Mahoot training

We signed up to further our education as Mahoots!
After our experience in Chiang Mai, we were hooked on elephants so training to be a Mahoot seemed the next logical step.

THe Elephant camp is a short distance outside Luang Prabang and was a lot of fun, I think the highlight was washing the elephants on the 2nd day. We had lots of fun learning basic commands and riding techniques.
We met some really nice people, Claire and Sevrin from London who we ended up spending time with back in Luang Prabang. jason and son(?) were also staying at the camp and we enjoyed another international game of UNO.

Kayaking

So jack had a great day Kayaking Laos style - curiously he was probably the most experienced in the group so ended up rescuing people and equipment through the day. Returing back to the hotel tired wet and happy!

Big Brother Mouse

Big Brother Mouse is a great Community Literacy Project based in Luang Prabang, it is run by Sascha, and a team of local young people, many are students in the city.

Earlier in the year we had made a donation to the organisation to fund a book party, and were fortunate to be in Luang at an appropriate time to go on a Book PArty. We dived into the mini bus with a group of Luang young people, all studying to be teachers. The book party provided a great opportunity for them to develop their skills as well as providing much needed books to the local schools .

We had a great morning in the school and it was great to see the children enjoy choosing their book, possibly the first book they have ever owned! We shared the day with Hamish Dougal form vermont>

Big Brother Mouse sells their books in the Night Market and a great way of supporting the local community on a lot of levels, books for schools, experience for the education students,

Luang Prabang - World Heritage Centre and cools as you like!

Luang Prabang is a mythical mix of everything you want in an Asian city. Amazing marketplace, incredible food, beautiful friendly people, not too smelly, very clean, and french pastries and coffee.

We flew in from Chiang Mai in middle of a sunny afternoon. Finding somewhere to stay was a little challenging, but we eventaually found a nice place by the river and headed out in the early evening to the Market place, which has to be the lowest intensity /highest quality marketplace ever.

I work up at about 4 am thinking that there was a lot of noise of drinkers heading home from a big night when I realised that Luang has a 11pm curfew. The noise turned out to be the monks making their morning alms parade.

On our first day we spent some great hours walking round to get our bearings and drinking great coffee. Jack booked up a Kayaking trip, and I went to see the folk at Big Brother Mouse to check on our Book Party

More trekking Zipping and waterfalls

The next 2 days have been a fantastic adventure mix of Zipping and trekking through the jungle. The company has been fantastic and adventure has been magical. It seems strange to go back to real life and traditional means of transport after flying around the jungle canopy.


I would love to come back here again with Mikey and Tom, they would juts love it.
No Gibbons, but we weren't really expecting any .

From here it is back to Huay Xai for us, then try to get back to Chiang Mai tonight. As we don't have a lot of time we have changed our plans a little, and will now fly to Luang Prabang. Annabel and Sylvie are taking the boat, and the NZ crew are taking the bus through Luang Namtha - both great options if we had time - maybe next trip

Lean back-no breaks!!

7.00am saw us eagering munching on baguettes and omlette in preparation for the Gibbon adventure. First we went for a video briefing at the office, you know you are doing something a little out of the ordinary when you advised not to zip if there are monkeys on your zip wire.

We met with our other adventurers Jenny, Mike, chris and friend Dee from NZ, and Sylvie and Annabel from Geneva. In the back of the ute and off we go. Laos seems to be very flexible regarding what side of the road to drive on, this could prove a little challenging when the bridge to Thailand connecting Huay xai and chieng kong is eventually finished .

Once we arrived in Bokeo nature reserve we met our guides Vang Lao and Suoeng and started the long climb up up up. First stop was the guides village to pick up harnesses and ensure jack didn't let the guides think they could get one over on us with a bit of impromptu Rattan Ball. He did us proud- to the surprise of some of the guides. More Up Up till we arrived at our first Zip line... Terror swept through the group, we didn't realize that we would be zipping around like locals in just a few goes.

It is hard to describe quite how much fun the zip lines were. To start with it was hard to look down, we were going really high above the trees. The freakiest run was probably when we zipped straight into Tree house 5. The tree house is hidden from view till you are right up to it, then you just fly straight into the basement.

Soon after we arrived in the tree house, the guides re appeared with a kettle for coffee and tea. Nothing better than tea with condensed milk after a hard day of trekking and zipping.

Actually one thing better- the shower in the tree house was worth the ticket price alone.

New years eve, so we settled in for a heavy game if international UNO ( Swiss cheat!!) and some funky Laos wine to see in the new year - sadly were all ready for bed by 8.00