We left Luang Prabang at 7am - in another minivan, I'm pretty sure the driver was suicidal - his driving was crazy. It took about 6 hours to get to Vang Vieng - the road snakes high up amongst the mountains, it's a very picturesque drive amongst the clouds but we spent most the time praying we would survive! We had been to Vang Vieng on our last trip in 2007 - and had absolutely loved it there, we had been tubing down the river (literally sitting in a big tube f...

Next, we headed further north up the Nam Ou river to a tinier place called Muang Ngoi Neua. This place was only accessible by boat so we caught a very overcrowded narrow boat and chugged upstream through more breathtaking scenery. We found a cheap bungalow to stay in and then had some lunch and played some more cards overlooking the river - it was very relaxing! Eleanor, Carolyn and Rich also came - (in fact we remain with them for the whole of our Laos trip!!) ...

Our next destination was a small town north of Luang Prabang on the Nam Ou river. Eleanor and Carolyn were also heading there and also Rich who was on the slowboat decided to head there too. We were all squashed into a minivan for the three hour drive. We arrived at a very small bus station and caught a tuk tuk into the town centre. It was a very small place in a valley between green mountains, we walked over a bridge over the river and sent the men off to find ...

Lovely Luang Prabang! We came here on our last trip and were delighted to find that it hadn't changed that much since 2007. It's such a pretty little place on a peninsula with the Mekong River to one side and the Nam Khan river to the other side. The town has gorgeous old french buildings amongst trees with pink, orange and red blossoms - it also has many temples. We were so lucky to be able to come again, we had prebooked our room through agoda and caught the tu...

As we were in Chiang Rai, Thailand and wanted to cross into Laos it was logical to enter into Huay Xai (about 2 hours away). As Laos is so mountainous the only options you have to get to the town of Luang Prabang is either by the slowboat down the mekong which takes 2 days with a stopover in a small town, or to get a night bus that snakes through the mountains and takes at least 15 hours. We decided on the slow boat - when we came to Laos before we had crossed ov...