Louang Prabang

Hey there, so now i am in laos and survived the 2 day slow boat, which of course was no where near as bad as some people had said or some things i had read, it's really all about the attitude and the people you are with and the number of beers you drink... Anyways, the last day in Chang Mai was nice, i was able to recover from the sickness and also meet up with Eddie, an old family friend who has been living in Thailand for 6 years now. We met for breakfast and then then again later that afternoon. I met his family and was able to stay at his place and spent the night with beers and other talking about working in the bush stories and a few of my parents party day stories. Then the next day i had the 6 hour bus ride to Chiang Khong. The bus ride went alright, i'm so glad that i have my mp3 player that's for sure and i was able to cross the border into Laos that night with no problem. (Again a lot different than all the other stories that i had gotten, hehe.) I met this woman from San Diego and this guy from Berlin and we hit up the town as best as it could be for Laos. I got to play some soccer with a bunch of kids on the beach which was sweet, i didn't get to do that in Thailand although i had wanted to. The guy from berlin pete, came on the slow boat with me the next day and even though the boat is kinda slow the day went by fairly fast as he made me drink beers all day, hehe. That's what germans do. We actually had to get out at one point and walk for a bit as the water was so shallow, that was quite entertaining watching all these foreigners walking along with my beer in hand, hehe. The scenery is amazing though, the rocks are very deformed and the jungle amazing. We would stop and vendors would come on to sell more beer and pringles and such. Near the end as the sun was setting pete and i sneaked on the roof whihc was cool now and it was beautiful to get some serene time with the sun going down. We stopped for the night in Pakbang which really was kinda a ump but what do you expect from a place where most people stay one night and leave the next day. So one night, no problem. We loaded on the boat the next day and this time they packed us into one as a few people weren't taking the boat the whole way, but as long as you have a seat your ok. The day was fun though, we of course started drinking some beers at 12, and i got the chess board out for a mini tournament with germans, finnish and swedish and a canadian(me). the swedish guy was really good and won the european championship but i was able to squeek by a stalemate for the world championship, hehe. We met many others on the boat as well, some girls from kelowna, one from whistler etc... Gonna stay here a few nights maybe take a speedboat to some caves, there are waterfalls, wats on mountains... Then i will go to vang viang i think... take care everyone. oops, 2 of the same picture.