Luang Prabang! Seven hours on a bus is fine. Seven hours on a bus 1000 metres high on mountainous windy roads that twists and turns like a… twisty turny thing? The drop off the side would have resulted in a slight twinge in your back, roughly forty yards from your head. 12 people neatly tucked into a minivan and 12 people crawled out at the end. Luang Prabang is very picturesque, small and quaint. We mooched around until we came to a mountain that claimed to be really high up and have ‘views’ of the city. 15 of the 400 steps up and Noony stopped, claiming to be dying. I think I annoyed her by running gleefully up the steps whilst my lungs silently burnt through my chest and my brain told me I was going go die. We didn’t. If anything, we made it to the top to find the promised view, some fighting squirrels, a deformed cat and pair of butterflies doing it. Tube to tube – they were at it like passionate mime artists. We took dirty, voyeuristic photos. Noony goes red just thinking about them.
We stayed at the top for just under an hour as we could see the landing strip in full view and i wanted the geek in me to watch a plane land. It did, and the squelch and screech of the tyres proved it. We walked down, didn’t die, and made our way to Joma, a fantastic cafe chain that is dotted around Laos. It is run by Laos people and some profits go back into the community. We have stolen their menu so if Noony’s dream of owning a cool cafe comes to fruition, we have a menu set exactly to what she’d want.
The weather wasn’t too good and it rained the day we wanted to go visit the waterfall and cave. But we had our flight for Thailand booked so regrettably we couldn’t stay longer. Shame. The cave looked really dark, they gave you candles to walk around. I was going to woo women to a candle lit dinner. All i needed was food and a blanket. And Noony to point out other pretty women for me.
I don’t know what it is, but the plane journeys are getting scarier and scarier. My logical head tells me that 40 flights a day and an untarnished track record for 13 years means that Laos airlines is safe. The pessimistic side tells me that when the horrific turbulence hits the small propellor plane, the engine whirrs down and it nosedives a few hundred feet and tilts violently to the left, its not a good idea to mock Noony as she recites the Hail Mary repeatedly.
In conclusion, propellor planes are bloody scary.
We are in Chiang Mai now. Thailand smells.
Really bad.
Goodbye Laos, you were wonderful.
Pez and Noony go away 