Hello everyone!!
Wow - what an incredible day. So much to tell you all!!!
Today all of us except Elyse set off to the Nam Ou Elephant Farm. I'd ridden elephants before in Malaysia and it was great so once again I was really excited to ride the elephants! There were nine of them there, eight adults and one nine month old calf which was very cute!!! We started off feeding them, then went for a ride for about thirty minutes. We went in pairs and sat on a chair on top of them. We went through a small village and then along the river. It was so lovely to ride them in such a natural and peaceful environment. The farm in Chiang Mai has them doing tricks and stuff, I had no interest in that and would much rather see them like this.
Mine and Laura's elephant was quite cheeky. She kept stopping to eat and holding everyone else up! We got overtaken quite a lot. The baby was really funny but disgustingly started eating its mothers droppings along the way - yuck!! Towards the end of the ride the calf started drinking milk from its mum, and our elephant started making this weird noise which made it vibrate. Was a bit scary!!!
At the end we bathed them in the river and scrubbed them with brushes. Overall the experience was one of the best of the trip. It's hard to put into words really, so I hope you all love the photos. James and myself swapped cameras for the ride so he took heaps of me and Laura and I took heaps of him and Tom!
Afterwards we went back to the hotel and Laura, James and I went for a wander. We didn't have much time though so didn't see much. Then we caught a larger tuk tuk type thing to the Kuang Si waterfalls, the most beautiful waterfalls in Laos. The pools were an aquamarine colour - beautiful!! We all went for a swim and jumped off the man made jump on the tree (checked it was safe first, don't worry!!). There was a random exhibit of bears along the way too. But the waterfalls and pools were very beautiful and we had a great time!!
On the way back we saw a couple of tourists fall off a motorbike. Both of them were idiots as they had helmets on but didn't have them done up. Thankfully they were ok somehow.
This afternoon Jo, Laura and I went to watch the sunset but just missed it! For dinner tonight we went to a restaurant that looked really cool but was very disappointing. Three pairs of us shared a barbecue thing. It took over an hour for our food to come, which made no sense as it was all raw and we had to cook it ourselves on the barbecue. Then our barbecue was broken, but we made do. Jo and I had chicken and buffalo, then noodles, egg and salad. We had to ask for mushrooms because even though it said it on the menu they never came. And I'm still a bit hungry as it didn't fill me up. Never mind.
There will be no blog tomorrow as we are doing our second and final homestay. This one is very basic and in a village with no power. Am a little scared of I'm honest, hope I don't get eaten alive by mozzies. Have discovered on this trip I made finitely allergic to their bites, had been suspicious of it before. My bites blow up ginormously even when I don't scratch!
Anyway tomorrow morning we are going to the giving of alms to the Buddhist monks at 5am. Then we spend the whole day on a boat on the Mekong to the homestay. The following day is also on a boat to the Thai border. I will post again in two days when we are in Chiang Kong in Thailand.
Love to all!
Claire and Laura
Xoxox
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