Slow boats, treehouses; SURVIVOR BOKEO and an earthquake????

Hello everyone, first things first, I AM TOTALLY OKAY!!!!! Its awful that the earthquake happened at the same time we were on the slow boat without communication and then in the jungle on a three day treck without ability to check email or post. I'm so sorry for woorying everyone but to be honest we hadn't even heard of it until a second ago when we were bombarded by all the emails!!! Thanks for woorying, but yes everything is fine!

On to the good stuff!
The past five days have been both very lazy and extremeley exhausting. We left Luang Probang early Tuesday morning on the slow boat headed to Huay Xai where we were hoping to join a trecking/zip lining tour just before crossing into Thailand. Anyhow, be but on our backpacks (the worst part of backpacking) and walked down to the boat dock to see what the conditions of our two day trip would be. The benches that were our seats only fit one half of my bum (i think my bum is just to big for asia in general) with a really small cushion. However, as time past before departure we realized the boat wasn't really filling up! We ended up leaving 30 mins late (i think the captain was waiting for more people). There were only 5 other foreigners on our boat and myabe 25 other people all togheter. We were told the slow boats were awful because they often pack in 100 people in the place of 70. So we totally got lucky and had two benches or more for each of us... that menat both of my bums got to have a seat!!!! great eh?!!! The morning past quickly with a couple books and music as well as the scenery which was beautiful all the way up the Mekong river. In the afternoon Julie and i were getting bored so we started to play cards and this is when the excitment began. As soon as we pulled out the deck the Loatian men were peering over our shoulders telling us what to lay down and what cards to keep... they couldn't speak English and the extent on my Laoation in Sabaidee (hello)... but some how we all ended up playing for the next four hours of the afternoon; with Julie's Toronto Ontario Canada Cards!!! IT was great, they were so excited, as were we to be able to somehow connect with the locals. We found it interresting that they were completely content just sitting on the boat for the 2 day ride. They obviously knew how to play cards and picked up our game fast but they ddin't think of bringing anything to do with the,. Not even the children. They just sit drinking a few beers and smoking the entire way up the Mekong. Not too much else happened on the slow boat...lots of sitting and sleeping...reading..music...we stopped for the nihgt and had dinner and back again the next day...

We arrived to Huay Xai at dusk and decided to walk the entire town with our packs looking for a hostel...in the wrong direction 3 times....so we finally got to a place and met up with another girl we had met in Luang Probang so we got a decent room for the night.

We had heard abotu this trecking and zip lining tour trhoguh a friend called 'the Gibbons Experience' in the Bokeo province in Laos. So a couple weeks back we were tryign to sign up for it however the dates were too far off which meant we would have to stay in Huay Xai (with nothing to do) and then try to make it last minute to the full moon party south Thailand. So we weren't to excited abouth that but really wanted to do the treck. So the next morning we went into the office to see what was what and they said "you can leave right now with this group!" "Uhhhhh okay," we thought. We were excited but at the same time we hadn't prepared anything and our packs were at the hostelbut we really wanted to leave that day... so ofcourse everything came together (like it usually does) and we rushed to throw a bung of stuff in our packs and before we knew it we were trecking through the Bokeo Junlge survivor styles!!!!

I will not sugar coat this experience at all. I will now say it was fun because it is over however it was the hardest thing i've ever done (with a cold too!). It was great because the group is really small. Only 6 of us, Julie and I, Rachel from Switzerland, Aubry from Ireland (who has been travellign the world for the past 8 months) and a couple from Sweeden. And ofcourse a few Laotian guides. We started by being driven 2 hours from town to a small village and then trecking 1 hours uphuill and accross streams to get our harnesses and then another hour of zip lining and trecking to the tree house where we would spend the ngiht. Don't forget this is moslty up hill and really hot. I thought i might be nervous zipping on a cable accross mountains that i can't see the to the bottom but each time i saw a zip cord ahead all i could think is "Yeah, no more walking all i have to do is fly..." It was amazing how high we were and how fast you glide, such an adrenaline rush!
The first treehouse we slept in was great, running water and a bathroom without a thirs wall. By this i mean when you shower or use the facilities you look out to the jungle from 60 feet in the air... a little odd at first but beautiful. For dinner a guide zipped in our meal of rice and vegetables and some kind of meant.. not tasty at all but what can you do from a treehouse? (the top picture in our view from our first treehouse and there is also one of the guide zipping in dinner).

Day 2 was crazy long and difficult. We started a short treck at 6:00 down the valley to the zip back into our treehouse to then start the day...on this small treck i felt on ich and realized a leech had found its way under my pant leg so i had to flick it off and continue walking..ewe i don't like leeches. There were insane amounts of bugs in the jungle. No animals, other than the huge house in the treehouse last ngiht but At one point i was so tired i didn't think i could do it, really. But somehow we just kept moving and made it to the waterfall for a dip. The second ngiht someone forgot to by gas for the generator which meant no water to drink or shower with..not good! We made due.

Today it felt so great to be done. The experience wad good because it was really hard and we accomplished it but at the time i was thinking "I paid and signed up for this?" The guides must have been thinking the same! We finished back at the small village and left in a truck back to Huay Xai wishing the next group in good luck!

This afternoon we crossed into Thailand and had a nice dinner. Tomorrow night with be the overnight bus down to Bandgok and then to the south of Thailand for the full moon party on the Island of Ko Pagnan!

Thanks again everyone for the concern and woory, again i miss you all and everything in OK! I was hoping the news that i peeled a leech off of my leg in the jungle would be exciting and then the earthquake had to steal my thunder.....

I didn't feel like re-organizing the photos so try to make them work in your head!