Just about getting to grips with the money here; I feel like a human bureau du change. There are 12,000 kip to a pound; you go out feeling flush with 200,000 kip and find you have spent it all and need to change a $20 for the next day. You can pay in kip, baht or dollars everywhere and get change in a different currency than you paid, sooo confusing. You question a couple of thousand kip on a bill only to remember its 15p!

Today is Christmas day and we wanted to do something different to England so we booked a trip which consisted of a two and a half hours elephant riding, a visit to the sacred Buddha filled Pak Ou caves (not fab), a brief walk through a village and a lovely boat ride down the Mekong back to Luang Prabang. We travelled along very dusty and bumpy roads for an hour or so before arriving at the Elephant camp based beside the Mekong river. We rode bare-back on the neck through thick vegetation and also into the river where we helped bath our elephant which included a spot of elephant surfing. I was saved from falling off our elephant into the river by David; scary moment. We met some really nice people on the trip where we all exchanged useful information on the way back to LP.

On our return and desperate to iron our clothes I am eventually shown the iron after miming the art of ironing and being given a scrubbing brush by mistake. As you can read I live to tell the tale as the iron crackled and sparked throughout.

Mrs V very kindly supplies a huge range of odd looking tea, Ovaltine and coffees. However, on close inspection I notice that the Nescafe is dated 2008 so we give it a miss and opt for Ovaltine instead which we haven't had since childhood. As it's so cold it goes down a treat.

That evening was really cold and as it was Christmas we felt like having something warming and typically English so we went for a curry. However, we refrained from having a desert of sticky rice and banana as the night before it came served up with a garnish of tomato, lettuce and cucumber? delicious all the same.

Unfortunately this is our last night in Laos we've had an amazing time here and recommend it to all. The people are so gentle and lovely and the pace of life is so serene that we got caught up in it's magic.