I wonder where they are now....?

STATS: Day count=278; theft count=1; rip-off count=1; tourist screw-up count=5.5; Chris’ photo count=2296; Emma’s photo count=120; touch-typing char/min=247; Poi skills mastered since last post: None  After waxing lyrical about the charmingly rustic absence of decent roads throughout Laos in earlier posts, we have ever since been treated, in general, to smooth, tarmac roads. Either I could be accused of judging an entire country from first impressions or someone high up in Laos is reading this blog and pulled out all the stops to make our later journey as smooth as possible. Vientiane is incredibly quiet – for a capital city. Oxted in rush hour would have more traffic. This makes it a very pleasant place to wander around, despite not really having a lot of ‘attractions’ to tick off. I did eat some lotus seeds though. Taste like chestnuts. We also visited a ‘Buddha park’ – a small park, or large garden, filled with various statues that are Buddha related. Created by the same gu...

STATS: Day count=270; theft count=1; rip-off count=1; tourist screw-up count=5.5; Chris’ photo count=2246; Emma’s photo count=120; touch-typing char/min=247; Poi skills mastered since last post: None Our last two weeks at the bear rescue centre were busy, but  relatively uneventful. Our regular tuk-tuk ride continued to arrive 30 minutes late every day, we spent the days painting, making impressive contraptions, supposedly as ‘bear enrichment’ though it certainly contributed to ‘volunteer enrichment’, hiding food for bears to find - usually a lot quicker than it took us to hide it in the first place, mounting posters and generally looking at, and looking after, the bears. A cut bear paw caused a stir, a lunchtime spent searching an enclosure for any offending nails or glass, and two weeks confined inside for Deng, a rather large male bear, while his paw healed. Emma reinforced the opinion that she is drawn to those less fortunate by forming a bond with the blind...

STATS: Day count=256; theft count=1; rip-off count=1; tourist screw-up count=5.5; Chris’ photo count=2131; Emma’s photo count=110; touch-typing char/min=247; Poi skills mastered since last post: None We’ve been working at the Tat Kouang Si Bear Rescue Centre now for a little over a week, and in true Project Management style it is time for a focus on Lessons Learnt: Valuable Lesson #1: Don’t leave your iPod lying around The very observant amongst you may have noticed a dramatic increase (from 0 to 1) in the ‘theft count’ statistic in this post. The guest house we are staying in is great – clean room, friendly staff, balcony overlooking a river, TV, fridge etc. Even the fact that it sits under the flight path for the local airport which is only a few km away is not a problem since, as with everything else in Laos, planes are infrequent and basic and sitting only a few tens of feet below a landing propeller plane is quite interesting, if somewhat noisy. Unfortunately however, I h...

STATS: Day count=245; theft count=0; rip-off count=1; tourist screw-up count=5.5; Chris’ photo count=2080; Emma’s photo count=110; touch-typing char/min=247(improving!); Poi skills mastered since last post: None The journey from Dien Bien Phu into Laos was similar to the previous one – bad roads and slow progress. The difference was that we had to get up at 4am for the privilege. Initially buoyant with the expectation of a vaguely comfortable ride, there only being 4 other people on the ‘stretched minibus’ (maybe 30 seats), we lounged around and stretched out and relaxed. Then, at 5:30am we set off. First stop was to load two 100+kg bags of…something…onto the top of the bus, for which all (or rather both) of the males on the bus were roped in to help. Then we progressed very slowly through the next few towns, picking up more people and more goods of all descriptions – from bundles of dried noodles to parts from an industrial water pump. All of the goods were crammed into the back of ...