The months of April to May are known in Thailand/Laos/Cambodia and Vietnam as the Hot and Dry season, so why, I wanted to know, is it raining constantly and why has the temperature dropped from 40 degrees to 15! I was not prepared for this. It started on the morning when we gave food to the monks. We woke up and it was like an typical English day. Grey, overcast, cold and raining. We just thought, its fine it will only last the morning. When we came back from the monks we were dripping wet though and with me at that point in time I only had flip-flops so my feet were extremely cold and complaining. Still we went for breakfast and went to see a temple and it still didn't stop. I went from two pairs of flip-flops to one pair as one of them actually fell apart. No lie, the sole of the show fell off! Still I had another pair so one they went. My feet weren't too best pleased receiving another pair of flip-flops though instead of some warm socks and trainers but they had to suffer along with me and my lack of jumper. We were then taken into the jungley type area to another hotel were were staying. Once there, it cleared up a little and stopped raining. Sorted. The proper weather would be back tomorrow ready for our elephant ride.
The next morning arrived and it was FREEZING! And raining and grey. Still, we persevered and went to go elephant riding. When we turned up at the place we received a few laughs and chuckles from the people who worked their. We soon discovered that it was because we had been booked in for trekking through the jungle as well and we were all just wearing the good old flip-flops. Myself and Clem had some better shoes back at the hotel but we couldn't go back unfortunately. Instead we went trekking in the jungle wearing flip-flops.
To start with we went on the elephants for an hour and a half. To start with we were just on the seats but near the end we were allowed to sit on the neck behind the ears where the guide usually sits. It was immense! I nearly got thrown off a couple of times when our elephant (Sun) turned her head too quickly for some food but I managed to balance and hold on. The only problem I had was getting off. When we finished, I was still on the neck and she had put her ears against my body basically trapping my legs.
The Laos guides were all telling me to get off and couldn't understand that I couldn't as I couldn't move my leg! Eventually they realised the problem and helped me free. Now for the trekking! I think they though that we would fail miserably and take ages and need a lot of help. We surprised them! Trekking in flip-flops, easy! The only problem was that my feet and shoes got very wet and muddy and while my shoes found grip when walking up a hill, my feet just slid out.It was quite entertaining. Clem took her flip-flops off and did half of the walk barefoot.
We needed no help at all and were sometimes faster than the guide. At one point I was at the front of the line and guide was at the back. During all this time though, it was raining and cold although the trees sheltered us and the walking warmed us up. When we finished and got back to the hotel, we had warm showers and them huddled in the bed for warmth. To start with I was just on my laptop but as time went on, the cold made my hand really stiff so I had to stop and I was then so cold that I went totally under the covers. Even they couldn't keep us warm. We could hear the rain outside and we were lying there our teeth chattering not being able to understand how it was so cold. It wasn't even this cold in the cold season. It was like we had been thrown into English winter without any heating or warm clothing. We went to dinner with blankets and once we were finished, got straight back into bed. I guess that this was caused by the problems in Japan which somehow affected the weather here but I'm not sure but nothing else makes sense. You would have thought that it stopped there? Well you are wrong.
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