation, eating places, bus stations etc. The young girls in there were a great help to an old bloke who is losing his grip on technology, they got me hooked up to the net in no time, I bought a sim card for $2 then topped it up with another $5, then when I was leaving, they gave me key rings and a baseball hat, those must have gone with their profit for the day ! After we had breakfast, we bought our bus tickets to go to Siem Reap and waited half an hour for the bus to come. Once on board I made friends with a little boy of three years old and his big sister who was eight, all of the seven hours of the journey I spent my time fixing the little lads gun so he could shoot everyone, and singing “the wheels on the bus go round and round” for them and teaching the girls English ( well, my version of it ). We eventually arrived in Siem Reap around seven pm, got into the town centre, found a good guest house ( bloody expensive here, £2.75 each per night ) showered  and hit the city lights for great food and wine.

All for the ridiculous price of £3.10 each per night !!!

As we had been on the road for a while, we thought that we deserved a nice lunch, so sat in a restaurant overlooking the river, we tucked into a nice light meal of rice and something ! it doesn’t really matter what the something is, as it is always good.

Its pretty obvious as to what happens now, yep, you guessed it, we had a siesta ! and when we awoke, it was getting on in the afternoon, so showered, togged up etc. we headed out for a walk through the village to work up another appetite. We ate another meal around 8pm, then headed off out of the village to find a dark place in which to enjoy ourselves.  You are all wrong ! what we went for was a place to sit and watch the stars, in fact we ended up lying in the road ( told you it was a quiet place ) for about half an hour, and enjoyed the peace and quiet and the amazing “sky TV”.

Off back to the room to have an early night as we wanted to be up early to catch the sunrise. What a sunrise it turned out to be, 5.45 am came round and this is what we witnessed;

Well, what better way to start a day ! after sitting on our balcony sharing this moment, we sat and talked for a couple of hours then decided it was time for breakfast, after that, we headed for the local bank to change what “Kip” we had left into dollars to make the transition into Cambodia a bit easier. A bloody long walked followed, and we found ourselves meeting loads of the locals, seeing folk hard at work and feeling the sun getting hotter by the minute.

We spent a little while organising our transport to Cambodia, doing last minute clothes washing in the sink, and sorting backpacks, before having our lunch and siesta. Awake around 4pm, it was then time to do our physical stuff for the day, so Nuria went off jogging for half an hour while I sorted photo’s on my laptop. Another long walk before our evening meal was called for, then food and wine were the agenda for the rest of the night.

I have to summarise Laos, mainly because it has been my favourite place so far in my travels, so her goes;

Best thing was meeting Nuria, the 25 year old girl from Barcelona, she has been fantastic company, and someone who I felt totally at ease with, being able to to talk way into the night about “life” and everything else, we have shared twin bedded rooms, double bed rooms and never once felt awkward with each other. I am sure we will continue our friendship for a long time, and I wish her all the happiness she deserves.

The people of Laos are some of the nicest,most laid back and friendliest of folk that I have ever met.

The scenery is breath-taking, so many places to go trekking into the wilderness and enjoy life in its purest form.

There is a strange and wonderful sense of “energy” in some of the places we visited.

The transport system is certainly one of the craziest I have come across, no trains, just buses and pick ups !

In such a large country, there is only five million people, so as soon as you leave the towns, it is so peaceful and quiet.

It is certainly a place I would recommend to visit, as long as you have a desire to “ go on an adventure “.

It is so bloody cheap to eat, drink, sleep and travel. We reckon you can live here for around less than £5 a day, including accommodation, food and a couple of beers.

The next morning (2nd Nov. ) we left Laos, first by boat from the Island of Don Khong, then by mini bus to the cambodian border. Here we walked from hut to hut where officials sat and stamped paperwork ( as long as you give them $1) and eventually we passed into yet another country, we boarded the bus to take us to a small place called Kratie.

  Egg on a stick anyone ?

By the time we reached Pakse it was pitch black, we went looking for digs, but the one recommended was full,  but a kind lad told us that his brother had a guest house down the road, so off we trotted and found it, and what a lovely place it was, really clean room,beautiful white linen and a spotless bathroom with hot shower and a western crapper ! We got showered and went out for something to eat, a few beers then bo bo time. In the morning we went to visit the local market ( I find these places fascinating ) and had a good look round.

racks of air dried fish !

At the market I decided I should wear what all the locals wear and buy a pair of flip flops ( which I have renamed foot fucks ! as I have big blisters between my toes now ). We spent ages there, watching people buy the strangest cuts of meat ( intestines, pigs heads, live frogs, brains etc. Eventually we returned to our palace of luxury to have our siesta, then later ventured out for an Indian meal followed by a lot of red wine ( yes we found a shop that sold the boxes of wine : ) and some roasted almonds.

    Saturday  morning we decided to catch a local bus to go to Tat Lo, but we needed a lift to the southern bus station and so we flagged down this contraption;

Maybe not the most road worthy machine  !

no front bakes !!

And not a single electric component working !

The bus ride was smooth and only took a couple of hours till we were told we had arrived. The walk to the guest house was about a mile and a half, and on checking in to our bamboo hut yet again,

we headed off to see the sights, and what sights they were;

This was when we decided to play silly buggers and swim in the water above the waterfalls, hoping that we didn’t get washed downstream !

After spending most of the afternoon lazing around and playing in the river like kids ( what a hard life I am having ) we strolled back to our hut to sit in the shade for a while and catch up with writing blogs etc. ready for when I got a chance to get onto the internet, ( its surprising how long this takes ) then we wandered over the bridge again to a lovely restaurant overlooking the falls to have our evening meal, on the way, we saw all the local women having their daily wash in the river at dusk.

In such a wonderful setting, we were the only two people there !

After a lovely meal, we set off back over the bridge in the black dark, these bridges are not your normal bridges, they are wooden, and quite a lot of the pieces of timber have rotted and fallen away, so it was slow going to make sure you didn’t disappear into the fast flowing waters below !

The last of the boxed wine was calling our names when we arrived back, so we sat and talked and supped the lot !

Sunday morning was just as sunny and hot as every other day has been in Laos, after a late breakfast of Lao coffee and a sardine baguette, and saying goodbye to a lovely puppy,

we headed to the bus stop to catch whichever bus came first. We sat for a couple of hours watching the local world go by,

the bus arrived and it took us back to Pakse where we quickly headed for our nice clean guesthouse, and were given the same room as before, so with free wifi I am able to send this load of tripe to you daft buggers who read it !!

Ha-ha, no we never got to ride in one of these, but nearly all the locals have these as their main mode of transport,

Outside the capital, we gently eased into the same sort of scenery that everyday travelling in Laos brings you, acres of rice fields and scarred areas of what was once forest, but now that logging is one of the main sources of income here, it is being decimated at an alarming rate.

Making  a few stops along the way for the bus driver and his pal to buy some of the local delicacies,

Yep, tiny birds which will probably not have enough meat on them to feed an ant, so I can only presume they cook them and use their bones as toothpicks ! Around four hours later we arrived in a small town called Pak kading, a strange little place on the main road which has shops and restaurants (loosely termed) and only one guest house, so we checked in, showered, and then went walking through the village. We have got into the habit of having a quick siesta ( sometimes it lasts an hour or so ) once we have been walking in the heat, so today was no exception, and when we woke, it was nearly dark ! (although in our defence, it gets dark around six ), so we headed out to the bright lights to find ourselves something to eat, after asking at most of the roadside eateries and being told they had no food, we eventually came across one that did, although no one spoke any English again, so hand gestures came into play and we were shown a table, brought rice with some sort of meat in it ( and beer of course ) and were left to tuck into whatever it was we were eating. A short walk after our evening meal, we decided to have another early night. Next morning we caught a bus to a place called Kong Lor, a beautiful little village where there is a cave 7.5km long under the mountains, and the local scenery was really nice.

We got ourselves booked into the eco lodge up the road and had supper, during our meal some locals turned up for some food and brought with them a gallon of “Lao Lao” which is the local moonshine whisky brewed with rice, they offered us some, so not to upset the locals, we obliged, on more than one occasion, eventually the guy told us to put some into a bottle and take it with us, so I got an empty water bottle and filled it ! He wouldn’t take any money off us, so we went to bed quite happy, but not before sitting out in the road in the pitch black, watching the shooting stars and gazing at the milky way, amazing !!

The next day started early again, we boarded the bus outside our lodge and spent the next four hours heading south to Thakkek, a town of reasonable size next to the Mekong river, we found the cheapest digs around ( £1.40 each ) and realised why it was so cheap. The room we got looked like no one had slept in it since 1973, I think it was about the same year as the cleaner had been in to dust !!! Never mind, it was a bed (sort of ) and a bathroom ( filthy ) downstairs but it was all we required. We explored the town and had lunch in a nice place ( these are determined as nice if they have wifi or not ) then walked for a few miles around town and along the river front thren back to the shit hole guest house for a siesta. Later we walked back into town and ate street food on the riverfront, and sat for a while looking across at Thailand and watched the ferries coming over with the “dog trucks “ on them, these are trucks that capture stray dogs in Thailand, crate them up, and ship them over to Laos where they are then transported to Vietnam to be served up as lunch, nice eh ?  A good long walk back to the shit hole, and it was time for bed, we decided to sleep in our sleeping bag liners as the bed was so dirty.

Our evening in sayabouri consisted of showering, washing some clothes in the sink, going out for supper ( £1.50 ) then back to the room and to bed early as we were knackered from being bounced around all day.

The following day we got up, went to the local market, got our normal breakfast of a giant bowl of noodle soup with “stuff” in which costs around 80p, walked back to the room, packed, paid the bill and set off walking to another bus station south of the town. We thought it was only 3 miles, but five miles later we were still trudging in the heat of the sun, a young guy on a moped stopped to practice his english with us, and informed us we still had another 4 miles to go ! by the time we arrived at the station we were well and truly buggered ! our bus would leave in half an hour, so we had time to buy water and fruit and get into the back of another pick up !! Another three hours later, we arrived in a place called Pak Lai, another very small town on the banks of the Mekong river. A quick shower, clothes washing session and we were out for the evening. We found a great little restaurant run by a brother and sister, the brother could speak a little English, his sister not a word !  anyway, the food was amazing, all freshly cooked and served within a few minutes. Back to the room and early to bed as we were up at 6.30 for yet another bus journey to the capital Vientiane.

The walk to this station was only about 30 mins which was a nice surprise, we met loads of school kids on their way to classes, you would have thought that they had never seen western people before, they stared, giggled, tried out their English with “herro” and “gut moning” but always smiling, the Laos people have to be the happiest people I have met so far. Breakfast at the bus station was a load of fresh fruit, two mangoes, two apples, two bananas, a pomegranate and an orange all for one pound, some more were bought for the seven hour trip. We actually had a bus this time, a small one, but a bus all the same, it was loaded up with sacks of rice and boxes of allsorts in the centre aisle, and half an hour after it was due to set off, we were on our way. The first hour wasn’t too bad, weaving roads full of potholes ( the normal for Laos ) but after that it became the “road to hell”. I cant really describe it, you struggled to stay on your seat most of the time, a padded suit and a helmet would have been nice ! the red dust from the “road” surface got everywhere, even though we had bought a mask on advice, we could taste it all the time. Parts of the road didn’t even exist, some parts were covered by small land slides so you had to divert over the grass, some were just a quagmire, and some were so rock hard and bumpy that it made you wonder how long the poor bus was going to last. The journey seemed as though it was never going to end, but it did. after the longest seven hours I have ever known. A short taxi ride and we were checked in to a nice clean guest house near the riverside, the poor showers and towels didn’t know what had hit them ! because we were so filthy it was virtually impossible to get rid of the dust in one go, and blowing your nose produced the most amazing technicolour bogies !

That evening was a celebration that we were still alive and in one piece, so we ate amazing street food and drank beer till we could hardly keep our eyes open.

All in all, so far, it has been a fantastic adventure that i still enjoy every minute ( even the bus rides) I have never been ill with the food or water, ( and I have ate in some strange places ) not sustained any major injuries, i have met wonderful people from around the globe, slept in eight foot square bamboo boxes, travelled by some very dodgy means, and still manage to have a stupid grin on my face most of the time. You learn to be more patient, you learn to trust people and the best thing is that you “learn to just accept what is happening around you because you cant change things” and be chilled out all the time, its bloody marvellous !!

Packed up once more, we said our sad farewells and trudged off to the next village, Ban Na, which I thought was a bit of a miserable place compared to the one we had left two hours ago, so we about turned and aimed our weary bodies towards the final village in this area called Huay Bo. Another valley and more rivers crossed, we finally reached our destination.

We found our host for the evening, a wonderful woman called Samsanouk, she made us welcome from the first minute, showing us our room for the night which she was so proud of ( another very very basic bamboo square box ) and she fussed around making it habitable for the night, putting a blanket on the bare floor as a mattress and a sort of thick sheet on top, and finally a mosquito net was hung up.  She then began babbling about something or other and as we nodded in politeness, she disappeared and came back with bowls of noodles and “stuff” which we felt obliged to eat and say Mmmmmm to, anyway, it kept her happy and out stomachs full.

Later we decided to venture around the village and came upon a small river, and as we were hot and sweaty and smelly ( nice image eh ! ) we decided to wash ourselves and our clothes, so down to our shorts ( bikini thing for Nuria ) we got on with our laundry and de- stinking process in the cool waters.

On arriving back to the village, two small people came to find out what sort of strange earthlings had landed, the girl ( Pok ) and the boy (Nam ) were  very cautious at first, but once we started drawing things on paper and playing ball games with them, they eventually started to smile ( they were so cute ).

Bad light stopped play, so we retired to the eating area for  beer or two before our evening meal, but then Samsanouk grabbed us and ushered us to her daughters house where we were again, guests of honour at a “bless this new child” ceremony, where we sat around a low table with food on it, and we had to each feed the ten month old baby boy with rice and chicken and then tie a “string thing” round his wrist and wish him a long and healthy life ( at least that’s what I think we had to do ). Celebration over, we returned to our eating deck to be served with a duck salad ( a very fresh duck salad ! we saw it killed only 30 mins before ) and sticky rice ( which is, as you can tell, served with everything here ). A couple more local beers and Lao Lao later, it was decided we should bed down for the night as we knew too well that we would be rudely awakened at stupid o clock.

Stupid o clock came at 5.15 am, so we got up ( very hard to have a lie in with all the bloody cacophony of village life around you at very close quarters ( cockerels under your hut being chased by baby pigs being chased by puppies etc.  Another wander around and it was then time for breakfast which consisted of noodle soup with bits of chicken bone and gristle in it, although I must  say it was very tasty. The dregs of our leftovers were then fed to Nok and Nam for their breakfast ( waste not allowed here ), and then whilst we sat around deciding what to do next, little Nam ran down to the river (next to the eating area) pulled his shorts down and had a dump in the water !! We couldn’t help but laugh, to him it was the most natural thing in the world to do, he then continued to lower his bum into the river and give himself a clean up !

Around nine thirty, we again saddled ourselves up and pointed our bodies in the direction of Mueng Noi Nue, and kept a belting pace for over two hours until we got back there, where we enjoyed a cold shower, an even colder beer, and food that we were able to distinguish. An absolutely magical experience in a wonderland that I hope one day to return to as it has carved a special place in my heart and mind.