Well yesterday we sailed up the Northern Mekong from Luang Prabang to Pak Beng, a small village/town in the middle of nowhere on the bank's of the River Mekong. We plan to try to get to the border crossing near Meung Ngeun about 40 km away, but the bus service, if there is one, is on Laos time, which means it goes if enough people arrive to fill it up. Worse case scenario is we get to stay another night in Pak Beng and then have to take the next slow boat up towards Chang Mai. We would rather not do this as we are heading for Uttradit in Thailand which is south of here.

Well we had a very exciting day trying to navigate across Laos. We were told by the tourist information office in Pak Beng that a bus would leave for Mueng Ngeun at 3pm from the bus station. Then we were told by the Tuc Tuc driver that a bus may leave earlier if enough people were interested. The cost would be 50,000 kip (about £5). So off we went by Tuc Tuk to wait for a bus. The bus station ticket man (a shed beside the road) told us we could hire the whole bus for £10 each. Bearing in mind we would not reach the border before it closed and would have to find and pay for lodging that night, we decided it would be worth paying the £20 to leave earlier. Unfortunately we were going to be getting short of cash and needed to get to a cash point at our destination where we were assured there was one. We paid the bus station 200,000 kip and were going to pay the rest when we got to the cash point.

One hour later, 11.15 am, a pick-up crewe cab arrived, our 'taxi' for the trip to Mgeun Ngeun. We stuffed our bags in the cab with us as we didn't want to put them in the open truck behind the cab. The roads where quiet and shortly after leaving we stopped to pick up a passenger beside the road who climbed in the truck at the back. After about an hour we stopped to let him off and our driver bought a live guinea pig from a stall beside the road and put it in the truck (dinner?). When we arrived at our destination we tried 2 cash points without success as none of our cards worked. We persuaded our driver to take us to the border crossing and paid him the remainder of our money the 30,000 owed to him but he wanted another 50,000 which we didn't have. We needed 20,000 to pay to leave Laos, a fee they call overtime money which we duly paid as our passports were stamped as leaving Laos. The taxi man was not happy but we didn't have any more money to give him. Then we had a km to walk between Laos and the Thai border.

It was very hot and our packs were heavy walking across the border. We had a small amount of Thai Baht on us left over from our arrival last November, but we couldn't remember the exchange rate and weren't sure how much we had. We were really hoping that we would not have to pay for a visa as we didn't think we had enough. So it was with some trepidation we walked down to the Thai border. We were handed two visas forms to complete, handed over our passports and had them stamped and handed back and that was it we were through. People were very surprised to see us as no-one ever travels across this route. We hurried up to a cash point for cash - no luck, it wouldn't take our cards. Just around the corner we found a bank and tried their cashpoint, again no luck. By this time we were wondering how we were going to pay for the bus to Nan, our destination. Talking to the bank manager we told him we only had a few Baht and showed him the money, he immediately pointed out, to our relief that we had enough, there was more there than we thought about £35! So on we went to the bus station, there they told us all the tickets had been sold and the next bus was tommorrow and we would have to stay the night at the border.

Off we trundled back up the hill to the B&B, meanwhile people crossing from the Laos border were passing us in their trucks and cars. One small van with a young Thai man at the wheel grinned at me as he drove past and I smiled back. I saw him stop and get out to close the doors of his truck and look over again so I asked him if he was going to Nan, yes he was, yes he was happy take us! Oh joy of joys we were on our way again. By this time it was 2.30 in the afternoon and our trip to Nan would take 2.5 hours. The bags were thrown in the back and we squeezed in the front passenger seat. (Believe it or not his name was Joke). The drive took us through a mountainous region, the roads winding down some steep gradients with spectacular views across the hills and moutains as we drove along the ridge. We pulled into Nan at about 5pm just before the sun went down. We thanked Joke profusely and made him take the money we would have paid for the bus ride even then he wasn't going to take it.

Quite weary now after our long day we are sat in a nice hotel, having found a cashpoint that worked and ate a good meal at the night food market. Tomorrow we will explore Nan.