Loving the Laos!!

Laos is definitely the best spot yet. I absolutely loved it. There's something about the vibe, the chilled out atmosphere and the happy-go-lucky charm that just makes you smile here. Everybody I've spoken to on my travels has lamented not having enough time to spend here.

I crossed the border into the country at Chiang Khong and caught a slowboat down the Mekong for a 2 day journey to Luang Prabang. What an experience cruising down the big ol' Mekong in an old fashioned longboat where the chairs are old car seats.

It was pretty cosy inside, the whole boat was full, but locals hopped on and off along the way. I was with a group from another hostel in Chiang Rai and we all got the 2 hour bus to the border together. There was 2 from England, 1 Australian, 3 from Norway and 1 from France. It took us 2 days to get to Luang Prabang, with a stopover in Pakbeng. 

It was quite an extraordinary adventure, though not at all what I was expecting, and I'm not actually sure what I was expecting. The slowboat was more a fastboat with a speedy motor which noisily chugged us down the river. The river was very polluted and filled with litter, mostly plastic bottles and bags, much worse in the north. And every half an hour we'd pass another huge fire where the forest was burning, as part of the slash and burn agriculture widely practised here. This is part of the reason for the dense fog that's been carpeting the last few areas I've been in. 

This is a pretty standard daytime shot. The sky was very hazy and you couldn't see the hills in the distance as more than a smudge in the background,

There were masses of water buffalo. I didn't know these guys were even in this part of the world!

I had one of the greatest experiences of my life out of Luang Prabang. And that was hanging out with Peng and Kham.

Meet Peng

And Kham

These girls are brilliant. So beautiful and so calm. 

I visited MandaLao Elephant Conservation Park. This is a Really Good place. There are a lot of elephant experiences in Asia and a lot of them are not good for the elephants. Many promote riding the elephants which damage their backs, and others have very cruel taming procedures and control them with hooks and chains. It's very bad, but people are taking notice now and saying that it is not ok which is a really good move. 

MandaLao is one of the original reserves. They rescue elephants from bad environments in both the tourist and logging trade and care for them in a wonderfully big park where they are left to their own devices. If people want to visit them they do so on the elephant's terms. And that's what I did. I visited them in their natural environment and just hung out. 

They come moseying along in the morning to see if there's anyone to feed them some bananas and there I was so I instantly became their best friend. Kham (on the left) will take her bananas in her trunk and push them into her mouth herself, while Peng (right) has a tickly trunk. She likes the 'nanas plopped straight into her mouth.

After breakfast we headed out for a walk. In the wild elephants spend most of their time on the move searching for good grazing so I went along for the journey.

Of course they found the mud. They use their trunks to flick it on themselves to cool down. Elephants don't have sweat glands so they use this technique as well as flapping their ears. You'll never guess which little human stood a bit too close and got muddy...

I was amazed at how easily they could scale the steep hillside and how easy it was for such big creatures to move through the bushes and scrub. Because they are huge. It doesn't matter how often you see one on tv or at a distance in the zoo, you don't understand until you're stood right beside one just how immensely huge they are. 

If anyone ever wants to have an authentic, natural experience with elephants in their own space under their own terms, visit MandaLao. You won't regret it. And you won't ever forget it.

The Kuang Si waterfalls are also a must see spot. I hired a moped with my slowboat friends and we drove there from the town. It's one of the most popular tourist destinations so it's full of people. Most of them are just there to take selfies because it's such a gorgeous place with shocking blue water, so there's plenty of space to swim and shower under one of the many falls. And in the water there's the little dead-skin-sucky-fish that used to be in all the shopping malls in England a few years ago. So while you swim you get a foot spa. Win win.

Don't be fooled by the emptiness of the photos...

Kuang Si is a busy place!