Loving Life in Laos!!!!!!!

At the end of our trip in Vietnam we went to Ninh Binh. There we did 2 big things, climbed up to a dragon statue and did a super touristy boat ride. First I will talk about the boat ride.

The boat was a small paddle boat that the guide paddled with his feet.

It was 1 hour and 45 minutes. We boated through 3 caves. One of them was so low, I touched the ceiling!!

It was so fun! It was a little cold though. I had to wear my puffy coat, sweat shirt and life jacket and I was still cold! 🥶 I saw a stone dragon on top of a hill way above the river. It turns out we would climb to that dragon the next day!

The dragon is on Lying Dragon Mountain. I climbed all 1,100 big stone stairs to get to the top and back down. I counted them!!! You could go up and take a photo on top of the dragon but there were too many people so we did not get very far. We did get a photo of us with the dragon though!

At the bottom of the dragon hill was a mushroom playground. Well technically it wasn't a playground but we played on it anyway.

My favorite mushroom is this one because it looks like it is eating!

I made a drawing of it. Do you like it?

The next day we went to Laos! We are staying in Luang Prabang.

On our first day in Laos we did a two thirds walking tour. The other third was in a big tuk-tuk. The tuk-tuk picked us up at the hotel and we drove to the barge. We sat in the back of the tuk-tuk and it had a HAMMOCK.

The barge took us across the Mekong river. Here is what it looks like:

After the barge we drove 30 seconds to the place that we started the walking tour in the forest. First we walked 30 minutes through a little village with kids who waved at us. They were so cute! After the village we walked through a Buddhist temple.

In the praying part of the temple we learned all the different kinds of Buddhist praying. We didn't get to pray because you have to live there for 3 months in order to pray there. Then we hiked to a cave with lots of little Buddhas in it. The Buddhas are made from wood and covered in gold leaf. It was really deep and dark in there.

The next day we drove 50 minutes to a little village called Napho. We visited a cultural house that belonged to the Hmong people. There are 2 bow and arrows they use to kill animals like birds and pigs. One was an automatic arrow so they would set ups wire and when the pig ran in to it, it would trigger the arrow. For the second one they would aim at the bird and then shoot it so fast the bird would not have time to fly away. This is daddy shooting at a pretend bird.

We got to buy a few things from the local people. I got a pink bag with a blue and gold elephant on it that says Laos in blue and gold lettering and a bracelet that says Laos on it as well.

Then we drove to a waterfall called Kuang Si. It was really pretty in the places that it was not crowded.

A few people tried to take pictures with me and it was like I'm Famous all over again. (that's a hyper link.) One lady even grabbed me🙀!!!!!! Talk about scary🙀!!!!!! Over all it was a nice experience except for that it was very very hot🥵.

On our second to last day in Laos we trekked with elephants. First we took a river boat to the other side of the river. There were 2 elephants waiting to trek with us. We don't remember their names. They were 2 old lady elephants, 38 and 35. We fed them around 100 green bananas each.

On the walk there were not a lot of lush green plants because it is the dry season. Our guide ran down to the farm that has green plants and brought back a lot of bamboo shoots for the elephants. We each got a handful of bamboo and when I fed the elephant it whipped it's trunk around and it scared me.

I learned that you can make paper out of elephant poo. I also learned that when you take an elephant's temperature there are 2 ways to do it. First you can stick a thermometer up its rear end and sometimes it likes to go to the bathroom when you're doing that. The other way is that you can follow the elephant and then stick in its poo.

We are leaving Laos the day after tomorrow to go to Thailand. I have really like Laos, even though it was SO HOT HERE!!!!!!!!!!!

Love GINNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!