Trek (Day three)

That night the temperature dropped to -837 degrees, (seriously), in our communal hut but thanks to the miracle of Doctor Lee's wonderful sedatives and the fairly hefty walk we all slept much sounder.
Today was rafting day! The guides had spent the morning knocking up a bamboo raft or two for us to travel down the river on. And trust me they were as basic as they sound. Bamboo lashed together with twisted vine-like leaves, it was excellent. Ethan & I had to go at the back with our sticks to help steer the damn thing whilst Lucky 'drove'from the front. Beth & Rachel got the easy job of balancing in the middle and comparing serious issues such as damaged nails and yelling helpfull comments back at us such as "Left. Right. No, RIGHT!" [This is not true, if it wasn't for our balancing skills, the raft would have gone over due to some desperately bad steering down the back end of the boat. BD] Ethan & I lost our poles a few times but managed to get 'em back 'cos were true woodsmen and old hand at this boat/raft game.
Anyhow, the banter was great and we entered into a kind of race with the other raft whilst splashing one-another in a terribly grown up fashion which resulted in Soa boarding our raft to annoy us but Ethan got the upper hand and pushed him in. Hee-hee. See, not juvenile at all.
Eventually we got to the lunch spot utterly knackered and in need of a beer before we took the hour+ long trip back to civilisation. We stopped off along the way at a funky little butterfly/orchid farm. Which was nice. I can see why people become obsessed with orchids and spend their whole lives in search of rarer and rarer species, they're beautiful.
We'd found out that Racel & Ethan were getting the flight to Luang Prabang with us a couple of days later so we exchanged numbers and organised a big ol'Mexican dinner the following night with the rest of the group.