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“Where are you going to spend Christmas and New Years?” - it's a question that when travelling at this time of year everyone is asking and asked. After the exhausting Muay Thai training in Chang Mai, two days do nothing on a very slow boat meandering down the very slow Mekong River into laid back Laos and to Luang Prabang really appealed to me. The slow boat lived up to it's reputation, it was slow, but fun, mainly because of the company and new friends I made. You get a lot of time to chat when spending two days on a boat.

Day one, river, limestone hills and cliffs, and a stop at a small riverside village that I won't remember the name of. A hundred small children ran out to the boat to greet the passengers off the boat, and a handful of stall holders sold Beerlao (Laos' famous high quality beer) and snacks. The children sold nothing, they came down for the daily gawk at the funny foreigners. We walked up into the village and looked around, pigs, chickens, small scrawny dogs, reed shacks and huts and lots of kids. I thought the kids would see enough tourists that the digital camera would hold no excitement but gave it a try anyway... they loved it and played around, clambering over each other and me to get a look at the screen and laugh at their friends. The highlight of the river trip for me.

The slow boat was nice, had frilly curtains, comfortable seats, a dining table and lots of room. It wasn't until we got to Pak Beng and the overnight stop in the rat infested guesthouses that I realised I'd been lucky, we'd been put on a VIP boat with slow boat tickets, over travellers we met had had a much less comfortable experience on overcrowd boats with only wooden benches.

Day two, a stop at a cave crammed full of small Buddha statues and more meandering down to Luang Prabang.

Day three, I got sick. I succumbed to a cold and in the dusty smoky atmosphere of Luang Prabang it just kept getting worse, I thought it might be flu, could be worse maybe even bird flu, chickens are everywhere in Asia and I might even be the first farang to get the disease... famous for my last 15 minutes? I sneezed and coughed my way through the Christmas build up, wheezed up to the temple at the top of the hill in Central Luang Prabang, and eventually decided that watching movies was about all I was good for.

With my new friends from the slow boat; Ian, Dave, Mel, Wolfgang and Barbara - I visited the Hive Bar, learned to play Texas Holdem (poker which we played with rice for very high stakes - fifty thousand kip no less!), watched movies and found Christmas dinner with turkey and roast potatoes.

My only excursion was a trip to the Kangsi waterfalls, a day wandering around with a tripod and my camera trying to get that perfect silk like water dripping over rocks shot.

I spent Christmas day wandering around Luang Prabang camera in hand, and the evening in the Hive Bar sneezing. Boxing day - I chose to travel on to Vang Vieng. Happy Holly Days Everyone, I hope you were able to find whatever you hoped to find during this festive time.

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