Sunday, March 06, 2005
always look on the bright side
First I must congratulate Palace on their if not quite giant-killing at least giant-keeping-in-check match against Man U yesterday. How we came to see it, well that is a long story...
We left Louang Phrabang Friday morning to head up the Nam Ou river to a small backpacker town where we could go white water kayaking and trekking in the mountains. Excited by the prospect of leaving our big bags behind for 3 or 4 days and travelling only with day bags we packed dangerously light.
30 minutes into the 8 hour boat ride we realised the error of our ways. A cool day to start with compounded by the wind from the boat and the spray from the river. By the time we finished the journey we were wearing every item of clothing we brought and sitting in small cramped balls (the other 8 passengers were wearing their sleeping bags!). This somewhat detracted from the absolutely fantastic 'Apocalypse Now' style scenery and the seriously adventurous journey charging up rapids while watching other people white water kayak down them.
Unfortunately we arrived on what turned out to be the coldest day in weeks, in the dark, in a town with generator electricity from 6-10pm and with no form of contacting the outside world (... very bad with Liz having gone into labour 6 hrs earlier and CP playing Man U on Saturday). As if I knew we needed an excuse to leave I promptly got a bad tummy.
After spending a night in the freezing cold tramping back and forth to the outhouse with my flashlight we decided to take the speedboat home the next day (of course the fact that we wanted to get news of the new baby and see the football were factors as well!). The trip back was almost as epic as the one there - this time running rapids the right way down but 10 times as fast! Followed by a ride in the back of a pick-up truck (laos equivalent of a bus) - which of course got the requisite flat tyre.
Anyway, all had resolved itself by yesterday evening and we settled into eat burgers in the local sports bar and watch Palace (it's a tough life I know). Of course we were not disappointed... Pete screamed so much that the staff had to come and ask me if he was ok, and the disgruntled Man U fan behind him bitterly grumbled "it's only a point". Even though I'm a canadian girl (ie. not really qualified to know about football...) I thought it was the most exciting match I had seen in ages - but then again maybe that was also partly because I knew I was going back to my lovely warm duvet and ensuite when it was all over.
We left Louang Phrabang Friday morning to head up the Nam Ou river to a small backpacker town where we could go white water kayaking and trekking in the mountains. Excited by the prospect of leaving our big bags behind for 3 or 4 days and travelling only with day bags we packed dangerously light.
30 minutes into the 8 hour boat ride we realised the error of our ways. A cool day to start with compounded by the wind from the boat and the spray from the river. By the time we finished the journey we were wearing every item of clothing we brought and sitting in small cramped balls (the other 8 passengers were wearing their sleeping bags!). This somewhat detracted from the absolutely fantastic 'Apocalypse Now' style scenery and the seriously adventurous journey charging up rapids while watching other people white water kayak down them.
Unfortunately we arrived on what turned out to be the coldest day in weeks, in the dark, in a town with generator electricity from 6-10pm and with no form of contacting the outside world (... very bad with Liz having gone into labour 6 hrs earlier and CP playing Man U on Saturday). As if I knew we needed an excuse to leave I promptly got a bad tummy.
After spending a night in the freezing cold tramping back and forth to the outhouse with my flashlight we decided to take the speedboat home the next day (of course the fact that we wanted to get news of the new baby and see the football were factors as well!). The trip back was almost as epic as the one there - this time running rapids the right way down but 10 times as fast! Followed by a ride in the back of a pick-up truck (laos equivalent of a bus) - which of course got the requisite flat tyre.
Anyway, all had resolved itself by yesterday evening and we settled into eat burgers in the local sports bar and watch Palace (it's a tough life I know). Of course we were not disappointed... Pete screamed so much that the staff had to come and ask me if he was ok, and the disgruntled Man U fan behind him bitterly grumbled "it's only a point". Even though I'm a canadian girl (ie. not really qualified to know about football...) I thought it was the most exciting match I had seen in ages - but then again maybe that was also partly because I knew I was going back to my lovely warm duvet and ensuite when it was all over.
// posted by courtney and pete @ 04:47 
