what has happened since Christmas Day ?

Right now I am sitting on a small island on the Andaman seaside of Thailand called Ko Phi Phi, nice and burnt from a beautiful day of cruising around to several small islands around Phi Phi. I know alot of you are probably swearing at me through your teeth right now, and I don't blame you, however it looks as if the weather around Calgary has warmed up a bit, so hopefully everyone is feeling a little less angered with the cold weather.

Anyways, I have exactly 25 minutes until we have to go meet some Israeli girls we met on our boat for supper, so I will do my best to give the update on what has happened since Christmas Day. It's going to be difficult as it has been non-stop moving and non-stop action!!

Christmas Day for Greg and I, as most of you know, was spent riding around Chang Mai (northern Thailand) on some super-motard styled motorcycles. For two motorcycle junkies like Greg and I, it was a brilliant way to spend Christmas Day, despite the fact that it didn't really "feel" like Christmas being away from our family and friends. However, 30 degree weather was a nice substitute. We even found a bar that served a turkey dinner!! The following morning I had completely rid myself of the sickness I was suffering from for the past 4 days, and Greg and I hopped into a minibus to take us further north to a place called Chang Ria. From here we would cross the border into Laos. It was about a 6 hour drive north to Chang Rai, and we arrived at a pretty nasty looking guest house. As Greg and I stood in a line up of about 12 other guests waiting to check in, for some reason we were chosen to be relocated to another guest house ... apparently they had run out of room. We were told that our new place was 5 minutes down the road and that we would have no problem making it back to the original guest house for the dinner that was included in our pre-purchased package. So we hopped into a van with our luggage and were literally dropped off on the other side of town - about a 20 minute walk away from the first guest house, and dinner was in exactly 10 minutes haha! The driver points down a dark, muddy lane to where our guest house is. And when I say muddy, I mean REALLY muddy lane. Before we could as the driver to actually drive us down the lane so we didn't have to trudge through the mud, he was gone lol. So we made our way down the muddy lane to a newly built guest house which, from the outside, appeared to be really nice. Everything was new, we had a T.V. (which no one else got). Seems great, right. Well, it would have been if we would have had running water haha! Needless to say, we didn't make it back for dinner that night, and we were not smelling to fresh the next morning.

Early rise the next morning 6:30am to head back to the guest house and cross the river into Laos. After being checked out of Thailand, you throw all your baggage and yourselves onto a boat that will take you across the river into Laos. After a slow border check-in, you are separated into "fast boat group" or "slow boat group". Lonely planet recommends against the fast boat because of it's danger, however we didn't read lonely planet until after our trip from the border into Luang Prabang. So, fast boat it is!! The fast boat is packed with 6 people (plus the driver), and I mean PACKED!! Luggage on the front of the boat, then 3 rows of 2 people sitting with their knees crammed into their chest - for 6 hours!!! And that boat was fast. 5 of the 6 of us were given helmets, all of us had life jackets. There were 3 fast boats in total literally ripping down the Mekong river. Every now and than we would stop to solve a small engine problem, than right back it it. About 4 hours into the journey we stopped at a restaurant along the river to eat lunch. As I sat down, I was quickly offered (by my server) marijuana or opium - apparently drugs are very easy to get in Laos haha. I kindly refused, and ordered a nice large beer to get me through the rest of the trip. Greg and I also made sure to take lots of videos of that boat trip, so once I get home I will make sure to share those with everyone.

At about 5:30pm we arrived in Luang Prabang! As enjoyable as that boat ride was paralleled with a beautiful sunset, we were SO happy to be off that boat. A shared tuk-tuk took us to the center of Luang Prabang and we quickly secured a guest house. We were under the impression that Laos would be quite cheap, but it sure isn't! It's actually quite similar to Thailand, but it's honestly one of the most beautiful places I have visited on the trip so far! Beautiful mountains everywhere, lots of temples, and great people!

Okay I'm running out of time, I will speed up the rest from there and fill in details later ...

We spent 2 nights in Luang Prabang, than purchased a minibus down to Vang Vieng where we planned to spend New Years floating down the river in a tube from bar to bar. On the way down we met 2 Belgiums (Thomas and Aurora) and 1 German fellow (Flo) that we immediately became friends with. We ended up spending our entire time in Vang Vieng partying with these guys and had a blast! New Years was absolutely amazing!! There was about 500 people floating down this river, and each bar you stop at has either a huge swing (about 30 feet high), a zip-line, or a swing to launch off and drop into the water! One also had 2 mud wrestling pools for everyone ... that was obviously positioned further down the river when everyone is much too drunk to think twice about jumping in. Needless to say, we all ruined a pair of board shorts, but had a hell of a time doing it!! We started tubing (and drinking) at 12:00pm, were off the river by 7:00pm, quick shower, quick dinner, and met up with everyone at the bar for 9:30pm, partied till about 2:00am. WOW!

From there we parted ways with our friends and headed down to Vien Tien where we had booked a flight that night at 10:00pm to fly back to Bangkok. We spent the day extremely relaxed in Vien Tien with a girl from Finland we met on our bus ride down. We took a tuk-tuk to the airport for about 8:00pm, and as we walked to the front counter to check in, we were greeted with a very pleasant surprise! Flo, our German friend, had so much fun with us that he decided to change his plans entirely and travel with us into Thailand! Originally he was supposed to go into Vientnam and fly home on the 10th of January, but he is now with us in the southern islands of Thailand!! We are having a blast!

Okay, I must get going to supper now! Love and miss you all!!!