We left Pai at 9am and travelled through the hills of Northern Thailand, overnight for 7 hours in a minivan to Chiang Khong.We were literally dumped at a random hostel at 4am and were stranded there as it was pitch black so we had no idea which way to go for the Mekong River crossing.The hostel owner was not very happy with us because we would not buy his overpriced slow boat ticket, so we curled up on some benches to try and get a few more hours sleep and wait for sunrise!

Sunrise came and the hostel man was much happier with us because we agreed to buy breakfast at his hostel in return for a free ride to the Mekong River Crossing.From there we left Thailand and caught a little boat for the short journey across the Mekong River to Huay Xai in Laos.After hectic border crossing, visa getting, money exchanging formalities we were finally chilling out on the Slow Boat for our two day journey along the Mekong to Luang Prabang.

We managed to get a good spot sat on the floor, which meant we could spread out (within reason!) and even have a bit of a sleep.The Slow Boat was completely full people sat everywhere and still more and more people got on, it was amazing it did not sink just from the weight of people and their luggage!

The first day we cruised down the Mekong for 6 hours.The scenery was stunning.There were sand and rock banks along the river which then climbed steeply up to very dramatic mountains covered in trees.Apart from the scenery we did not see much else today apart from the odd other boat heading in the opposite direction or a speedboat that would go flying past us, they looked very dangerous!

We arrived in Pak Beng, a little village at the half way point of our journey.We spent the night here in a lovely little hostel overlooking the Mekong.The woman who ran the hostel was so happy to see us, most people buy their accommodation in advance and stay in the big hotels there.We were glad we waited and gave our money directly to a local.It was full moon tonight, so we thought of all those people who would be raving it up in Koh Pa-Ngan.We on the other hand were in bed by 10pm because that was when they turned all the generators off so it was lights out whether we liked it or not!

We left Pak Beng the next morning but we would have liked to stay in Pak Beng for another day to explore it more.We would definitely advise anyone doing this trip to just buy the ticket to Pak Beng and then to Luang Prabang separately as we had to leave straight away due to our ticket!

Back on the boat for a further 8 hours today until we reached Luang Prabang, we made sure we were on the boat early this morning to ensure a good spot again!There was much more life along the Mekong today as we passed little villages built on the banks of the river, animals bathing in the water, children playing and splashing around and many more local boats as well as the tourist boats shipping us all along.

We arrived in Luang Prabang with pretty numb bottoms but a sense that we had seen a part of Laos that we definitely would not have seen by bus! Travelling by boat is so much more fun and has made a nice change. Laos already seems so relaxing and chilled out and the people are so friendly compared to Thailand, I think we are going to love it here!

Lots of Love to everyone

Sarah and Andrew xxx