Farewell Laos, Hello Thailand

We've been in Luang Prabang for 4 nights and in a couple hours we fly to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Laos has been one of our favorite countries, if not our absolute favorite. We've kept busy with several activities. Of course we continued to visit the night market finding some great stone jewelry and textiles. We also discovered a talented nine year old painter named Mr. Kon Lee. We visited him at his home, a local orphanage with 350 children. He showed us his artists studio and many of his paintings and sculptures. He signed a couple for us and we are bringing them home with us. We also visited the big waterfall about 30 kms from town. It was a bone jarring ride in a very old minivan. The falls are very beautiful limestone with many cascading levels and bright blue water. Along the way we went over several bridges that were suspect, creaking heavily and made of 2 by 4's. Our other activities included a slow boat trip down the Mekong River to a paper making village, a pottery making village (where Julie got to make a pot) and a non touristy farming village. We do have some great pictures but they have yet to repair the underground cable in Asia that was knocked out months ago. It takes hours to get a photo loaded from here, but we will keep trying. We did find an outstanding place to stay the Sayo guest house. http://sayoguesthouse.free.fr and have been quite comfortable for $15 a night! Can you even imagine this? Laos has at times been difficult for us. At one point we bought bread to feed the starving dogs and turned around only to find the starving children wanting the bread instead. What a lesson. It is truly a stunningly beautiful location full of friendly and seemingly happy people who try very hard to please. With only a few weeks left after Chiang Mai (the night market of all night markets) we have opted to return to the Thai islands instead of Cambodia. We are planning to fly from Bangkok to Suret Thani (on the south coast) and ferry to a small island near Ko Samui where we will end our trip getting great tans and relaxing by the sea.