Chiang Mai + Luang Prabang

Hey everyone!

So, been a while now since the last entry and I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath for the next installment...brace yourselves, it has arrived!

We took the overnight train with cool sleeper bed/seat contraptions to Bangkok from Ko Tao (which was perfect as I mentioned before - found this little rasta bar with friendly staff and fire spinning and we went snorkeling and I saw 3, count them, 3 sharks!). We then flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand, a.k.a the "cultural capital of Thailand" or, where everyone goes to trek. In Chiang Mai we stayed at this nice laid back guest house where we organised whitewater rafting+home stay+"flight of the gibbon."

Whitewater rafting was a lot of fun, in large part due to the hilarious antics of one of our guides, Ping Pong. Oh, Ping Pong! After that we went to the village where flight of the gibbons operates and where we learned, to my immense disappointment, that there weren't actually any Gibbons. Apparently they all got freaked out by everyone growing tea and coffee in their home and moved to Laos. "Oh, you'll see why it's Flight of the Gibbon, you move among the trees with your feet never touching the ground..." gee, thanks. After this crushing development, we met our homestay host, an extremely friendly woman named Arun (sp?). She was a great cook and the majority of the evening was spent eating her delicious food and using a thai-english dictionary to communicate word by word. We were "feeling" "happy."

In the morning we went to get strapped in for flight of the gibbons--basically a series of zip-lines through the jungle canopy - which was actually quite cool and a lot of fun, despite the aforementioned false advertising re: gibbons. After that it was back to Chiang Mai for a day of relaxation and shopping in the Sunday market. Special deal for us!

After that we signed up for an all day cooking class and learned the secrets of Thai cooking (hot wok, oil, sugar, chilies and coconut milk from what I could see). We got to eat everything we cooked so all around it was a delicious experience, and we both passed the course with a certificate to prove it. One of the highlights of the class was the sassy female chef, Meow. She gave us the classic line that thai ginger was "good for boom-boom," but then also added that she had tried it on her boyfriend and it was "bullshit, only make him gassy!" Oh, Meow!

We capped off our time in Chiang Mai, meeting up with a friend of a friend, Brent, who was practically a local after 9 years there. We went to a typical Chiang Mai bar complete with pool hustling waitress for some Thai beer and Whiskey (which is actually rum), and then dragged Brent to a thai boxing match. Brilliant.

We're just finishing up our time now in Luang Prabang (northern Laos), which has been great. Luang Prabang is a beautiful little world heritage town, where, somehow, everything - the slightly crumbling french buildings, cafes, and silk/craft shops - seems to be incredibly well-lit, like the whole place is an art gallery. Laos is more laid-back then Thailand, less hassle from people on the streets, and really beautiful landscape with lots of families and kids everywhere.

We chilled out for the first day (more shopping...must avoid night market in future) and then booked ourselves onto a two day tour to see the caves (lined with Buddhas), waterfalls, kayaking, and a morning "mahout" or elephant-keeper course and elephant riding. The elephants were the highlight. We woke up at 6 to give them their morning bath and then after breakfast went for a ride through the jungle (note to self: observing giant spiders somehow less scary when atop an elephant...). Then we got to feed them and the 6 month old baby elephant bananas! The baby also tried to nibble my sandal and toe - OMG.

Definitely hoping to have more close-encounters with animals. One of the women that we met on the tour had just come from volunteering at the Tiger Temple in Thailand for 3 months...I'm profoundly jealous still.

Now we're taking the bus down to Vang Vieng for some tubing, and then on to the Mekong Islands to try to bolster my fading tan.

Hope all is well back at the homestead(s)!

xx Jo