We sat at the coffee shop in front of our guest house at 10am; we were being picked up between 10am and 10.30am and decided to people watch while we wait. The mini bus was late and Edd asked reception to call to find out where they were. 10.45am they arrived and we clambered into the mini bus and prepared for the 3-hour journey to the border.

We stopped just over an hour later to have lunch in an overpriced restaurant that served 3 things: Pad Thai, chicken and rice or French fries, spoiled for choice. The food was completely over priced and horrendously bland. It was convenient that there were no other restaurants close by as an alternative; we knew from experience that everyone was in on it, so the driver was definitely getting a cut out of the overpriced, bland food. The balcony upstairs had a fabulous view of the rice fields juxtaposed against a mountainous backdrop, so it wasn't a complete waste.

We were glad to be on the road again after half an hour and were looking forward to just getting to the border to cross to Laos before 4pm. We stopped again after just under an hour in Chiang Rai for another 20 minutes break and a picture at the white temple. We were frustrated as the 3-hour time frame we were given had come and gone; Edd was in a very bad mood at this point as the driver was doing a bad job and we kept stopping.

After 20 minutes we were off again and the next stop was the Thai/Laos border. Or so we thought. We stopped again at a 'tourist information centre' to apparently buy tickets. We enquired as to what the tickets were for as we thought it was perhaps the visa stop (there were visa posters everywhere) but were met with unclear answers and told to stay in the queue. We got to the front and asked what we were paying for. The man said: 'bus to border, bus to Laos immigration, took took to Huay Xai city centre.' (Tuk tuk - Thailand, took took - Laos). Edd asked why we were paying to get to the border again and the man then re-explained his sentence minus the first part. It was 200 Baht for all the 'services' and we were confused as to why we had to buy them; we hadn't read a single blog that said we had to buy tickets from a tourist information centre in advance.

We'd sussed out the Thai culture and been dooped enough times to know better. Thanks, but we'll sort ourselves out. A couple of German girls were in agreement with us and we decided that we'd meet at the border and go through together. We also met an Italian guy who had paid the 200 Baht for the 'services' and was also doing the Gibbon Experience the next day; we exchanged numbers so we could all stick together for the night and leave together the next morning. The 3-hour trip to the border had taken 6 hours and we were done with being lied to. This tourist information centre was an insult to injury and Edd's patience had run out.

We met up with the German girls 10 minutes later, got our passports out, filled in our departure cards and walked through Thai customs. We then paid 25 Baht each (£1 in total for both of us) for a bus. We thought we'd have to take a long tail boat to cross the Mekong, but we discovered all the blogs we'd been reading were very out of date, even though they'd been updated in 2014. We crossed the 'friendship bridge' in no-mans-land to the Laos border and were there in 5 minutes.

We got off the bus, filled in arrival cards and visa forms and handed our passports in for 'visa's on arrival.' Edd went to draw money at the ATM and after not being able to decide how much to take out, took out a million. I was officially marrying a millionaire! (It worked out to £87). We waited half an hour for our visas and went through their border crossing. We were officially in Laos; it was quite an anti climax.

I'd read blogs while we waited for our visas that said we should pay 10 000kip per person for a took took to the city centre. We ended up paying 18 500kip each (they'd originally asked for 25 000 kip, which is what the blog said to watch out for) and got on a took took for the 12km journey. We passed rural villages, urban suburbs, fields of grazing cows and a Mexican stand off between a calf and 3 dogs (the calf won).

We arrived in the city centre (more like town centre) and enquired at a guesthouse across the road from where we'd been dropped off. It was 80 000kip for a room with a fan (£6) and we all checked in. The Italian guy that had paid 200 Baht for the 'services' had left before we had; he also arrived at the guesthouse long after we did and we worked out that it actually cost us 100 Baht to get from the border to the town centre. It was only a £2 difference in cost, but all those £2 scams add up in the end.

We all had a meal together at a local restaurant and I was pleased to learn that the German girls were vegetarian. I took it a step further and didn't eat egg either, but I was glad to have kindred spirits at the table with me. At 9.30pm we said goodnight and farewell to the German girls, we'd planned to meet up with them again in Luang Prabang a few days later.

Edd and I repacked our bags and transferred the essentials into our small backpacks for the next 3 days of trekking. We went to bed to the sound of thunder and lightening, it had started to bucket down and I hoped it would clear by the morning - if I wanted to get rained on for 3 days straight, I'd have stayed in England.