After another gruelling 6 hours on the longboat we finally arrived at Luang Prabang and this time we wasn't greeted by dozens of crazy Laos people trying to drag us into their guesthouses!! First impressions of Luang Prabang are good ones, it's a quaint town with a slight french feel, home to many bakeries and coffee shops. We first walked along the river front looking for hostels and wasn't very successful, we headed to the main strip and discovered hostel price...

Pakbeng, our first overnight stop-off, halfway through our 2 day slow boat trip (when booking they neglected to tell us that it would take this long!), was one of the most curious of places that we'd been to so far. Its very small, and is mainly comprised of guesthouses. As soon as we jumped off the boat, all the locals had surrounded us, and hostel staff walked among us touting prices. It was all a bit manic, and not helped by the fact that there were little kid...

Hey! Today we left Chiang Mai to continue our journey into the neighbouring country of Laos. We had booked passage to Luang Prabang in Laos by slow boat down the Mekong river. This meant we had to get to the border in Thailand to stay overnight in Chiang Kong, crossing over into Laos through passport control. It began with a bus trip to the border town, being ushered in to a minivan by a local Thai who had a hilarious half cockney, half thai accent! This seemed ...

Up at 730 for our day of trekking in chiang mai! Thankfully not feeling too hungover we got on the minibus with our friendly tour guide Pon and headed for the elephant farm. With only 2 seats on the elephants back Pon told us that we would get a special ride and one of us could sit on its neck. Leanna and Nikki were excited by the idea until their mode of transport was revealed and they quickly handed the reins over to zak! Our elephant seemed to be the greediest...

Hey all! We are now in Chiang Mai, after a 13 hour journey from Bangkok on an overnight sleeper train - definitely worth the experience! We met some fellow travellers hailing from Essex, turns out they were on the same flight out to Bangkok as us. Unfortunately the girls didnt get much sleep but were kept entertained by playing Blackjack and then watching late DVD sessions on a PSP. They were however told to pack in there mobile entertainment centre and shut up ...