Luang Probang and Hanoi

I rode an Elephant today! I actually rode it. The Mahout,the word for elephant trainer, let me sit on the elephant. Linneah and I begain our journey both sitting in the basket on the elephants back. (Just like royality, hahaha) Then I think the trainer just wanted to put the moves on linneah so he went and sat with her and let me ride the elephants ears. It is not as easy as it looks. There is nothing to hold on to so you have to balance with you legs. Also, there skin is not soft, they have lots of little black hairs that are not excatly soft. I had a great time. Linneah and I both can't belive that I didn't fall off the elephant. I am however very sore from my elephant riding experiance. Walking the next day was a little painful. After our morning elephant riding we went to the waterfalls in Luang Prabang.We went to the Kuang Si waterfalls. The was awesome, the water is a beautiful blue color and there are tons of swimming pools as you go from fall to fall. There were about 7 diffrent levels of the falls. Linneah and I had to go all the way to the top of falls. Unfortually the top, really wasn't that impress. The visibility was very low so the view was amazing but we couldn't see that far. And you can't see down the falls that well. It turns out there was a sign that pointed to a cave with spring water. So linneah and another guy from our tour that had also climbed to the top of falls all walked to the cave with spring water. The walk was a 3k, whichi we all thought we could do and make it back for our shuttle back to town. It turns out 3k in the heat on a windy road is a lot longer then you would think. We went ahead with our quest to find the cave even though we would be late for our shuttle back. The cave was worth it. So much better then the one in Vang Vieng. There was no graffiti. It was so nice. There were also a lot of hidden buddahs in it. I deemed the cave, "Cave of many buddah" since the name was just cave with sping water before. We didn't go to the spring water portion of the cave becuase we didn't want to push our luck with a ride. so we high tailed it back to town only to discover we had to wait another 2 hours untill someone would take us back into town. So we made the most of the situation and went swimming in the falls and then had a beer and people watched. Another great day in my book.
The following day we woke up early to check out of the room and to go to a morning cooking class before our afternoon flight to Hanoi. We took the class at Tum Tum's with another couple. It turns out there wasn't much cooking in the cooking class. According to our teacher it takes too much time to prepare the food it is faster to cook. So really what we did was take all the ingrediants and stir. We were able practice cutting the food. and there was a lot of learning. Our Su chef took us to the market where they showed us all the diffrent fruits, vegtables, spices, fish, meat ect. It was definatly an experiance. Then we went back to the restraunt and they had us practice how to fan a cucumber and make a tomato flower out of a plum tomato. They are gave us a nice lecture on Loas food and culture. Then we got to practice cutting some of spices like; ginger, garlic, galanga, lemon grass and shallot. However becuase our cutting technics weren't that good they didn't even use the food we cut up to cook with it. a waste in my oppnion.Then we learned how to make lemongrass catfish wrapped in palm leaf. They showed us how to make sticky rice. Then we all got to stir our diffrent meals. I make coconut lemon grass soup with chicken. Linneah make tofu curry, and the other dish was lemon grass chicken. We had also all purcased a jack fruit in the market so the chef made us jackfruit pork soup. All the dishes were delishious. Then we got to feast on what we had all made. I am an excellent stirrer. Also I learned that you are supposed to eat sticky rice with your fingers in Loas but in Vietnam they eat sticky rice with chop sticks. Then we ran to the airport to catch our flight to Hanoi. Which ended up being later then we had though so we sat at the airport for lot longer then expected. The airport was not big, it was a little hard to entertain ourselves but we made it through.
Then we landed in Hanoi and jumped in cab. The cab took us to the wrong place and charged us double for it. STUPID CAB. So we had to refigure out where we needed to go and found a better cab to take us to the travel agency. Here we booked a icket on the overnight train up to Sappa. So we quickly ate diner and then the travel agent wisked us to the train station so we could jump on the over night train to Sappa. This was a new experiance for both Linneah and I, we had never slept on a train before. We were in a soft sleeper that we shared with a german couple. The room you get is a set of bunk beds that are about half the size of a twin bed, with a little pillow and a blanket. But don't worry the car has A/C so its considered a luxury. I decided that the only way the experiance was going to be enjoyable for me and allow me to be functional the next day was if I took a sleeping pill. It was an excellent idea and I plan on doing the same for the way back.
We arrived in Loi Cai at 5am and then were hearded on to a bus that took the hour drive up to Sappa.

(no spell check I am very sorry)