Camping

I was excited for the included breakfast at the guest house. I shouldn't have been. A very small egg and two pieces of toast wasn't quite the belly-filler I expected. The local option was curry and rice, which I still can't quite stomach in the early mornings. Once we'd finished, we decided to go to the Mekong and I'd read more of The Beach to Rachelle. The area was deserted, in contrast to last night, except for some rubbish pickers. After that we had to get back on the bus. Before our journey, the bus quickly stopped at a Western supermarket where things were imported from all sorts of countries (Western countries) but that also made it expensive. Rachelle and I bought crisps, bananas, a pastry and marshmallows. The marshmallows are for tonight; we are going camping.

The campsite is in a national park and is called Tad Leuk. 'Tad' in Laoation means waterfall, so as you might guess, there's a big waterfall. We spend some time exploring the campsite and looked around a 'museum', which is actually just a big room with some information about the wildlife in the national park. Apparently there are butterflies, elephants, King Cobras,  crocodiles and so on. Then Rachelle and I decided we wanted to go on a trek. We enter the forest and after some small black ants began biting us, we ran out again, ridding our legs of the little beasts. We had only managed to walk 5 metres before abandoning the trek idea. It looked like all we would have seen was foliage anyway. 

Instead of trekking, we decided to find a place to swim. We were right next to the waterfall (and thus, the river) but the strong, rapid flow of the water meant it wasn't even nearly safe. We headed upstream, crossed a bridge and found calm waters. But it was too calm, and I became afraid leeches may be lurking beneath the murky water, so we headed back. As we retreated (again), we ran into the others on the bridge, and with our advice, we all looked for somewhere else to swim.

It wasn't too hard to find a decent, safe place to swim in the more rapid waters. A few large rocks near the edge slowed the rapids down in the area directly in front of them enough for us to paddle in. I went as near to where the faster water was without getting swept away, but needed to grab hold of Rachelle a few times. We enjoyed the waters for a fair while.

Back at the camp we dried off, got changed and sat talking whilst we waited for dinner to be cooked. When ready, it was sticky rice, beef, chilli sauce and Beerlao. The night was spent eating, drinking and chatting until late. A cat took a liking to Rachelle and sat on her lap, a bat flew around our heads, a dog licked my toes and ghost stories were told. Once it was late, we had to retire to the museum, because they hadn't set up tents for us due to potential rain. We were given small, dirty mattresses and no pillows, divided the room into sleeping and changing areas, and tried to get some rest with an old sleeping bag covering us. The stupid thing about the sleeping arrangement tonight is that it's the most expensive we've had in all of Lao, and even Thailand. Quite ridiculous. It didn't even rain, so we could have tented. Despite all this, I actually get a good night sleep.