"whatever lessens suffering in yourself and others, that is right. We cannot give up on any person. Never Abandon Anyone"

Evening all, i am now back in thailand which will be my home for the next 3 months. the blog title was just a quote that was on a menu in Lao Lao gardens which i quite liked. anyway, crossed the border earlier today, it seemed like my time in Laos flew by but it was really good. so i did my last post from.... Vientiane? i think? thats the capital of Laos which was really nice i loved it there. one particular highlight was a bakery called Joma which we pretty much lived in for the duration of our stay. It had amazing food. then when we got to Laung Prabang we discovered there was a Joma there aswell! but anyway back to Vientiane, we went out after dinner to a bar and then our tour leader took us to this gay bar which was so funny, there was a lady boy show (nothing dodgy, just lagre men in dresses miming horrendously to songs they didnt know the words of.) i got a few amusing pictures from that night! the next day we headed to Vang Vieng. for those who dont know, this is the place where people go tubing. tubing basically consists of free shots, lots of beer, sunshine, a big river, people jumping into river, people going on rope swings into the river, and about 50 bars dotted all the way up the 4km river where they write all over you and spray paint stuff on you and give you booze buckets. so that was good fun! we met lots of travellers and i had a full english the next morning... so good! i never thought id be so relieved to see baked beans. so after that we travelled to Luang Prabang. here i FINALLY got to see my babies.... we went on an elephant ride! it was amazing. my elephant (Camde) had a slight wind issue but that was nothing compared to another poor girls elephant who clearly had an itchy belly so kept collapsing its legs so it could rub itself against the ground. seeing elephants poo is also quite an experience. so yes anyway we did that for about an hour and a half, Camde was a bit of a naughty elephant and kept going in different directions and wandering off with me and riana sitting on its head, it was weird you kind of have to get past the fact you could quite easily fall off and injure yourself and just go with it...you gotta trust your elephant! so that was a nice taster of things to come, i will be heading to the elephant village in Surin on saturday to start my work there. in Luang prabang we also went to the waterfalls. as usual everyone let me be the test dummy and try the water, and then once i had frozen my bottom off everyone else decided they could aswell! then i tried the rope swing, now for people who know me, you will know that rocks, heights, and anything involving any kind of adrenaline/thrill doesnt really work with me. but i did it, i was about as graceful as a rhinocerous but i did it and i have pictures to prove it! sort of. there are pictures of me before and after but because i kind of just flopped into the water like a dead fish they didnt get a chance to photograph it.
the next morning me and riana got up at 5 to watch the monks collecting alms (got the wrong day on the last blog). it was a really strange experience, we had been told that giving alms when youre not a buddhist is seen as offensive and we can take photos but not go up close to the monks so we stayed back and just watched, but there were some stupid tourists who just looked ridiculous in their chinos and polo shirts and a weird scarf wrapped around their middle to try and disguise themselves as buddhists, going up to the monks and taking photos as if its some sort of tourist attraction. it was so rude but the monks seemed used to it, which is a shame in a way. other than that annoying disturbance, it was actually a really nice calm and serene atmosphere, it was like a sea of orange there must of been about 100 monks at least, and it wasnt completely light so their robes were really striking. after that we got on the slow boat towards the border (10hours) and spent the night in a tiny village called pakbeng. we went for dinner and then afterwarsds as we were walking home these locals invited us into their party, very surreal experience. it was like an abandoned bar and a dj had set up all these disco lights and a smoke machine and a bubble machine and stuff but it was completely empty... kind of like the first hour of a school disco. but then some more people turned up and we had some drinks and a bit of a boogy which was fun, and definitley not what we expected to be doing that night. this morning we got up and had 6 hr bus journey to the border and what must be the most dangerous road in the world. most raods in Laos are pretty dodgy as its all mountains but this was like a dust road with no railings seperating you between the mountain and a sheer drop. they were really narrow aswell and there were loads of blind corners and really really steep slopes. but we managed! then croseed the river to thailand which is where i am now, Chiang Kong i think? another stop off as we are going to Chaing mai tomorrow and then Bangkok. its the 1st today, so i have been here for a month now! crikey. not much else to update on, good to hear youre all enjoying the old blog, keep your emails coming tale care lots of love xx