I woke up exhausted: I hadn't slept again. We had to be up early as we were being picked up at 9.00am to go to the waterfalls. We’d booked a took took the previous day with the German girls and the other Germans and decided to meet at a central point on the main street, for our ride.

Edd had gone in search of sandwiches for lunch, and coffee for me (my hero) and we headed for the meeting point. The took took arrived, but we had to wait for the other Germans as they’d arrived in inappropriate footwear. They’d run back to their room to change their shoes and got back at 9.05am. We then set off for the 45min ride to Kouang Si Waterfalls.

It was a bumpy trip and we all clambered off excited for the day’s adventures. We paid the 20 000kip each entrance fee and followed the signs to the waterfalls. We walked through a sanctuary for bears and I was very excited; I’d never seen a bear in real life before! We spent about 20 minutes walking around, taking pictures of the bears and learned about why they had to be protected. They are captured using snares and then transported to a settlement where they are put in a small cage. They remain there until their captors find a buyer, the reason for them being bought: bile. Long needles are injected into their gall bladders and bile is removed for traditional medicine. There is apparently no scientific proof that there are any healing properties of bear bile. They are kept this way for approximately 10 years, or until their bile runs out, and then shot. I reiterate: I could never live in a country that treated animals this way, I’m not overly hug a bunny, save a tree, but this is a bit much. After the seriously depressing lesson on Laos bear hunting, we carried on to the waterfalls.

 We spent some time taking pictures and feeling how cold the water was; we decided to walk all the way to the top, as in our experience in Kanchanaburi, the waterfalls higher up were usually nicer and more fun to swim in. We walked past a number of beautiful waterfalls with luminescent blue ponds and then arrived at the ultimate waterfall; we weren’t allowed to swim at the last 2 waterfalls though, which was disappointing, but took loads of pictures to document the adventure.

The trail led into the forest and we climbed up the side of the mountain. I spent most of my time on all 4’s, sliding down the muddy walkway and slippery tree roots. Luckily it wasn’t a very long climb up and the top was beautiful. We walked around the river that fed all the waterfalls and played in the cool water. We decided climbing back down the way we came was not our idea of a good time, unless we did it on our bottoms, so walked across the bamboo bridges to the other side of the river and made a loop back.

 There was a spring and a cave 3km away, at the top of the mountain, but we weren’t going to have enough time to hike to it and back and have enough time for a swim and lunch. We decided to give it a miss and started walking back down again. There were stairs, actual stairs. We’d gone mud sliding for nothing. The trip back down was a little slippery, but not too horrendous and we got to the bottom in record time. It had started to rain and I was hungry; the German girls and Edd wanted to swim.

 We had to walk back to a waterfall where we could swim and sat down at a table. It had started to rain quite heavily so I opted out of swimming, even thought in the end I might as well have, I was completely drenched from the rain. Edd and the German girls and one of the other Germans, the guy, all swam in the pond and reported the water being 'freezing.’ I just sat and watched them, eating my vegetarian sandwich.

 They all climbed out and had some lunch, it was 1.30pm and our driver had coerced us into leaving earlier than we originally wanted to. We started to make our way back at 2pm and we all needed to use the bathroom. It was disgusting to say the least; the kind of place you imagined up in nightmares. The floor was soaked with muddy brown water, the toilets were the Asian kind: squatting over a hole in the floor and the basin that was used to keep water in to flush your toilet with a little pan, was overflowing: the tap didn’t switch off. I came to regret my need to use the toilet; I wish girls could do it standing up.

 We climbed back onto the took took and bounced around the back for 45 minutes; the German girls had checked into our guesthouse for the last night in Luang Prabang, so made their way back to the guest house with us, when we got back to the city. We’d said goodbye to the other Germans who were heading north the next day and exchanged information so we could get each others photos.

 We had a small nap and intended on packing our bags, but the German girls asked us if we were keen on some dinner at 5.30pm. I was starving and we wanted to show them the vegetarian ‘buffet’ dinners we’d discovered the night before. We all headed to the side street in the market for some cheap food.

We met a British girl and a Scottish girl while we were dishing and sat down with them for our dinner. We joked that the money we were saving in food, we were going to spend on beer instead. We finished our fabulous cheap food, said goodbye to the British and Scottish girls and made our way to a bar. We walked back through the food market and I pointed out the deep fried pigs head on one of the tables. This joke back fired as the woman was chopping the head up, stuck the knife in the jaw that still had teeth, and ripped the bottom of the jaw off the head. I heaved, and ran.

 We made our way around the palace to the other side and looked for a bar called Utopia. We couldn’t find it, but sat down in a beautifully decorated French restaurant; it felt like we were sitting in the jungle with creeper plants and paper lanterns dangling from bamboo; we were exposed to the open sky and could for the first time in days, see the stars.

 We ordered cocktails (2 for 1) and whipped out Mexican Trains. We’d stopped at round 8 and were resuming our game. The German girls ordered Laos whisky and Edd and I ordered a tonic. Just a tonic. We’d sneakily bought a bottle of gin in a store and strategically sat in the far corner so we could make G & T’s, without having to pay the extortionate prices.

We played 5 rounds of trains and then decided it was probably time to go home. None of us had packed, it was after 10pm, and we were all a little bit tipsy. (Okay, maybe a lot tipsy). We’d much rather stay out and carry on having a good time, but our better judgment kicked in and we knew the bus ride tomorrow was already going to be done with sore heads. The degree of pain would only increase if we stayed out longer. We made our way back to our guesthouse and said goodnight. This sensible adult business was a real fun sponge.