During the night it ABSOLUTELY poured down so we woke up to the thought that we would probably get soaked for the next 2 days, especially if our Chief's mud hut leaked! There were 4 others on our trek, 2 american ladies from Oklahoma and Texas and a young Swedish girl and swiss guy. All were really good company, one of the American ladies had been travelling for 2 years as she passionately disliked the US and (in her terms) the way it had 'corrupted and ruined a ...

Road to Oudomxay then mad local bus to Luang Namtha! The road north follows the river to start then turns west, is very windy/bumpy so pretty unpleasant, despite the scenery being stunning. We passed through many villages and saw kids on the school run which was cool. Again the scenery was breathtaking the higher we got and pretty difficult to describe, we headed up into more mountainous areas seeing river valley views across the plains. Personally I had an uncom...

An early start saw us catching a tuk tuk a very short distance (3 mins!) so that we could get to the boat landing for 7am (as instructed!) but on arrival we found that the boat didn't leave till 9!! It was cool to see the mist over the Mekong and watch slow boats to the thai border being laden with cargo though - whilst drinking coffee from the bakery of course! Then we saw our boat.....didn't look too bad, a tiny wooden long tail boat with 6 small wooden school ...

After seeing a few local buses broken down, we decided to take one of the many 6 hour minibuses to Luang Prabang as suggested by others who had experienced the winding journey! Thankfully I managed to get a seat next to the driver but Ads and Zach, bearing in mind they are both almost or over 6 foot, got rammed in the back seats and the journey became a pretty painful experience!!! Heading away from Vang Vien north and into the mountains, this journey was without...

Boarding the bus north we were impressed already! The bus wasn't bad at all compared to many we had experienced, it was very chilled with no awful loud blaring music, dodgy videos or constant beeping, result! It really was bliss after Vietnam and Cambodia....The driver drove as chilled as could be, he even stopped to allow a baby chicken to cross the road rather than flattening it at high speed, definitely not what we were used too! Then he stopped after 5 minute...