While Luang Prabang may not be the most developed town from an economic perspective, it certainly is geared up for the tourists! Internet cafes everywhere and loads of cute restaurants, coffee shops and massage places (although the Lao acupressure massage is extremely painful and NOT recommended!) We decided to explore the outer limits of the town and went on a trekking excursion to nearby villages and then on to the Xiang Si waterfall.

It was a truly amazing day! The village tour was fascinating. We were taken through 2 villages on foot by our guide, who explained how people in rural Lao villages live… brace yourself for Discovery Channel interlude….

The Lao are divided into 3 ethic groups, depending on what altitude they live at: Lao (river people) ; Khamu (lower highlands); Hmong (upper highlands/hill tribe). The first village we visited was a Khamu village. People are subsistence farmers, growing rice in a rotating fashion on land for which they need governmental permits to use. From the age of 5, children have to work as well, on the fields, or carrying water etc. Fruit and vegetables are generally picked from the surrounding jungle. The men go into the jungle every few days to catch wild boar and birds. Buffalo and cattle are kept, but are more a source of money from trade than a food source. The villagers believe in ancestral spirits that take care of you (specifically each person is cared for by their deceased father or mother. Once the next generation dies, the ’spirit minders’ are released from their duties and can then go and be reborn again.) Each village also has a Doctor Spirit who is able to communicate with the spirit world and from whom villagers will always seek advice first, before trying anything Western. I was really amazed by the similarity with Southern African beliefs and customs!

The Hmong village was 200m further up the mountain and while the houses looked a little different, the rest of the village and way of life was the same as the Khamu. What really struck me was how phenotypically different the people looked in the different villages and that despite their proximity to one another, there is no intermarriage between peoples of the 2 villages. (End of educational interlude!!)

The rest of the day was a gentle 3hr hike past rice paddies and through jungle, ending at the top of the Xiang Si Waterfall, which cascades down several drops into beautiful blue pools. We swam at the bottom in one of the bigger pools just before the monsoon rain hit!

We trekked with Green Discovery (www.greendiscoverylaos.com), very good company for anyone else interested in outdoor activities in Laos.

After we were released from the vipassana center we were thrown back in the noisy world called Thailand. The meditation was qui(e)t(e) an experience, but now we had to get our mortal bodies to Luang Prabang. Everything went remarkably smoothly and even Sal was not stressed when we arrived only 30 minutes before the flight at the Vientiane airport (I was the stressed one though)…. amazing.

First impressions: Laos is quiet something else, probably the most backward area I have ever travelled in, but it is amazingly relaxed. The people are friendly and it feels like Thailand used to be….

So we are finally back in the land of internet, communication and food!! The 10 day meditation course was quite an experience… it surprisingly included a lot of time meditating, some time eating and no time talking. I’m pleased to say that I managed to survive it and that despite my concerns that I may not be able to be silent, I only got bored of myself on day 7! Really glad I did it and am certainly feeling more relaxed. Peter managed to fix his back and didn’t even injure anything else during the sittings!!

Last 2 wks of holiday, so off to Laos. Taking the ‘air-con bus’ up to Nong Khai (in Thailand at the Laos border) and crossing into Laos tomorrow over the Friendship bridge. Will post pics soon!

Uhm… well just watch the movie

It’s very hard to describe what is means to be in solitaire confimement for 10 days, not speaking to a single soul except your alter ego and meditate 10 hours a day. The experience is intense but since nobody has the same experience here is my take, in pics

The next two weeks we’lll disappear from the face of the Internet planet because we’ll be in a meditation center. Imagine Sally and Peter silent for 2 weeks (no talking at all!) and Sally eating only 2 times a day! Wow! Enjoy the old stories and we’ll post as soon as we’re online in Vientiane, Laos!

Although my back was hurting still from the powerboat wake-boarding we decided to go to the Magic Buddha Gardens of Samui. After we dealt with all the chores (buying tickets at Time to travel [by far the best travel agent we saw]) we set off around 4PM to the gardens which are around the highest point in Samui. We had a Automatic scooter which was good at cruisin’ the roads of Samui, but as we found out, not the slippery muddy mountains. Halfway up the mountain, it started to smell like a dry cooking water kettle and lost all power: result Peter drove up helping the bike, and Sally had to run uphill (”good for bum” I assured her). At 5.45pm we finally arrived at the Magic Garden and we shot the following pics:

The last pic is the result of the way down: halfway we had a flat. Perfect timing, it was getting dark and we had no clue where we exactly were. Luckily after half an hours walk with the bike, we reached the main road where an industrious Thai had set up a bike repair store just there… how convenient! I guess he had seen these stupid farangs (Thai for ‘Foreigner’) before, trying to scale the mountain with rented Automatic city bikes!

So, after spending a day doing very little of anything, I decided that we should get off our asses and do something constructive. I decided it’d be a great idea for me to have my second wakeboarding lesson, the first one having been in Singapore 5months earlier. It’ll be easy right? After all, I was a natural…

Peter did a fantastic job of getting up on the board and pulling some stylish manoevers… it WAS easy after all!! (he also managed to put his back out for the next 4 days though… something about an old injury and a bad boat driver…. old age as well maybe ?) 

I also managed to stand… once… and wave (hand, not water) … for about 3 seconds…. but spent most of the rest of the time swallowing water and trying to keep my head from disappearing inside the massive life jacket.

We both limped home later like 2 wounded soldiers… bodies and pride in serious need of TLC….

After our very exciting visit to Tesco, we went to see one of the marvels of the island… the Nam Meong (sp?) waterfall…. 80m high from top to base. It’s in the middle of the island and took us nearly an hr by bike to get there. We managed to escape from the very persistent elephant trekkers at the entrance to the falls and made our own way to the bottom of the trail (which did in fact require that I get off the bike the few times, because the automatic just wasn’t gonna make it!!)

The falls themselves were great to see - not hugely spectacular, but not bad for a small island! We climbed to the pool near the top and swam with a bunch of other tourists. I managed to make friends with a few very unfriendly rocks, since the water was far too cloudy to see through… why do I always do things like that??

The trip home was fairly uneventful, and no…. we didn’t visit Tesco on the way back…..

On our way to the waterfalls at Koh Samui, Sally really needed to check out TESCO. Since Sally is going to work at the European HQ near London, I found this a bit nerdy but why not. But I could not resist I just had to shoot this little movie …

Finally there was enough wind to get my kite out of the package and so I did, but now it was the lack of kite skills which prevented me from getting it up immediately. When my skills slowly improved, the wind decided to go on holiday and my kite fell out of the sky. Sal did her best to register my feeble attempts on camera, which means that she had to shoot really quickly to get a pic of me on the board….

Since there was not enough air to move a palm frond and because the Thai farters were nowhere to be found, we looked for other entertainment… after all, there’s only so much jet lag that one can recover from.

So we decided to explore the island and rented a scooter, for the princely sum of 3euros a day!! With there being too much to see, we decided to make it a cultural excursion and elected to visit a few temples and anatomical structures on the island (more on that later!).

The trip around the island took about 4hrs. We visited 2 of the many Buddhist temples on the islands, all of which are massive and are very ornately designed and painted. One of the temples was home to the 20yr old mummified body of a local monk - his family apparently donated his body after it failed to decay after his death (buddhists believe that enlightened persons bodies’ don’t decay).

Along the way we had to stop off to see the ‘Grandfater and Grandmother rocks’… large genitalia shaped rocks alongside a beach. It was amazing to see just how many others had flocked to see it as well… what is it with humans and sex anyway??!!

We finished off our trip by going to see the Big Buddha, which is situated on a small island off the Big Buddha beach, (where we launched from for the Full Moon Party that we went to in Feb). Not much to see really, other than a big buddha. Duh.

In addition to the pics, we had to add this radio clip below… it comes from one of the vans that traverse the island ALL THE TIME, advertising the Thai boxing that is taking place ‘that night only’.. those of you that have been to Thailand before will probably remember…. (We added some visuals, but the audio is original!!)

So I took my kite to South Africa and there was no time in between visiting family and friends to surf.  Besides the water around Cape Town was too cold anyway. Then I took the kite to Hvar, Croatia. Nice weather, nice wind but no beach to start! So I took the kite unused back home and now I took it again to Koh Samui, Thailand and my favorite website is Windguru which is supposed to predict wind and waves…. Everyday the site makes sure I jump out of bed at 8 to check the palm-trees outside our cabin…. dead still. Another day to sleep in. Then I check the site again inn the afternoon and it says that there will be wind tomorrow…. and this is how a website keeps me busy and hoping for wind. I’m so desperate for wind that I almost wanna hire some Thai to fart simultaneously to get the wind going.

We arrived in Thailand about 3 days ago I think and have spent most of the time doing, well… nothing much really… We were both pretty jet lagged when we arrived and needed to sleep A LOT. But we have at least managed to find the time to swim and have a few beach strolls :-).

Apart from nearly getting reversed over by an angry taxi driver (and getting to see Peter’s Zen karate moves in retaliation!!), the past few days have been pretty uneventful. We’ve mostly caught up on sleep now and will be off kite boarding tomorrow… FABULOUS!!

We decided to spend our last day in Singapore in a fairly relaxed fashion.. a quiet lunch followed by a leisurely boat cruise along the Singapore River. Was a great way to see the city, but we certainly could have done without the ‘I-forgot-to-take-my-lithium’ recording that they insisted on playing at full blast above the roar of the engine…. ahem…

Off to Ko Samui in Thailand tonight… hooray!!