Hi everyone!
First of all, by the time people at home in Melbourne read this it will be the 12th of February. So I'd like to start today by saying happy 65th wedding anniversary to my wonderful grandparents, Jean and Laurie!!!! Congratulations, I love you both so much and can't wait to see you next Monday. My life wouldn't be the same without you both. I am so lucky to have such amazing grandparents who I have so much in common with and who love me so much, and I hope when I'm your age I'm just as lucky as you both have been to find someone amazing to spend so long with!!!
Now to the trip! So as you know yesterday we had our homestay with no electricity so today's blog will be about today (11/2) and yesterday (10/2).
Monday 10th February 12.10pm
This morning me, Laura, Natalie, James, Emily, Lou, Rhi and Jo got up at 4.45am and went to take part in the giving of alms. Buddhist monks are only allowed to eat food they are given, and only before 12 noon. Monks don't earn an income, but instead help the community with prayers and overseeing various ceremonies. So in return the community give them food to thank them. We bought some sticky rice and chocolate wafers and sat and waited for about 45 minutes. You sit on a cushion on the side of the footpath, and once the monks come give them some food. About 50 of them walked past I reckon. I wasn't very fast with my sticky rice, so a couple gave me a miss haha!! I was a bit hesitant to take part at first as I'm not religious at all, but ended up convincing myself I was thanking the monks for what they do for the people here.
It was sort of worth waking up for, but the tourists really do ruin it. Quinny told us you aren't allowed to take photos up close or with a flash out of respect, but we had people shoving cameras in our faces as we handed over food. I wanted to yell at them for being so disrespectful but thought me being loud would also be disrespectful.
Afterwards we got on a bus and travelled to the boat terminal. Here we were required to walk down a giant dirt hill. My case now weighs 20kg, and I somehow managed to carry the entire thing the whole way down without slipping or stopping once. The gym is working - yay!! Haha. Then we had to wait a bit before boarding our boat, but to get to the boat we had to walk across two other boats (with my giant bloody case again!!!!) but I managed to make it across ok.
Our boat is so nice, very spacious. We had our breakfast and have been keeping busy then to pass time on the ten hour journey. Tom, James, Emma, Natalie, Laura and I played 'stop the bus' which is a game where you pick a letter and have to write down things in certain categories. Then you reveal your answers, and get more points if someone else doesn't have the same answer as you. Our categories were name, country, animal, singer or actor. It was absolutely hilarious as Natalie is Swiss and speaks German as a first language so kept coming up with these words none of us had heard of so of course she won! I could vouch for her for lots of the country names and animals because we learned them in school German, but lots of laughs were had when she would try and convince us what she had written existed. Laura and I kept writing Australian singers that no one had heard of. Once I started singing Emma knew who John Farnham was haha.
Emma painted my nails, and since then James and I have been writing our diaries and now me the blog. Now I'm going to get stuck into my book - 'The Hunger Games 1' as I can't read on the bus but seem ok on the boat.
It's a really unique experience floating down the Mekong. I love how many different things we have done on this trip. I can't imagine how bored I'm going to be when I go home and I'm not rock climbing, quad biking or elephant riding every day haha. This time next week (3.21pm Melbourne time on Monday) I'll most likely be sitting at home. Strange to think like that!!
Tuesday 11th February 6.32am
We arrived yesterday at the homestay at about 5pm. We had to walk up a giant hill, but luckily we were able to leave our big bags on the boat overnight so we were fine!
The village had really picturesque scenery, surrounded by the mountains and the Mekong river. But it was extremely dusty and smoky as lots of cooking was going on.
We put our bags in a communal room and went for a walk with Thong, our Lao guide. Everywhere we went kids followed us wide eyed! We walked to the village school where Tom, James, Nathan and laura joined in a game that was a mix between volleyball and soccer. Jo and I played with some kids in the mean time (I am hopeless at kicking a ball without using my hands!).
Then we had dinner in the communal room, all the while being watched through the windows by children everywhere! The dinner was great with rice, a pork curry, a chicken dish and vegetables. The only bit I didn't like was how there were dogs everywhere (there were in the whole village!) that kept running and touching my legs. So I put my legs up on the seat. He dogs here are sort of cute but so dirty with cuts all over them, don't really want to be touched by them!!
Then Quinny and Thong showed us where we would be staying. Laura, Emma, Natalie and myself shared a house. We were split into four groups - us, the boys, Abi/Elyse/Sarah/Becky and Jo/Rhi/Em/Lou. The house(?) we stayed in was pretty good. Downstairs where the family we stayed with slept was just concrete and really dirty, I was a bit worried about my back. But the floor upstairs was much softer made of reeds or something over the top of timber. I lucked out and got two mattresses and two pillows, which helped my back slightly. They were still very solid but it was better than just one. I was a bit nervous about spiders and mozzies, as was Emma, but Laura and I shared a double mozzie net and we were not paid a visit but anyone or anything during the night!!! Although this morning I did use the toilet and shined my torch at the roof. Really shouldn't have done that, lucky I didn't last night before bed. Spiders EVERYWHERE.
The four of us were quite tired from a big day so went to bed at 8pm as it was dark with little lighting available. I read my book for an hour and a half and am nearly finished the first hunger games - woo!
This morning we woke at 5.20am and now I'm sitting on the boat typing this while everyone else sleeps. I am wide awake as I have already had my 8 hours.
Tuesday 11th February 9.36pm
I read an entire Hunger Games book on the boat! Overall was a pretty uneventful 11 hour boat trip (a lot happened in my book though haha!!). The morning was foggy and cold and then it warmed up. We saw water buffalo along the way, enjoyed another yummy lunch and arrived to the port at about 4.30-5pm. We caught a tuk tuk to the border, got our passports stamped again and drove to over the border, changed buses then drove for 20 minutes to Chiang Khong where we are staying tonight. There isn't anything really to do here, we just had dinner and tomorrow we depart at 7.30am.
See you in Chiang Mai!
Happy anniversary once again nan and pa and GO PIES for our first footy game of the year later today in Geelong, please barrack twice as hard for me.
Love to all
Claire and Laura
Xoxox
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