Hello everyone we are now in Luang Prabang in Laos sorry not been able get in touch but there has been no internet until today. Will try and upload some photographs tomorrow aswell these computers wont let me. Hope you are all well here there is a lot of swine flu going around so hope you are all well.

We had booked the three day journey to take us from Chang Mai to Laos we did not have many options really either fly which was expensive or the two day bus / speed boat (which they said was very dangerous and some people get injured along the way) or the three day bus / slow boat so we booked the latter.

We were picked up by mini bus in the afternoon and set of with 10 others on the 7 hour journey to our first stop where would stay overnight after a very bumpy 7 hour we arrived at the place we would spend the night before setting off on our two day slow boat journey. After a great nights sleep we were taken to the river where we would cross over to get our visas sorted, got the visas and then headed to the slow boat having no idea what to expect!

We got on the small narrow boat and found some benches at the front the boat was half full and there was just rows of benches all through to the end. We saw lots of people heading towards the boat and thought no surley they are heading to the wrong boat turns out they were on our boat and it started to fill up some people did not even have seats bearing in mind we had a 10 hour journey ahead of us so we felt quite lucky that we have a seat! We were all packed in like sardines when we set off back in the engine room was loads of locals all squashed in together with the luggage! The journey was quite hard but the scenery makes up for it down the Mekong river you don't see anyone or anything for ages its amazing. We arrived at the place we would be staying overnight called Pakbeng and checked into our place. Before we got there we were told that the place is very remote and most places dont have any electricity though some do until 11pm, we checked in and went for some food as we were starving, we had met some people on the boat so we all went together for a good old curry and some famous Laos beer!

Next day after a good night sleep (though I'm sure I could hear things in the room luckily we had a huge net over the bed so that was good) we headed down to the boat early to try and get some good seats we found out they had packed the boat with 50 people more than it should hold no wonder we were like sardines! We managed to get some good seats we got one car seat which was very random I know but it reclined and was super cofy compared to the benches so the five of us had a rotation system and took turns on the seat. The scenery again was amazing and the journey was much easier (think we are just used to it) we met some more people and chatted most of the way (except when it was our turn for the car seat when we slept) we eventually arrived in Luang Prabang the sleepy town of Laos.

We checked into a little guesthouse and went for a wander around it is a really small but cute place we met up with all the others and went to some really cool little bars for some moonshines and Laos beer! The bars all close at 11.30pm and no where is allowed to serve beer except a local bowling place so we all headed there a Tuk Tuk took us and I think we broke a world record by getting 21 of us on the tuk tuk was hilarious, had great laugh loads of from on the boat.

We are heading down to Vang Viend tomorrow where we will be doing the famous tubing! Basically tyres floating down the river beautiful scenerey floating bars and lous music should be fun!!

Love to all at home xxxxxxxxx