Hi everyone from Laos!!
So, guess what?? I have finally met a bunch if people who I really like and am hanging out with now - I met them while trying to figure out how to get the slow boat to Laos and then we all caught the slow boat together. They are a group of Germans - Catarina, Simon and Marton who were travelling together, then they added an additional German Martin who was a lone traveler to their group, and then on the slow boat they added me and another lone traveller - Alex from Austria to their group! And there are also another 2 Germans who are also sort of in the group.
So we are a big group now and they are very friendly and I stayed with them on the stop over in Pak Ben (first stop of Laos) and went out for dinner with them and to a bar, and now we have arrived in Luang Prabang and I am staying with them. Tonight we went out for dinner at the night market and then to a bar and now we are back in our rooms because in Laos the bars have to close at 11:30pm due to some heritage laws. Anyway it was fun - dinner was good and so was the bar and tomorrow I will be hanging out with Catarina for at least the first half of the day.
It's been so good to meet a bunch of people who are really friendly and are really interested in speaking to other people not of their culture. And to also be in a group where there are 2 other lone travellers who have joined - it's really nice.
So the slow boat along the mekong river (2 days) was certainly a long one - first day was fine, by the second day I was happy to have reached land! Though it was very beautiful passing by the jungle seeing little villages along the way.
Then we all got in a tuk tuk to find the lonely planet recommended hostel and the tuk tuk driver drove around for half an hour before he found it - he had absolutely no idea and kept trying to drop us off at the wrong place! Anyway the hostel was all booked out but we found a good one across the road. Apparently they keep changing the street names here - so every street has about 4 names and no one really knows where to go unless you direct them to a landmark.
So far, all the Lao people have been very friendly which is nice!
So goodbye for now :)
xxx Orna
