We woke & got ready for our travel day. I ducked up to the bakery to grab some breaky for us & returned to find Jac ready to go. Our ride arrived to take us to the bus station where we had a half hour wait before we were away. We had the front 2 seats on a VIP bus but VIP doesn't really mean the same here as it would in Oz. The bus was full but they kept loading people on. So where do you put people when all the seats are full? On little plastic stools in...

It was very hot today. When we left to get some lunch we were greeted by a 35 degs sticky day, although it felt more like a 40 degree day. We went to one of one of the cafes on the rivers edge to have a feed in the shade. It was too hot at this stage to see the sites so we returned to the a/c room & watched some AFL on TV. As the afternoon approached the cloud cover came & the rain hit. It cooled the air enough so we hired some bikes to ride around & ...

After 3 travel days it was nice to have a sleep in. About lunchtime we headed for some crepes then decided we needed to do some sightseeing. The rain was falling pretty hard & our umbrella wasn't really cutting it. We have a small umbrella which is pointless trying to share. That results in Jac being undercover & me walking in the rain. We checked out a few travel agencies before finding one we liked, well the price we liked. We booked our next bus journe...

After a good sleep we ate, grabbed some sandwiches & wandered down to the boat to stow our bags. Thankfully there were 2 boats today & an old Aussie guy was directing all the morons onto the other boat. As a result we were in for a peaceful boat ride, just as most of us had planned. It was another beautiful trip but this time the peace just added to the experience. Nothing but the soft chatter of the passengers & the hum of the diesel engine to be hea...

We were up early as we wanted to make sure we got on the slow boat up the Mekong. It is a well trodden path & has been used for many years, so we knew that it may be pretty popular. We walked to the other end of town & were at passport control by 7.30am. Shame they didn't open until 8. We sat & waited & when the time came got stamped out of Thailand. We caught a longboat across the river & as easy as that had arrived in Laos. We were first aga...