just a short one as i'm feeling very hung over at the moment. This first part was actually written yesterday, thats how far i got before i had to rush back to my guest house with a very bad hang over!

WE took a local bus to the border of Thailand and Laos, slightly different to the local buses we are used to. We were supplied with wet wipes to freshen up with, snack and water! We were slightly worried as we had been told in many of the tourist places that you can not get visas after 3:00pm but of course they are lying so that you take their tour. We crossed the border and the river no problem and the visa was a lot cheaper then we were told it was by these same tour people. We found an ok guest house and went out for some food as the sun was setting over the river. I have never seen so many sun sets in my life and maybe when I'm back the pictures might bore me but I am nowhere near bored of them yet. We met a really nice bloke called Matt on the way who is traveling for a while on his own so he has kind of joined us for this part of our journey.We got our boat in the morning which will take us down the Mekong river for two days stopping off over night to Luang prabang.It was packed full of tourists and locals, this is the squashed journey I am used to. Actually it was quite comfortable after I had decided that ok it won't sink. We stopped off in half way in Pak Bang or something like that which was basically a street full of guest houses and restaurants, electricity went out at 11;00 and was candle light from then on. I feel very sorry for some of the people on the boat the next day who said that they paid for air conditioning rooms not knowing the generators would all turn off at 10;00pm in some places.We had an interesting night, drinking and chatting to some of the locals staying at our hotel.

The next morning the boat took us to luang prabang arriving in the evening. We were pretty tired so had a fairly early night.Luang Prabang is probably one of the most beautiful villages I have ever been to in my life. There is a massive French influence with palm trees at a peninsular where two rivers meet. We took some local bicycles out the first day to explore, it was absolutely beautiful. We got very wet too as it is approaching the New Year and they have massive water fights everywhere. It was really nice to be cooled down by children throwing buckets of water over me and spraying me with water pistols or hoses. That evening we had a few drinks and took the party back to the guest house which has a lovely balcony. Yesterday we visited another waterfall which I'm not yet getting bored of doing either. This one was a bit more exciting.After we had walked or climbed up to the top and back down we headed to the clear lagoons where you can swim. In one of them there was a rope swing and a deep area where you could jump off the water fall, I loved it but we only had a couple of hours before heading back into town.

There is a night market here every night which has everything laid out on the floor and little light bulbs hanging down.There are so many gifts that I want to buy people and send home. Today has been quite chilled out but lots of water throwing, can get a bit annoying when you have valuables on them. We walked up to a lovely view point and saw some budha's and their footprints. I took some time out and sat down by the river to write my journal while Danielle and Emily did their little circuit in their rooms which they have been doing to keep fit, Annie also does running so i am feeling quite unfit. i did meet a little lao man earlier who said that he used to coach john macenroe so maybe he will give me a game of tennis.

We are leaving tomorrow after staying an extra day than planned to get to Vang Vien which is very well known for its pub crawl tubing events down the river. Lots more jumps ant rope swings for me to take part in too, can't wait.