We left Chiang Mai on 28 Feb and embarked on a 3 day 2 night trip to Laos. 8 hours on a mini bus, 7 hours on a slow boat then 8.5 hours on another slow boat with overnight stays in small villages. The boat was basically a big canoe with about 80 wooden seats and an engine! Bid dodgy but the scenery was amazing! Laos is just surrounded by huge mountains, rolling hills and little deserted beaches. The 'ports' where we got on and off the boats were certainly different, we either had to clamber up/down rocks or sandy slopes complete with backpacks in tow! I was sure I was going to end up in the river! Was worth the trip though, Laos is a stunning place. There is no pollution, no built up buildings. It is so chilled out and clean with small Guest Houses
dotted around the place. Children play down in the river jumping off bridges, all playing together often embarking on seaweed fights!
Curfew in Loas is midnight so we all had to be back at our Guest Houses for then or doors closed! So we spent most nights chilling out in the common area with a bottle or 2 of vino!
Visited a beautiful waterfall in Laos, it was multi tiered spilling into pools of cool turquoise water, could have stayed there all day!
We did another tour which included a bit of treking to local villages and caves. The caves were in darkness so we all trouped in complete with head torches! The caves were petty amazing with their different shapes, textures, sizes and colours. We then "tubed" down the river (basically sitting in a huge rubber ring!) which took 3 hours, complete with bar stops along the river, was great! The bar staff threw out a huge bamboo stick to pull you over then served your cold beer then you would be off again meandering down the river through the hills and mountains with beer in hand!
Laos is definitley the nicest place I have been to so far!
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