Ok so I am now in Luang Prabang and I have been here since Thursday afternoon, the journey up from Vang Vieng took 7 hours, and unfortunately I had the displeasure of being sat with a couple of 'new age hippies', with big thick dreadlocks and it is fair to say that they really smelt! So I spent most of the journey with my head out the window for some air, although that was not necessarily a bad thing as the journey was up and down mountains, and was therefore very beautiful.

Upon arrival I had a bit of trouble finding a guesthouse with some rooms and eventually settled for one near the Mekong River. However my first mistake of the day was not actually getting the name of the guesthouse, so after I went for a long walk followed by dinner and a few Beer Laos, I could not find it at all. I eventually found the right street which was a start and what I thought was the right place, so I promptly took my shoes off (something that most places insist on!) and went upstairs to where my room should be! It took me a few minutes to realise that I was in fact in a different building and even a different guesthouse altogether.... I was next door! oops slightly embarassing!!!!!

Anyway, on the next day I decided to do a walking tour of Laung Prabang, which as I was expecting is a very beautiful city this involved visiting lots and lots of temples! I usually do not mind visiting temples as I find them quite relaxing and obviously very spiritual (and no I am not turning into a hippie), but after about 5 temples in one day I guess I felt like I had o-deed on the temple front! So I guess I will try and stay clear for a while, atleast a couple of weeks! I hear Chiang Mai also has plenty of temples, great!!!!

The next day, was the day I had been looking forward to all week and it certainly lived up to my high expectation. I took a day tour which involved riding an elephant followed by a stop at a stunning waterfall! The elephant riding was so much fun, and I even rode on the elephants neck. I knew elephants were very intelligent but I had no real idea how.... when I was riding on the elephants neck, my elephant sensed when I was perhaps slightly nervous (mainly going downhill) and gripped me tighter with its ears. It was incredible and I had total trust for this beautiful animal! Anyway, it was a great experience, and for those of you who do not know I will be spending 3 days volunteering/training to be an elephants mahout in Thailand! Whereby I will feed, wash, walk and generally look after my elephant for 3 days! I can not wait!!!!!

Which leaves me onto today, well I decided to go for a nice long bike ride and attempted to ride out of the city into the countryside, but the rocky roads made me slightly paranoid about the prospect of getting a puncture so I settled for a day riding around town, stopping whenever I felt like it for a drink! It has been cool, I have also just come back from a bar which happened to show Arsenal beat Liverpool 3-1 in the FA Cup, which is fantastic!

Tomorow I will be leaving for a place called Nong Khiaw, which is really remote village in the mountains. So I will spend a couple of days here trekking, chilling out and enjoying the great scenery. I feel that I am ready to move on now as although Luang Prabang has been nice, I am ready to see whats next!

I hope everyone is doing well, I will add another journal when I can. Although, finding an internet cafe maybe a bit tricky for the next few days.

Take Care

Jon