We left you in Chang Mai where we had just had a day with elephants and were about to do a cooking course. That was loads of fun, and undoubtedly we will dazzle you all with our astounding pad thai and spring rolls when we return. The teachers were lots of fun and we met some lovely people too. We also got to set light to our woks - photos to follow!

The following morning we set off for the Laos border. Not much to say about this minibus trip apart from that it was great scenery and very bouncey. At the border we were shipped in highly creaky speed boats across the Mekong to Huay Xai. " welcome to china" said our tour rep when we arrived - I wonder how many times as week that one gets rolled out. Anyway, this town has a wild west feel to it. One temple, one street, lots of wood and bamboo houses, lots of beer lao and lots of people passing through every day. Also, lots of really mad dogs which we discovered when we all lay awake at 4am....

We'd taken the 1200 baht tour from Chang Mai which included tea, this was a box of rice, so many of us supplemented this, mainly with beer lao and we sat in a cafe all evening with the guys from our bus. These guys are all really good fun, Andrea and Rob who are Dutch, Mr B and Liz ( he French, she English), two swiss girls whose names we don't know, Wendy ( NZ) and then who should arrive in our cafe but Frank.

Let me tell you about Frank - rewind and I was happily eating my muesli and hot soya milk in Chang Mai to prepare me for the 3 day trip to Laos when Frank from our cooking course bounded in announcing that he was going to hitch to the Laos border. He is one crazy kid, but when we arrived and he rolled up to our cafe he regaled us with tales of driving with senators and the key to hitch hiking ( which is to draw a smiley face on your sign!)

Frank has been the luckiest talisman on this trip. Whichever boat Frank gets on - that one arrives first, he is always very well prepared and many people could do worse that take a leaf out of Frank's book of how to travel.

Our first day on the slow boat down the Mekong on hard wooden seats took about 7 hours. The scenery was wonderful, lots of forest and the occasonial person fishing or small village and it was cold. We played Weetabix, read our books, and I ate about 10 bananas.

We stayed the night in Pak Beng which is another town which probably used to be just a fishing village but is now populated by varying standards of guest house, and many stands sellind sandwiches to take on the boat the following day. Rob and Evan came up trumps with a guest house with duvets!!!!!! heaven. Although very cold showers ( par for the course) and we passed another pleasant evening with beer lao and food.

The second day the benches were harder if that is possible ,and colder ,luckily for frank he had worn 5 layers of clothing... we had not .

Either way, much of the same til we arrived in Luang Prabang which is really chilled, very beautiful and sadly does not have an image in the off exploring library so you'll have to google it. More later......