fancy seeing YOU here...

hello friends and lovers (oops, i meant loved ones!)!!

happy 2009 everyone! we brought in the new year with some amazing new friends in a little place we like to call vang vieng. (also known as the river that swallowed my camera). needless to say, it was spectacular. some might even say TREMENDOUS!

once we were able to get our walking shoes on and the beer goggles off, we traveled up north to luang prabang, the old capital of laos. spent a couple of days taking in the sites, seeing some temples, climbing up stairs to the buddhist shrines, and documenting it all- with kelton's revived camera! yes folks, we have ourselves photo power.

we left town on a bus approximately.. oh, i don't know.. two days ago. it was a 17 hour long overnight journey through the mountainous backwoods of laos to get back into thailand, (this is a trip that we were quoted would take anywhere from 12 to 14 hours. i don't think they included a broken bus that had to stop roughly every two minutes and was full of puking passengers from the incredibly tumultuous ride) then another 4 hours or so on a local bus to get to where we are now- chiang rai. it's been interesting going back and forth between the two countries, seeing as they share a border, language, similar foods, religion... because there are also some noticeable differences. thailand seems to have become adjusted to having foreigners present, so that they work with you and not against you. or so it feels, anyway. in laos, although they were also terribly kind, it seems like they still feel a bit invaded by our presence. i guess because until just recently westerners didn't have much part in their daily lives, they're still deciding if they want us there or not. and also, sometimes look at us like we're a bit alien.

but the children in laos, i found to be the BEST! kelton and i had a really hard time with them coming up to us selling little knick knacks because of the obvious heartbreak you feel when this beautiful young little thing looks into your eyes and says 'buy something' and you can't give any good reason because you're sitting there eating this glorious food, or having a beer.. and it just doesn't seem to add up. to them, we have money and lots of it. to us, we've been scraping what we've saved for the past year to be able to do this.

anyway, one little girl in particular came up to us and asked to buy something, and when we said no, she said, well buy me food then, i'm hungry. kelton and i looked at each other and just about handed over our food right then and there, but decided to wait until we were done with our meals, think it over and then do something.

so we did what any good hearted person would do.. we went and bought goodies and then took off into the streets trying to track our friend down to give her a snack. we were both pretty sure she was just using a line she learned somewhere along the way, but when a kid tells you they're hungry, you gotta be pretty stone cold not to do something about it. so we became friends with just about every kid walking down the street that evening, handing out pre-packaged cookies (because if halloween has taught us anything, it's that pre-packed yummies are safe for the tummy) and also playing thumb wars. they LOVE their thumb wars. so yeah, kids.. hurrah!

ok, we need rest, obviously.. because this post is getting out of hand. pictures tomorrow!!

love you all.