missive from mum

From Luang Prabang:

"It is soooooooo great here... it's a bit like being at the cottage like...the guest house has big high wooden steps to go up to the rooms, and our room is one ginormous room with about 22 foot ceilings, 2 whirly fans, one wall fan, and air con, tv (only lao), and huge windows on 3 walls, with cool shutters. Then UPSTAIRS yes,upstairs is a loft bedroom with a fan, a lao bed, a double size bed a safe, a trunk, but uh.... no wall, just like a little fence thing

Last night was horror nite, it started off well and we went to an Indian restaurant, the same one as in Vientiane, the food was super great and Cathie andEmma gobbled up naan bread because on the menu and by the mouth of the Indian waiter who spoke fine English : THE NAAN IS MADE WITH RICE FLOUR, NOT WHEAT FLOUR.

Well, we had a super fun time, chatted away with (Thaba don't read this bit) with a German tourist who works for ISO, a Germ NGO, and he'd been at a conf. in Bkk, verry handsome and slim and blonde, from Berlin, defintely makin' eyes, and not cut eyes at our Emmie!!

I left Em and "Patrick" yup that was his name, and went home, Cathie went for more shopping at the night market.

I had a lovely time, showering, putterring, listening to my music and working on my cold which is like the one Ji had last week, hmmm coincidence???

In comes Cathie at 11:00pm, oh I have indiigestion she says, hmm, pops a tums, well as they say "that's all she wrote" Cathie STOPPED vomitting and heaving sometime around 2:00am . Poor Cathie, Em was ok so maybe it was the  curry not the RICE naan, who knows, she's ok today but sore stomach muscles, uh yeah I guess so.

Then aobut 2:00am Em HEAVES herself in the door, scrambles, falls, hikes herself up to her room. She had to 'break in' to the guesthouse, and climb over the night guard but she had a grand time (then anyway, this morning,,,,,weelllllllll) at the bar with a friend from McGill and Patrick.

The friend from McGill turns out to be a cool story, we were walking up the mountain to the coolest ever waterfall, where I swam in the rapids, and could have been swept to my DEATH, yes but more of that another time. So we're walking on up the hill, and I had just seen the tiger named, yup, PHET. So, this girl shouts with such delight EMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, and her name is Jessie, and just this morning at a very, very complaint hour breakfast, Aunt Cathie determines that Jessie's aunt is Nicky's godmother.

CONICIDENCE.... I think not.........

Ok, I'm off, we've arranged a private slow boat to take us up the Mekong to the silk and scarf village and the pottery village for the afternoon. Welll, at least that's what we think we've arranged."

We are off to Chiang Mai tomorrow. Hopefully the now-dry guesthouse will not be too soggy and allergy-inducing. If it is, with any luck Phet will spring into international businessman mode and whisk us away to a five star palace. [Laos-6-October-2005]