Our good friends Ben and Lauren from Sydney were our first official visitors to see us in Luang Namtha. For the days they were here we all had a ball, one of the best things for us was the simple pleasure of being able to talk to people in proper English and have them understand us, especially people that we have years of history with so can laugh about the past and present in a way that we can’t do in Lao-English and with people we have only known days or months.
We spent the first day up at the temple, plus another old temple near the old town and also visiting the Nam De waterfall – which we had deliberately waited until wet season to see because many people told us it didn’t have any water in dry season. The next day we took motorbikes and went up to our favourite getaway spot, Muang Sing. The ride was, as always, stunningly beautiful and on arrival we once again found Elu! Or rather, she found us. After a happy reunion we once again went to the Chinese border on the road which still impresses us with it’s beauty!
That night we managed to attend yet another Lao wedding, which we managed to escape early but only after Ben had the privilege of playing keyboard in the wedding band. The following day we returned from Muang Sing and met the usual quota of groups of kids on the roads back, which made the journey really cool. On top of that, it was a gorgeous sunny day and there was even less traffic than usual so it was just perfect.
We haven’t laughed so much for ages and having Ben and Lauren here reminds us how much we miss our friends and family and even just having people to hold proper conversations with. It really was a fantastic week and we look forward to seeing Ben and Lauren again next time they visit! Our photos of the antics of the week are here.
