hello!

we have made it through china largely unscathed and are now in luang prabang, laos.

daddy and tessie have been dying to post some observations of our latest country.
who am i to deny them?

OBSERVATIONS SECTION:
1. very few people.
2. lots of land uncultivated.
3. people much poorer than in china.
4. lots of children
5. loads of tourists in the current town- majority rotund americans but also lots of europeans.
6. they only eat noodles outside the city.
7. the lao people make pretty much everything out of bamboo- from hats to houses.
8. the whole population is relaxed and friendly.
9. they recently had heavy rainfall that washed away lots of the embankments and trees.
10. lots of people walk and most of the people who use the buses are tourists.
11. very few vehicles on the roads and the roads themselves are bad even on the one road from the northern border with china to vientaine.
12. tropical weather at last but so far has not been too hot for us and have not used the fans at night.
13. the internet is not as censored as it was in china although some clips still do not show up on youtube.
14. there are monks all over the shop.


the border crossing was the easiest any of us have ever encountered.
the ease at which we crossed truly astounded us.
it took an hour on the chinese side from getting to the barrier to crossing into no-man's land. they barely glanced at the car and the queue through passport control was really short. the officals at both sides of the border were friendly and relaxed. the border itself was not even made us of much- just a man and a metal barrier on the other side of which were more houses and buildings that looked no different to those before the border.
when we crossed on to the lao side of the border the queue to sign the arrival form and get a visa was like that at a supermarket.

for the past couple of days we have been crusing through laos on roads that were supposed to be motorways but are in actual fact more remenicient of the roads in russia. sweet memories.

due entirely to the nature of the roads, not anyone's driving, two days ago the accelerator pedal on wilma disengaged from the accelerator cable. as wilma is an automatic we managed to trundle up the hill on tick over to a safe spot where the wood pitstop crew were on again. we attached the cable to the pedal and, using an electrical connecting block, the cable to the engine. so far it has been perfect. daddy is also feeling smug and professional.

have been enjoying the city despite its touristyness but have found the food laking in originality. the religious caves that we visited today we interesting but the more exciting bit of the expensive and disorganised trip, was the boat ride up the river mekong- 2 hours up stream and 45 minutes down.
we also passed lots of old people on a saga holiday that looked much better than ours.
started taking our malaria tablets as soon as we were in laos; should be no problem with the flu for us but lewis does have a cough and so is not allowed to touch the cats.