december 11th.

Yesterday we had one of the best days of our trip. It was so much fun. We had met up with simon and lau, the danish guys we had met in vientiane, and we decided to visit the waterfalls with 3 other girls we had met on our travels. We got a tuk tuk out there and payed the driver a little extra to wait for longer than 2 hours (which is the usual limit). We went in and sw all the moon bears that they had in the rescue centre, they were so big and fluffy-like nothing we have back home. Most of them had been rescued from poachers and bile farms. We chatted to them for a while, then walked up to the first lagoon. We all kind of stopped and stared because it was so beautiful! The water was a creamy blue colour, bright aqua and almost milky around the edges. We decided to keep walking up the hill until we dound an even bigger lagoon with a waterfall and a rope swing coming out of the tree! it was so cool except the water was so freaking cold you wouldn't believe it! The best way to get in was to just launch out on the rope swing and jump straight in.. Simon and lau went first, but when I hit the water it was so cold that it knocked all the breath out of me and made my skin burn. Refreshing! We found a little cave underneath the waterfall, and soon discovered that the lagoon was home to the same little fish that had nibbled our feet in siem reap. So funny! Anna, one of the girls with us, had what she thought was a secret map to a hidden swimming place, but we followed it into the jungle only to find a big hole and the realisation that we suck at reading maps! We started climbing the regular steps up the side of the waterfall, and then spotted the 'danger no swimming' sign which-according to the map- was our cue to turn right towards the falls. We followed this little path through the jungle, and then came across a waterfall that we had to climb up. We had all gotten dressed after our swim so we got soaked again scrambling up the rocks as the water gushed down over us. When we got to the top we were all grinning at the sight of the huge waterfalls cascading down onto a small lagoon and rock shelf-our own secret place halway between the top and bottom of the falls. Despite feeling like we had frost bite all over, we got back into our bathers and started exploring all around. We found this awesome cave that went right back into the rock wall, underneath the wall of water. Following simon's monkey man walk up the cliff, we founf a cave with a little secret pool in the bottom. The colours were the best though! These crazy bright jade spirals coming down from the roof, and rocks under our feet that fels like spongey plastic, filled with millions of tiny holes. We walked all the way to the top and played on the fallen logs in the calm pool above the falls. It wad amazing how slowly the water moved at the start compared to the speed it got rushing down the other side. We slid back down the other side because it was so steep and muddy, and went for one more rope swing to finish off the days. On the way back we passed all these concrete bears lined up against the wall of this building and tried to take photos with them. We tried climbing up to sit on their paws, and claire has the best picture of us scrambling up these animals in vain. When we eventually got up there, all these japanese people started taking photos with us, one lady even put her arm around me haha. We bought some bananas and pineapple for lunch and made our way back to the tuk tuk. On the way we saw a lady roasting bananas, and she let me swap some raw ones for some barbequed ones which pretty much made my day! We piled back in the tuk tuk and started off home, everytime we get in one of those things it feels like we're soldiers about to be deployed on a mission somewhere. A few minutes into the journey i climbed out onto the back platform, followed by simon and claire. We stood so that our heads popped up over the roof of the tuk tuk and we got an amazing view of everything! It was the coolest ever- flying through the mountains with our hair whipping out behind us, waving at all the kids we passed on bikes and hanging on for dear life as we hurtled around the bends at some ridiculous speeds (sorry mum!) gladly, we made it home safely and everyone did their own thing for a little while before meeting for dinner later on. We went to this place called utopia which was really incredible. It was set on the side of a mountain, with a bar, a garden as the dining area, beach volleyball and a bamboo platform covered in cushions and little tables where you could sit and look over the river. We ordered some dinner (claire was late following a mad dash down the street after realising she had an hour left to enrol in uni) and sat there for ages just chatting and hanging out. Instead of dessert, the boys decided it would be fun to get one of those massive shisha/peace pipes to share seeing as we had never tried it before. They apparently ordered apple flavour but it tasted like liquorice. One of the strangest sensations ever, we felt like the caterpillar from alice in wonderland. Everywhere in laos shuts at 11, so we were sound asleep by 12 after a lovely/crazy day of being real hippies! Sadly we left the boys behind this morning, but we will meet up with them again for christmas in chang mai. The next few days we will be having the best time ever at the gibbon experience- ill let you know how it goes!