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Pu Khao de Laos!

Laos has baguettes.

That is the first thing that, on behalf of everyone, must be said about our visit to the second country in our exciting itinerary: LAOS.

After a 6 hour van ride, an overnight stay at the border, a river crossing, another 6 hour van ride, and a much lighter bag of dramamine, we finally arrived in Luang Nam Tha, a town that looks like what would happen if Southeast Asian culture and a Western film had a love child, ready to begin our first activity: Trekking. Luang Nam Tha itself seemed to be a pretty popular gateway for travelers like ourselves looking to rough it for a few days in the jungle, and functioned as a very nice transition from all the comforts of urban Chiang Mai to the rugged mountainous terrain of the Laotion jungle.

And it is most definitely a jungle. Thick vined trees, staircases made of interwoven roots, mossy riversides and damp tropical floors decorated our hike as we stumbled and tripped our way Indiana Jones-style down the supposedly well-traveled path. The 12 of us, a big sweaty panting mess, were all the more impressed by our five flip-flop clad tour guides who, despite keeping the same (if not particularly fast) pace as us and carrying just as much baggage, seemed hardly phased by the hike at all. That night, we all learned valuable lessons in packing the bare essentials. Alex, having forgotten his toothbrush, resorted to using a toothpaste covered tampon. Jackie meanwhile, in an allergy induced haze, ran out of kleenex and began systematically ripping pages out of Lizzie's book to blow her nose ("Don't worry guys, it was just the acknowledgments. Nobody reads that shit anyway!").

Returning to Luang Nam Tha a little worse for wear, we boarded a bus for Luang Prabang. Six bags of Lays sweet basil potato chips, one extremely questionable chicken skewer, and nine harrowing hours later, we arrived at the cozy, culturally rich city of Luang Prabang. The city itself is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and these past 2 days have been crammed to the brim with temple visits and night market shopping sprees. A certain student in the group managed to spend a total of 300,000 kip in about 45 minutes. I won't name any names...except that it starts with a B and ends in "en".

To return to the original statement, Laos has baguettes, and there's no place that this is more apparent than Luang Prabang. The streets are lined with stands selling fresh chicken sandwiches, nutella sandwiches, and chicken AND nutella sandwiches (yes, chicken and nutella sandwiches are an option). One can't walk too far without running into a bakery or pastry store, or hearing the greeting "Sabaidee Madame!" The colonists are long gone, but their culture has mixed in interesting ways with Laotian culture.

Tomorrow we leave for our Elephant trek. It seems like we have some exciting and potentially thought-provoking experiences ahead that go far beyond just cleaning out poop...but that's all I'll say for now!

Until next time,

Camille, Lizzie, and the rest of the SE Asia gang!

Chiang Mai

Greetings from Southeast Asia!

The past week was spent in the beautiful city of Chiang Mai, Thailand. We spent the week taking a variety of classes: thai cooking, jewelery making, Muay Thai (well we wanted to try it, but to keep a long story short, it was an epic fail). Our first night in Chiang Mai landed on Camille's birthday, so to celebrate some of us went out to a karaoke bar, but it wasn't so much of a bar. There were different rooms, which each had a theme (underwater, graveyard, jail cell, etc.), and the one we choose was "bed room." We also happened to be in Chiang Mai for Halloween, so we all dressed up (cats, hippies, ourselves) and went out dancing for the night. We also completed our last week of Thai class. As a finale we learned the popular Thai pop song, Duu Ter Tum by Jobbunjob. It is one of my favorite songs now.

The Thai cooking course was an amazing experience. We each got to pick our own appetizer, stir fry, noodles, curry and curry paste. Also, we each received a cook book at the end, so we have the option to cook dishes we missed out on in class. It was really nice knowing the AMAZING food I was eating was made by me, except now my family will probably make me cook all of our meals once they find out.

Some of us also attended an event called Monk Chat. We went to a Wat (temple) and simply just found the monk chat sign, went inside, approached the monks who were sitting behind tables, and asked them questions. Most talked about Buddhism, others asked more about our culture in the US, or just life.

On our last day, some of us also did a jewelery making class. We chose to either make a pendent or a ring. We first drew a design, then manipulated our piece of silver, cutting out our designs with a saw. Sawing was difficult-I actually broke the saw blade twice! Oops! Everyone's jewelery turned out beautiful though, two people made pendents, while the rest chose rings.

We have finally now crossed the border into Laos. I was saddened to leave Thailand, but envisioning our adventures quickly returned me to excitement. Already today we took a six hour public bus ride through the mountains in Northern Laos, some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen to date. I am excited to see what Laos has in store for all of us!

SEIZE THE DAY!-

Olivia

...(edits by Alejandro... because I dislike writing)