We packed our bags early and and made our way to the reception area for breakfast while we waited to be fetched by the owner of 'The Jungle House.' Mike, the owner, picked us up just after 9.30am and we piled into his MK 1 Toyota Hilux. We stopped off at the mini mart for him to pick up some supplies and we wondered around the store looking at what there was on offer, we needed to restock on a few things, but decided to do that in Vietnam as we would not need any of it during our last few days in Laos.

We drove 10km outside of the city centre and up a driveway surrounded by an English summer garden. We walked into the enormous house and put our things down at the entrance: our room wasn't ready yet. We were then introduced to a family that was staying in the cottage: 2 girls, 2 boys, mum and dad from Kenya/ Tanzania (they go to school in the former but are originally from the latter and move between the two) ages ranged from 7 to 13 years. We sat and chatted to the family for a while and discovered that they were originally from England and the mother had attended the same school as Edd and they knew the same teachers (even though she is 15 years his senior). It also turned out that the owner of The Jungle House was also from London and lived close to where we had come from. He knew people that Edd's dad had done rowing with and the conversation went along the lines of: do you know so and so, divorced from so and so, related to so and so with 2 kids that went to so and so school and are now doing so and so career, blah blah. We were 10km's from the centre of Vientiane, halfway around the world in Laos, and here was a group of people that all had connections. Small world.

Shortly after, Mike took the family to a boat that provided lunch as it was one of the children's birthdays, and Edd and I headed down to the swimming pool. I spent some time updating our blog and he did his best to get some colour - we'd been here 5 weeks already and neither of us looked like we'd ever left wintery England.

We spent the afternoon at the pool and then got ready for dinner. We had a lovely meal with the family and afterwards introduced them to Mexican Trains. We played two rounds (3 teams) and then they retired for bed: it was 10pm and they were leaving the next day for Vang Vieng. Edd and I moved to the rocking chairs on the balcony and finished up our G&T's. We looked forward to the next few days with similar itineraries.