Luang Prabang, the Mekong and bloated bodies

Today we've reached the three month mark and are in the joint best country so far, Laos! So last week we got the slow boat down the Mekong River from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang. Derek was right when he said that at some places along the Mekong it was like seeing snapshots out of Platoon or Apocolypse Now, the scenery was amazing! Floating down the vast, powerful and very muddy Mekong for hours on end seeing only jungle and the odd few houses clumped together trying to be big enough to claim village status. If you get seriously ill here you're buggered! In fact a few people on the boat saw a bloated corpse pass the boat in the river and I got an email from someone we met in Chiang Mai who's group saw two corpses! Apparently not unusual down the Mekong... But despite being in the middle of nowhere there were plently of people in canoes fishing or setting traps or dropping or checking nets who were around to give us a good stare. God only knows where they lived???
The boat was packed with tourists, and a few locals with boxes and bags, a few of whom we dropped at random isolated spots. The first day was better cos we had seats, not that we used them cos we met some other travellers who we spent most of the journey with playing cards and chatting. The second day showed up our traveller mentality. It was a different boat and when we got on, the front was decked out with posh seats which everyone assumed were for people who paid extra, only they weren't and the last people on just sat down and had a lovely journey while the rest of us attempted to balance on the 3 inch planks pretending to be seats... So we all sat on the floor instead and played cards, eh.
Laos is really lovely, I'd like to imagine this is what most of South East Asia was like before tourism destroyed it's original culture. The people are incredibly friendly. In Luang Prabang the night market is fantastic. It's so relaxed and quiet and there's no pushiness from the sellers, you just drift along with the crowd through it's stalls lit by hanging bare single bulbs, it's so cool!!! And the stalls are filled with so much stuff you could spend your entire budget on presents! The country is a bit behind with the times though catching up quickly, our new guidebook said there was only one international ATM in the country in Vientiene but now there's one also in Luang Prabang though it only accepts Mastercard so not much good to us, good thing we brought enough with us!! The currency is hillarious, everywhere takes USD, Thai Baht and Lao Kip, there are about 10,000 kip to the dollar so when we exchanged I literally had an inch thick wad of notes, COOL!!! It does get confusing though cos you forget how many noughts you're dealing with...
Anyway we arrived in the middle of Pai Mai New Year, the water festival, which is still going on outside 3 days later!!! From 12 midday to almost sundown if you step outside your house you get soaked from head to toe with water by eveybody with a spare hand, which is why we had to arm ourselves with supersoakers!! It's brilliant fun, though you have to avoid the oil gangs, lots of people either rub the soot from burnt pots and pans or the inside of car exhausts all over their hands and rub it all over your face if possible or anywhere else if not. Then there's the talcum powder gangs, self explanatory, and the dye gangs, I now have pink combats.... And it's non-stop, you just can't go out if you want to stay dry, and why would you, it's just too much fun!!!!! :-) Thank you Irish skin, I got scalded! And after a week on antibiotics, D n' V free. All is well in the world.
So next stop is Luang Nam Tha hopefully for some trekking, though it's a bit off the beaten track and we have no idea how much it costs, sounds good to me! So if we're never heard from again, go to Laos (or don't go cos it's nice the way it is)! Cya.