Off she went with a trumpety trump. Trump, trump, trump.

Rice fields in nothern Laos

We left you in Luang Prabang, northern Laos, where the rain never seemed to stop (vote with your feet if these constant weather reports are getting boring, but we are in Asia and it is the wet season). Given that lounging by the pool was a non-runner, some other form of indulgence was called for. We opted for shopping for souvenirs (destined for some lucky readers of this blog), daily pampering for C and a course in Laos cuisine for J, adding yet another arrow to his bulging quiver of culinary tricks.

Laos was once known as the Land of a Million Elephants but logging and loss of habitat have sadly downgraded it to the Land of a Thousand Elephants. We thought a day at an elephant sanctuary (where the elephants have either been rescued or retired from the logging industry) was in order, before they disappear altogether. We opted for the mahout training course – surely a valuable skill in Hove – and got to ride on the neck of the elephant. We discovered later our elephant was blind and felt its way with its trunk; much like a blind person uses a stick, though this didn’t impact much on our mahout skills. At the end of the day, the elephant waded into the river with us on her back for a thorough scrub. Much ducking and diving later, we were just about clinging on, and the elephant was hopefully a little cleaner.

Pachyderm madness

Our final stop in Laos was Luang Nam Tha, near the border with China and Burma. Satisfying our craving for moped madness, we scootered 60kms to the Chinese border, a picture postcard journey of rice fields and jungle-clad mountains. However, we were really here for the kayaking, and signed up for a two day river trip through the jungle. Day one was all about honing our kayak skills on the rapids – hence some spectacular man-over-board incidents and the temporary loss of luggage (luckily retrieved further downstream). We found our mojo on day two, having spent a night sleeping on the floor or a hut in a remote village with no roads, electricity, TV, internet, or mobile coverage - much like Chippenham in the 1990s.


Our home for the night on the Nam Ha river

 From Laos we crossed overland to Thailand. A brief sojourn in Chiang Mai was notable chiefly for fantastic food and a shambolic afternoon when we got a puncture on our moped 15kms up a mountain road. Luckily we were helped by possibly the nicest people in Thailand, who flagged down a jumbo tuk-tuk, halted all the traffic (20,000 people were walking up to a shrine that day) and helped us load the bike in the back for a hang-dog journey back into town.



Temples of Bangkok

 We are now in-transit on our way to Borneo from Bangkok. Bangkok is probably best described as a place to briefly experience, rather than linger, but was a great city to catch up with a friendly face in the form of the ever lovely Kate Curtis, who is just setting off on a trip similar to ours. More temples were ticked off and spring rolls consumed, and our last night included a visit to the infamous Patpong red light district. This being a family-orientated travel blog, it would be impossible to describe what we saw; let's just say that in homage to an already much missed Sunday paper, after five minutes of the show your reporters made their excuses and left.  

Highlight: Hello?  Did you not read the above, we washed an ELEPHANT, in the river….

Lowlight: The journey from Luang Prabang to Luang Nam Tha was a shocker, crammed in a minivan for 10 hours with our knees around our ears, not helped by the state of the roads in Laos. The most entertaining moment was watching the bus in front being pushed out of muddy landslide. The public bus to the Thai border was much more entertaining, two to a seat at times, live chickens rolling around in a sack on the floor, and we had to be bump started by the driver’s mates.

Monkey count: just the one, but it was chained up and being kept as a pet, and it made C very sad, so it doesn’t really count.

In other news: in an update on the most perilous load situation, on way to kayaking we passed a flat-bed truck with a fully grown adult elephant on the back. How this four tonne beast got on the truck, or stayed there, is anyone’s guess, but it didn’t look very relaxed as it went speeding down the road.

Bath time