A whole new world

We have now been a week in Laos - which has been a totally different experience to everything else so far. It finally feels as though we are on a bit more of an adventure.

One boat ride up the Mekong river and we were almost immediately off the regular tourist route - not to see another Westerner for 2 days. This is the passenger boat we took from Vientiane to Pak Lai (that is a dismembered tuk-tuk strapped to the top of the boat):

It gets very rural very quickly outside the main centres and we have spent a fair bit of time bumping along in the backs of covered trucks from one village to another. This experience has proven that despite outward appearances, regrettably neither of us has buns of steel.

We are now in Luang Prabang - a very picturesque city that has a) preserved its French colonial architecture and b) focused itself extremely well on the tourist dollar. Shaun got up very early one morning to share his food with the local monks who walk through the streets of the town each morning. The effect of this was so stressful a cool Beer Lao was required by the river that evening (and most other evenings we have been here so far):

We are off next to fly through the trees on cables and sleep in treehouses with spiders and gibbons. We will post photos of gibbons (and possibly leeches) when we get back in a few days' time. M