holy crap, here's where we are now

i hadn't realized that it had been so long since i told you all about what we had been doing. crap. well, i suppose i should get on that.

last you heard, we were in bangkok, still. after we left there, mary, lulu and i all went to ayutthaya. leah came with us, but only spent the day. so, we all went on a tuktuk tour of the ruins around the city. it was a 3 hour tour. i'm mary anne. lulu was unanimously voted the skipper. mary was gilligan. stupid, i know. but we found this hilarious. it was a long train ride from bangkok. the ruins were amazing, and i've already posted photos. our guest house was pretty nice. at one of the places we stopped, i bought a conical hat that is made in the chiang mai style. it's beautiful. the day after we arrived,　lulu and mary rented bikes and went off around the town, while i relaxed at the guest house. i don't know if youve ever seen traffic in thailand, but it's pretty intense, and i am bad enough on a bicycle, i don't need heavy traffic on top of it. besides, relaxing was nice. i enjoyed it. after they got back, we sat around, had dinner, and took showers while waiting for the tuktuk to pick us up for the vip bus. in retrospect, taking the tuktuk all the way to chiang mai would have been preferable. this was the bus with the smelly french hippie couple, the two drunk irishmen, and the slutty russian girl. you may have read about the bus in the previous posts with the quotes and the descriptions of notable persons.
in chiang mai, our guest house was nice, but no air con. we didn't mind so much. the people were nice, and we managed to find everything fairly easy. the night market was awesome, there were silver shops galore, the food was great, and we ended up taking a 2 day, overnight trek out to the hills to the north east of the city. we treked up a mountain, stayed at an elephant camp, bathed elephants, rode the elephants, played with the baby elephant, treked a bit more, ate a bunch of jungle fruit, went "white water" rafting (it's the end of dry season, the river was really low, so there wasn't any actual white water like there would be after rainy season), and then i got to pole a bamboo raft down the river a ways. except for the bamboo raft, i have photgraphic eveidence for the whole trip. the day after the trip, lulu and i got tattooes at a local tattoo parlour. (we were totally careful, and did our research. no weird diseases or infections for us!)
the trip from chiang mai, thailand to luang pra bang, laos was interesting. first, a tuktuk to the bus station. then, a minibus (read, mini van) overnight, with a stop at 2:30 am for sleep at a guesthouse near the border. then, at 8:30 am a tuktuk to the river, a small boat across the river, another tuktuk from the small river to the mekong river, and then onto the slow boat going down river. the slow boat left at about 10:30 am, and stopped for the night at about 6:30pm. this is where we met friendly freddy and his girlfriend pat, and also space hogging helga. the seats were wooden benches, with straight backs. not so comfy. we were pretty miserable. but, still better than the fast boat. after the overnight in pak bang, laos, we were back on the boat for the rest of the trip to luang pra bang. we left at about 10 am, and arrived at about 4:30 pm.
our hostel in luang prabang was pretty awesome. we were in a co-ed dorm, and had the back section so we were able to rock out the chinese laundry again. (again, thank you husband for the parachute cord. it was awesome.) while in town, we visited the museum, a few wats, lulu and mary got up early to see the alms giving and the morning market, and i managed to contract some sort of intestinal dificulty. i even had a fever. it was awesome. (i'm better now, and after about a week and a half, things are all back to normal. even pepto bismol didn't help.) the night market in town was awesome, i bought some silver jewelry made by local tribes, a laos skirt, and some pillow covers. we went to the waterfalls, and they were beautiful. i'll check to see if i've posted photos of here, but i don't think so. i'll get on that tomorrow. mary left us after we'd been in town for several days, and lulu and i stayed on a couple more after she left.
after we left luang pra bang, we went to phon savan, where the plain of jars is located. it was amazing. on our tour to the plain, we also went to a scrap yard where the were recycling old exploded ordinance, a couple of villiages where i bought a length of hand woven silk right off the loom for 50,000 kip (about $6 US, and it's the size they use to make the longer wrap around skirt, so about a yard and a half by about a yard), we were invited into a families home and were given lao lao to drink. we had tv in our room at the hotel, so we watched whatever movies they were showing that were in english. so far, it's been our only tv, so don't judge me for watching "the sisterhood of the traveling pants 2".
after phon savan, we went to vang vieng. i stayed on the organic farm, and did a whole heaping helping of nothing. it was glorious, and very nice after all the damn traveling through the laos mountains. damn, those were some twisty roads. lulu stayed in town and met up with her cambodian friend, aki, who was leading a tour group around, and went kayaking and motorbiking with them. we both had fun doing our separate activities. i stayed the last night in town, since we were supposed to leave for vientiane fairly early in the morning. i rode on the back of a motorbike from the farm into town, with my backpack on, holding my purse in front of me, and my conical hat in one arm. i didn't even have to grab onto my driver. i'm so proud of me.
here in vientiane, we've stayed at a fairly nice place, run into several people we met in luang pra bang, lulu went zip lining, i walked around for 6 hours mostly lost, we've eaten a lot, and recuperated. tomorrow afternoon we fly to hanoi, vietnam. we are very excited to get to vietnam, and i'll try to update you more often. i'll try to get pictures up tomorrow before we leave. it's just late, and the place looks like it's about to close.
later!