Catch Up Time!!

Hi everyone, firstly - we are a little behind with the blog and since the last entry, we have moved from Chiang Kong (in Thailand) by small ferry to Huay Xai (in Laos), then took a slow boat (two days) from here to Luang Prabang! After spending a few days there we took a bus to Vang Vieng (where we are now!).

Sorry guys, we will try to update you now! Also, we have started to compress our pictures as they take ages to upload so they may look a little patchy sometimes.

Ok here we go...

Chiang Kong is home to some of the biggest cat fish in the world so Steve was a little disappointed we weren't staying to do some fishing, apparently they reach 3 metres long and sell for ridiculous sums of money in Bangkok! We were only here for a one night stop over from Chiang Mai on our journey to the Thai border for our crossing. The place we stayed in overlooked the Mekong River and we could see the Laos river bank from our room! The distance seemed so small that we were contemplating taking a swim to the other side!

We had a nice meal at our guesthouse overlooking the river and got an early night for the journey the following day.

Our journey started in a pickup truck to customs at the ferry crossing. We boarded a ferry and within 5 minutes were at customs in Laos. After sorting our visas we bought a 'slow boat' ticket to Luang Prabang and jumped on another pickup truck! When we arrived at the riverside and saw the slow boat we couldn't believe that we would have to spend two days sitting on a plank of wood with another plank of wood as a backrest! Luckily we'd met another English couple (Emily and Kev - who we later found out were actually on the same flight to Bangkok as us!) and passed time the first day by playing cards.
The scenery on the banks of the Mekong through the mountains was amazing and made our first 7 hour journey on a plank of wood seem worthwhile (even if we did have purple bruises on our backsides!). We stopped for a night in a small town call Pak Beng - the only power our guest house had was from a generator that is only turned on at night! Again, we ate dinner on the riverside and admired the scenery before catching an early night (it was pitch black anyhow and the power kept cutting off!).

The following day we endured another 9 hours on a different boat but with smaller planks to sit on which was probably the most uncomfortable journey we have every had. This was especially annoying when we saw speed boats dashing past doing the whole journey in 6 hours! Needless to say, the mood had dropped and everyone on the busy boat looked fed up - especially when the boat ran out of drinking water in the 40 degree heat!

We finally arrived in Luang Prabang at about 6:30pm and were overjoyed to put our feet on dry ground. We followed a young boy and his father to their family guest house and spent a couple of nights here.

From our short stay in the family home we noticed how kind and genuine Laos people are. We had a chat with a teenager in the family and were offered free bananas, drinking water and some of their famous Laos coffee!

Luang Prabang is a small city which would probably be considered a small town in England! It sits on the Mekong river and has great views from the river of the surrounding area. We found plenty to do around the city including a visit to the scenic waterfall Tat Kuang Si and spent the day swimming and diving in the clear blue water! This is a national park and also home to a number of black bears that were saved by the authorities after their mother was killed by a poacher. They also have a tiger saved from a similar situation!

The following day we hired bicycles to explore the city however, shortly after leaving the main town and crossing a small bridge, the chain broke on Steve's bike and he ended up skidding across the floor with the bike on top of him! We patched up the grazes, fixed the bike and headed back to the guest house to clean up!

Later that day we hooked up with Emily and Kev for a few drinks and had some dinner.

Our final excursion in Luang Prabang was to see some small caves on the river which contains Buddha statues. On our journey from the caves we stopped off at a small whiskey village where they produce the famous rice wine 'Lao Lao', however after sampling this in a bar the night before we didn't feel inclined to buy any! Steve didn't want to taste any at all at the village even though the rest of us were brave enough.. but he soon gave in when i threatened to tell everyone back home!

We booked a bus for the next day to head Vang Vieng at 10am and after watching the FA cup final in a local bar (penalties finished at midnight!) went to bed.

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