From the thai-laos border crossing we were about to begin a 700km journey to the capital of Vientaine.

A longtail crossed us over the Mekong to Laos where we grabbed some snacks before bording a slow boat drifting for 8hrs downstream to a stop over village of Pak Beng. The boat was very uncomfortable on these pew looking benches with no legroom. The scenery however was breathtaking. Laos is an mountainous, undeveloped and unsploit country. There was only small thatched villages and dotted huts on the banks and hill slopes along the journey. I simply sat and gazed out for 8hrs straight.

We arrived at Pak Beng on time, early evening. I immiately noticed the calmer pace of life as from what other travellers have told me. No one hassles you to buy junk or guesthouse owners and tuk tuk drivers bothering you. We approached a 2 storey timber building where a guy roughly the same age of us invited us into his family's guesthouse. We dumped our stuff and sat down with him on the balcony looking out to the village and surrounding moutains. He told us about Laos and how the Lao people believe never to work too hard as it is not good for the brain. Laos really is like this too, I thought my heartbeat would almost stopp it was so tranquill! He offered a gift to relax us of either opium, grass or Laos whiskey... mmm ok whiskey it is then! Tarry, this guy Kaladie and I passed the bottle and glass round for about an hour talking about all sorts from english football leagues to Laos culture. As it was only 5-6pm we thought maybe we should stop and go eat! We wobbled down the street feeling a little drunk and approached a street-food stall and the only item the lady was selling was some kind of chicken, I began nibbling on this odd shaped crunchy chicken with chili sauce only to realise i was eating chicken feet! nice! ditched that and went to a restaurant to have some Lao Laap (dry shredded meat with herbs and spices served with small basket of sticky rice) hmmm.

We continued with a few more drinks with some irish people from the boat we met, and by the way the entirety of Indochina is dominated with the Irish! I am sure right now there are less of the irish actually in Ireland than there is out! The power often goes out throughout Laos, it did that evening. It made our dark trip to our guesthouse fun, even more so when we had to climb an exterior ladder type stair upto the first floor. That was a hot dark night with no fan!

The following morning we hopped back on the slow boat for another 8 hours towards the former Royal capital of Luang Pra Bang.