Laos (not LAEOHS - Lah-oh)

So, school ended on the 25th, and I updated this on the 26th, and then I was absent for a good amount of time. Let me fill you in on that time.
The week following school was me organizing and sorting, cleaning and prepping for next year's kindergarten teachers. I mostly finished.... (heh heh)

On Thursday night, Colleen and I got into a taxi and headed for the train station... except that she forgot the train tickets on the coffee table in the living room. (OOPS!) We did a u-turn and managed to retrieve the tickets and make the train anyway. We spent the night on the train and arrived at one of the northern border cities around 8am. (that's a total guess.) That day we spent in transit; jumping through all the hoops that crossing the border entails. Eventually we made it to Laos' capital city - Vientiene.
We spent Friday night in Vientiene, wandering around the city and seeing the sights. We found an imitation 'Arch de triumph', which aparently has colored water fountians that go off at 9 and 5. (we missed that.)
Saturday was spent on a bus. A harrowing, nailbiting bus trip that took us from Vientiene to LuangPrabang, which is a city up in the mountians. The trip itself was INSANE - curving around, down, up and back through the mountians. The actual distance between Vientiene and LuangPrabang is 260km. It took us 10 HOURS. By the time we arrived in LuangPrabang, it was starting to get dark!
We spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday bumming around Luang Prabang in the rain! It's so insane. This is supposed to be HOT season, and we were freezing our butts off. It was probably between 16 and 18 degrees the whole time, with drizzling rain. When you're coming from 38 degree temperatures, you'll understand why we wore our sweaters the whole time. There was one day that we went to a coffee shop for breakfast, and ended up staying for lunch t0o because it was raining and we were reading. LuangPrabang is a very beautiful place. It's right on the river, and the pace is so slow there, it's almost a stop. LuangPrabang makes me feel like life in Thailand is rushed. Because of the rain, we didn't end up renting bikes or going hiking or anything, but I enjoyed the quiet and the time to read. I think Colleen was a bit bored, but we made it through all right.

We had decided to leave LP on Wednesday, and mercifully, God stopped the rain for us. Our chosen mode of transportation was a speed boat. Also an insane mode of transportation. The speedboat is the fastest way out of Laos. You can fly, take a bus back to Vientiene, take a bus to Thailand (21 hours later...), or you can take a speed boat. I wish I could describe accurately how small it was, and how painful it was to sit in that thing for 7 hours. It was basically sitting on the floor of a boat with your knees to your chin with someone right next to your elbow the WHOLE time. It was interesting. The highlights of the trip being when the boat broke down as we were stopped for lunch, and the started taking a hammer to the engine and pulling parts off. Luckily, we changed boats, and God took us safely to the land of smiles again. After reaching the border, we took a 5 hour minibus ride to ChiangMai.
We stayed in Chiang Mai with some friends who used to live in Nonthaburi with us. They're living there with their 3 kids, going to Thai language school. Staying with them was definately a breath of fresh air - it was good to talk with them, and laugh and enjoy the time together. We stayed with them and hung out in ChiangMai for a few days, and took the night train back to BKK just in time for church on Sunday.

The last couple of weeks have been a lot of travelling, but lots of fun. I'm glad that we went! Now I mostly have fun stuff to do - get clothes made, pack, clean, watch movies, be VERY VERY HOT, and get ready to come home! I look forward to being back on the "home" side of the ocean, but I'm sad to leave too. It's so good to know that God has worked out all the details for me to be here, and that he'll work out all the details for me to be there too!
have a wonderful week!
r