no injuries, but i did lose a soldier

here's my plane to laos (pronounced 'lao', btw).
this airline is known for crashing into the mountains and guide books recommend not taking it if the weather is bad. but it was cheap, which did you think i was gonna take?

those of you who have been to my house know why i'm jealous.... look at that beautiful antenna stand!?!?

sunset in luang prabang (laos).

15 grand for gas. expensive? actually no, it's less than $2 a gallon. the smallest bill (kip) i saw in LAOs was a '1000'.

i hung out w/ some super fun brits for a few days. here's us at the bottom of a waterfall.

here's me at the top of the waterfall at the edge.

here's one of the few pictures i took from the top of the waterfall. you can see that bridge that was pictured earlier in the upper left.

and here you thought monks never left the temple... i missed it, but after I left, they were jumping off of one of the smaller falls in their robes. that would hilarious to see...

i joined up w/ 2 americans to do a 2 day trek in the mountains. on the way up, we saw a body floating in the water....

but don't worry, he was alive and was merely fishing!!! me so funny. at the village, kids didn't have a wii, so they chased goats around.

and when chasing goats got tiring, they threw flip-flops at a stick in the ground. speaking of flip flops, did you read the story about john mcc.... oh never mind...

tired kiddo chased too many goats & threw too many flip-flops in one day...

smoking opium... or sucking on sugar cane.... actually, I was offered opium a couple times a day when I was in luang prabang. Alas, I didn't partake.

sean having fun w/ the kids.

our guide spent 3 hours preparing this kick ass meal. though the locals just pretty much ate lettuce soup. they fed all their corn to the farm animals.

if rob radke were travelling with me, i wouldn't have to take pictures of naked kids to get the appropriate amount of nudity in my pictures, but he's not.

here's me leaving the village posing like i own the place or just built it. all i managed to do was improving my squatting techniques. Squatting, you ask? oh what the hell, i'll just tell you my diarrhea story. so the anti-malarial pills are kind of rough of people's bodies and it gave me the runs. the guide didn't want me to wander around the town in the middle of the night alone. (oh, did i mention there are NO toilets?) so he walks me to my spot where i'll be doing my business. i don't know about any of you, but i like my privacy when i'm taking a dump, especially if you got the runs. but the guide was standing like 10 feet away from me just around bush. needless to say, when you got the runs, things don't come out totally silent. so i finished up and the guide so, "oh, are you sick? your stomach is ok?" i'm thinking, "DUDE! i don't want to talk about my bowels!" nonetheless, we proceeded to talk about the effects of anti-malarial pills. be thankful this is the picture i'm posting after this story. it could have been way worse. :)

i don't care what you say about my manly umbrella, the shade was nice & cool.

here's me mounting an elephant while it takes a leak.

here's a tour billed as "learn how to clean & train elephants". so the first step is to clean the mofo. when you think about it, it's quite brilliant. what do you do when you don't want to do all of your work? that's right. have a tourist PAY YOU to do YOUR WORK for you. alas, i had fun doing it. But just this once...

for 'training' portion of the tour, we learned how to give basic directional instructions. i refused to tell my elephant what to do figuring she ought to walk where she wanted. the end result was that my elephant spent of lot of time eating brush and holding up the group....

I headed to this town of “vang vieng” where the main attraction is tubing. This is like chris geirman's tubing trips except you make one run all day and you stop at many bars along the way. if my name were sarah palin, i'd claim this tubing time was a reason i'm experienced in foreign relations...

At one of the bars, they have a volleyball court/pit. What ends up happening is there's a ball that occasionally gets hit over the net and we just throw mud at each other. everyone wins and loses.

Post v-ball shot.

Most bars come with swings too. Yes, it really is that high. And unfortunately, I lost my camera somewhere along the river after this bar. My money and sunscreen stayed in my pocket, but these swings took the life of my poor trusty camera. I only lost a days worth of tubing pictures, so it's not the end of the world. Especially since I went tubing again the next day and just got pictures from other people. Several people spent a whole week tubing. Honestly, I can see why. This was sooooo much fun.

We used a quick shot camera to record my failed double back flip attempt. I did, to my credit, make it around 1 & ¾ times though. So close...

when you buy a bucket of alcohol (which was totally common), this bar gives you a free joint. They also pretty much require you to do a free shot when you walk in. but you aren't alone, that woman in the background giving away the shots takes several herself. I really don't know how she stays standing.

talk of diarrhea, elephants taking a leak, fake dead bodies, tubing insanity.... another normal blog entry, I suppose. I'm now headed to vietnam for 10ish days. Probably about time I start reading about where i'm going... and if you haven't noticed, i highly recommend going to laos! it's brilliant!

hope everyone is well!