ho-lao!

Ok sorry for the blog neglect... much has occured these last few days. We just arrived in Luang Prabang in Laos a few hours ago... this was after taking an 8 hour bus ride from Pai to the Thai border, taking a fishing boat across a river, then taking another bus to the pier, taking a 2 Day(!!!!) boat ride down the mekong river...

ok being a little dramatic. We had a lot of fun on the way, but I am done sitting on little wooden benches with more than verticle backs and seats so little even my ass didnt fit on it... The boat ride was beautiful though. The river is a lot like iced coffee, but the landscape is incredible. It felt like we were going through jurassic park. Lush greenery, and sheer cliff face.. so cool. Woke up today with a killer case of cunjunctivitis which is a gnarly version of pink eye (think no itching, much burning, and three times the red veins on your eye ball... not so pretty) and had to sit on the boat for 8 hours with tears running down my face from my plague eyeball... not so fun.

The rest of Pai was great. We made a welsh friend, Ian, who hung out with us the whole time. Rode our motorbikes to the hot springs outside the town and had a nice dip in the mountains. One of the pools was over 200 degrees farhenheit and you could buy eggs to boil in it. Crazy! We also attempted to ride our motorbikes to the waterfalls but after driving through the razorblade grass and losing much skin and blood, almost falling in drainage ditches, sliding down a dirt trail backwards while screaming "foot brake!!!", losing my shoe in a river, and talking to a villager who said we had a 3k trek through the jungle with no trail, we eventually aborted the mission. It was fun to watch the other farang (thai for foreigner) attempt to see the waterfall though. We talked a few of them out of it after they saw how bloody and muddy we were, but we waited till they went through a few mud lagoons first.

Cant believe we are in country number 4!! I am completely accustomed to the constant moving and its gonna be so weird to be sedentary when I get back. Cant wait to eat some cheese though!


Love
J

Ps. played an open mic in Pai on our last night! It was so fun and I felt cool singing in thailand.

pps. i got another tattoo!!! Sorry mom and dad.. Its a stylized phoenix on my shoulderblade. discreet and cool... couldnt resist.