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