We hung out in Chang Mai for a while, its a nice sleepy city you can walk all over. The food in the north is so good we took a cooking class. They took us to the market and showed us how to shop and stuff. We also got Thai massages which was fun because we got to talk to the masseuses for an hour, but the actual massage is a cross between passive yoga and losing at jujitsu. I think Mandy may have liked hers.

We were going to take Laos Air to Laung Prabang from Chang Mai until we found out they use a lot of old single hulled Chinese planes without radar. They circle around looking for a hole in the clouds and go back if they find none. It would have been exciting, but we were worried about time and went with Bangkok Air.

Laung Prabang is a nice little jungle town, much like Iquitos in Peru. We took a boat down the river today to a whiskey making village and an old cave where’s there’s a shrine. Looking out of the cave you can see these great mountains through the mist that make up the river valley. The people are very friendly and there are tons of cute babies. The geckos go “gek-o! gek-o!” very loudly. They also have a lot of water buffalo here, any many are albinos. We’ve spotted some birdwing butterflies and lots of birds we can’t identify. The Mekong is sourrounded by lots of  jutting sandstone mountains, some of which have temples or statues on top of them. Giant stone cats and nagas (half woman half snake) seem to guard a lot of things.

There are 9,000 kip to the US dollar and the bills only go up to 5,000 kip. We think of prices in kilo-kip and the locals are more than ready to accept dollars even though I think its illegal. They’re just much easier to carry and their value is a lot more stable. The Laos Peoples Democratic Republic is anything but, and I think they try to filter the net as best as they can. I heard a lot of locals call long distance to Thailand to get real access which is also illegal. Visitors have to register with the local police if they intend to stay the night.

The language is very very similar to Thai and we’re having fun discovering the differences. There’s a big French influence as Laos was partitioned by the French as a buffer to Thailand for French Vietnam. We ate in a great little French cafe the other night and stayed too late. The locals go to bed a 9pm sharp, everything shuts down and we got locked out of our guest house. We’re making an effort to be more polite tonight. We plan on seeing a bunch of temples tomorrow and figuring out how to get down to the capital, Vantien so we can get back to Bangkok for our flight home. See y’all soon, Lao gong.

Look! Here’s some pictures of us that Cee took.