We started off our 9 hour journey to Luang Prabang, well I was told it was 9. Apparently that's just according to the travel agent that sold me the ticket. Everyone else got told 11 hours, which in the end was right. We pulled into the bus station and there was local buses everywhere, my heart sunk, I thought I was going to be making Sooz get on a local bus as her first Asian travel experience. Luckily there was a coach hidden in between them. Although it wasn't much better, I think it's safe to say that we had the worst seats available. Ended up on the back row, which invariably means; it's hotter, the seats don't recline and you get chucked around more. And that's exactly what happened. To add to that, we was on mountain edge winding roads, for around 6 hours of the journey, no exaggeration. I was in my normal terrified state, gawking out the window at the cliff edge and how close we was, especially when our crazy drivers were over taking people, including a flammable gas lorry..! Also just to add a little fun to the mix, there was bush fires all around us due to the heat, it actually felt like the road to hell. The only thing keeping me distracted was the mountain territory opposite us, really scenic and beautiful. It was huge mounds then shear drops of limestone rock, it went on for miles and miles, up and down up and down. There was only two other westerners on the bus so the locals were quite interested in Sooz and I, staring a bit but they were very sweet, even shared their food with us. They gave us a little yellow plum each, owww, the sourest little things, even the locals were screwing up their faces as they ate them. Sooz manned up and ate the whole thing but I bailed half way through and stashed it in my bag. Finally we made it to LP, we walked around for a silly amount of time trying to find a cheap enough dorm room that had availability. After a while we gave up and settled for a more expensive twin room for one night. A friend had recommended we go to Utopia bar so we headed to the market, grabbed some food to go and walked to the bar, it was a cool set up there, very chilled, big cushions and seats with lanterns in the trees and candles on the tables. It was situated right on the side of the Namkhan river. We managed to squeeze in few drinks before the 11pm Laos curfew, probably a good thing it closed because we was exhausted. Midnight doesn't really consist of an early night but it was a sleep much needed.

The next morning we had snoozed the alarm to many times and it turned itself off, annoyingly we slept in until 10am. Once dragging myself out of bed, I ran across the street to a hostel we had tried yesterday and luckily they had beds in their dorm room available now. We moved our stuff over, grabbed a breakfast baguette from the market and rented some bikes for the day. I had previously chosen a few temples in my lonely planet book that I wanted to visit so we cycled to the first one. It was called Wat Xieng Thong, and is described as the jewel in the crown of Luang Prabang's temples built in 1560. It was very impressive, amazing detail down to the very last tile laid and the last sweep of the paint brush. There were four different temples in the grounds, all very different in their own right; off course I have a million and one photos.The next temple we cycled to was a bit more of a challenge. 100 metre high Phu Si justifies the heady climb to its summit with serene views of Luang Prabang. 'That Chomsi', the temple at the summit is backed by a small cave shrine and the site of a Buddha foodprint. It was really cool, I enjoyed going to this one alot. Plus it just goes to show that when people say "once you've been to one temple, you've been to them all" it really isn't correct. Afterwards we went to an outdoor swimming pool that we heard about from some other backpackers, it was 4pm at this point so there wasn't any sun but it was refreshing to cool down in the water. That evening we made friends with a girl in my dorm called Idalina, us three went for dinner in the night market and got talking to two other girls from New Zealand, Anna and Casie. We suggested everyone go to Utopia bar for a couple of drinks, Anna and Casie knew some people in there so we hung out with them. The 11pm curfew kicked in and it was closing time, the only place kept open past 11pm in LP is (strangely enough) the local bowling alley. Rumour has it that it's run by the Laos mafia and that's why it's allowed open but who knows. We all hopped in tuk tuks and went to check it out. It really was a late night bowling alley, crowds of people huddling around the 10 or so lanes, pairing up for group competitions. Our group was overflowing some what so Sooz, Idalina and I went as a trio. I managed two strikes in the end, who'da thought it after some BeerLaos. I was soon clutching my bottle of water though as my head started to spin a little under the florescent lights.

The next day, we had arranged for us five girls to meet up again and visit the Kuang si waterfall and the blue lagoon. We were all feeling a bit fuzzy from the bowling alley antics so we grabbed a bagel and tuk tuk'ed our way there. After travelling 50 minutes down a bumpy dusty road, we arrived. Poor Sooz was quite ill, we think its from the street food the night before and that tuk tuk journey just made her feel a hell of alot worse. On the walk through to the waterfall, we came across a bear sanctuary, a very random place with approx 8 black bears in an enclosure. Exciting to see, I'd never been that close to bears before! They had big tyre swings to play in and bathing pools too, it looked like a big bear adventure playground. Finally done oo'ing and aw'ing at the furry guys, we carried on the wander to the blue lagoon. It was beautiful and relatively empty due to it still being quite early in the day, which was nice. A quick understanding to why it was called the blue lagoon. The water was bright turquoise, gleaming in the sun, with people making a splash, jumping off the rope swings. We quickly got in the iced cold water, it wasn't to bad once you got in but we had to keep moving to stay warm. Plus there was those spa fish that eat your skin swimming around, nipping at our bodies. It was ticklish at first but then they got a bit carried away and started jabbing us. On the way out of the lagoon, Sooz pointed at my chest with a shocked look on her face and her mouth open, but no words coming out. Turns out there was a leach on me. You can imagine how frantically I was slapping my chest trying to get the b***** off. We carried on walking the wooded pathway running parallel to the stream up towards the waterfall and I can say it was one of the biggest waterfalls I've ever seen. It was intertwining through the trees, dropping from different levels and the noise of the water crashing to the ground was so loud. I didn't put my camera down for a very long time haha. That afternoon we went back to a swimming pool and had some down time because we was all exhausted, definitely needed a little relax after our recent non stop days of travelling and being on the go. Later in the evening we went out to the night market to shop for some little bits and grab some street food. Sooz still hadn't been feeling well all day and we had previously put it down to being hungover/food and water not agreeing with her but then by around 11pm I was starting to feel worse and worse. Safe to say I didn't sleep much that night, I was not well. A 4am Skype call to my mum made me feel better and calmed me down a little, which was nice.

7am alarm went off, yep you guessed it, time for the next bus. We were getting a bus to Vang Vieng to meet Kate and Liv, it was a 5 hour journey on a mini bus so we had to man up and get on with it, plastic bags at the ready. After those frightening windy roads, we made it. Safe in sound in the tubing town of Vang Vieng.