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A mini summary since Luang Prabang: We had a full free day in Luang Prabang which is the day I called and spent a ton of time uploading photos. The next day we took songtaos out to a beautiful waterfall where we had a picnic lunch and climbed to the top of the waterfall to swim in the water just above it. The following day we flew into Hanoi and hung out in the Old Quarter until we had dinner at Bar 69 and took our bus to the train station to board the night train to Lao… Read more

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Look out for our New Zealand volunteer conservation trip in the November edition of National Geographic Adventure Magazine. The trip was chosen as one of the top 25 new trips in the world! Read more

Sabaidee from Luang Prabang, Laos! The group has arrived from three days of remote river travel in the north western part of the country. We traveled the muddy waters of the Nam Tha River for a day and a half, slept overnight in our boat driver's village, and then joined up with the mighty Mekong River to bring us all the way to the town of Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang has a population of approximately 50,000 people within city limits. The town was given UNESCO Worl… Read more

Ok, a fast and gritty summation of our recent travels and experiences unfolds below: Upon arriving in Luang Nam Tha in Loas we checked into a guest house, and crossed the street to enjoy food at a night market. I had a "chicken salad" which consisted of a halved chicken head, a partially developed embryo, some bits of neck, liver, stomach, and feet. Yuuuum. The following day we set off trekking in the Nam Ha river valley. Muddy trails led up the side of hills mottle… Read more

October 11: Today we started our two day trekking trip in the Nam Ha area. We left from the Boat Landing Guesthouse after breakfast. My group was doing the Nam Ha Valley Trek. We drove 15 minutes by songtao to the village of Ban Nam Lue where we started our trek. We hiked for about 3 hours, mostly uphill, to the ridge dividing the two villages land. Some parts of the trail were pretty muddy but overall not bad. We met a local woman along the trail with a huge bag of supp… Read more

I go out of my way to find the interesting, bizarre and tasty... which is odd for a Wisconsinite, no offence to us, or our cooking styles. But the only thing is culinarily (I think I made that word up) sophisticated is the cheese, I wish I was lying, but my staple foods are meat and potatoes (cheese is its own category), with salt, and maybe, if the chef is adventourous, pepper. Our beer is cheap (shout out to Milwaukees Best and Schlitz!!!) and the remaining food consis… Read more

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Let's see, where did I leave off? On Oct 6, we had an early breakfast and then walked over to the Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures office where we were outfitted with climbing gear and loaded into songtaos for the 30 minute drive out to Crazy Horse Canyon. When we arrived we split into two groups (I was on Team Ahoy Ca-toi or Hello Ladyboy!!). My groups first activity was a casual walk through a couple of large caves including an introduction to cave formation. Then w… Read more