On the tourist trail...Katy

After a gruelling (but amazing) two days in the jungle, we decided to have an easy day today (Friday; we are a bit behind with the blog!) and booked a tour taking in a few different things...not really what the girls would've chosen, but we found it interesting (so i am thinking this post might not be the most exciting one for children; have a go though!!) It also turned out to be our first rainy day, so being driven round in a minivan from place to place worked out fine. First we stopped at a shack at the side of the road where they were making knives using methods that were being used in the uk years ago; which in itself isn't that interesting, then they told us that they were using the metal from bombs to make the knives, and bombs to hammer the heated steel on!!

I don't know about the girls learning things on this trip, but Dean and I are learning loads too. Before starting to plan this trip, I had never even heard of Laos never mind its history. Laos is the most bombed country per capita in the world. Between 1964 and 1973, an average of one bomb every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day were dropped on parts of laos!! An estimated 80 million didn't detonate, and have caused numerous deaths and maimings since. The bombings were part of a campaign by America to cut off supplies to Vietnam during the war. Now as you you know I am not great with current affairs, but I wonder how many of you knew about this 'silent war'? Anyway, it was nice to see something good coming out of something so horrific. We then visited another waterfall; beautiful- even in the rain!

Dean loved our next stop (not)- a replica of a hill tribe village. I found it interesting; an insight into the way many minority Laotians still live their lives. The girls liked the idea of the village chief and his family having special chairs, and having all the villagers cook for, and look after them.

Next we went to a tea and coffee plantation, and learned a bit about the trees and the processes involved in the early stages of coffee and tea production. we also got to sample some different teas, and coffees made from different beans. (Not quite sure how sampling laos whisky came into this, but as we sat round a little fire chatting with the guide, our driver, and a couple of belgian women who were spending their holiday on the plantation(!!), dean had a couple of whiskies!)

our guide didn't have great English, but I get the impression that Laotian farmers don't always get the best deal in this lucrative industry. Fair trade signs are dotted around, but i think they still could get a better deal if they could cut out the middle man more and more, which is slowly starting to happen.

Our last stop was another waterfall - spectacular; yet Megan and Emma took one look, said 'wow', then spent their time messing about with hammocks!!

We have said we wonder what their abiding memories of this trip will be. One of Megan's favourite parts of today was when the guide (remember- poor English), was telling us about the most expensive coffee beans being the ones that come from bear poo after the bears have eaten coffee beans. Except he wasn't using the word 'poo'; he was using a much more 'impolite word' (as he later described it) with a completely straight face, which Megan found very funny. We helped him out with a more family friendly way of describing it (he wanted to know how to spell it-typing it into his phone to check with us). However once the girls were out of earshot, dean taught him a few others too!! Another highlight of today for them was using the very basic toilet on the plantation (a ceramic hole basically!!) I won't go into details (ask us when you see us next), but dean said you could hear us laughing from quite a distance from the toilet shed. The poor guide thought we were still laughing about his use of a rude word!! A fairly tame day by recent standards, but a good one nonetheless! BTW- I know lots of people have said that they can't leave a comment on the blog. Megan and Emma would love to hear what you think/hear from people, so please send them an email instead to 'meganhowford@hotmail.co.uk' We are also going try to put some videos of the zip lining onto the relevant blogs, so check back in a couple of days and see if they are on...don't know if the photos truly capture just how amazing they were.