On our last morning in Chiang Mai we got up and packed, then had our breakfast whilst waiting for our pickup for our journey to Luang Prabang. A minibus arrived shortly, and we said our goodbyes to the staff and the dog at Green Tulip before hopping on board.

We stopped at a few other guesthouses to pick people up, before leaving Chiang Mai. We got talking to a Scottish girl and an English girl, Patsy, on the bus as we headed north, through the countryside of northern Thailand. After stopping for lunch at a service station we carried on, the scenery getting better all the time with lush rice paddies all around punctuated by towering limestone formations and often backed by steep hills or cliffs with trees and shrubs clinging on.

The second stop on our 6 hour journey was at the crazy White Temple near Chiang Rai. We had read about this temple, which apparently had a more contemporary design than the typical Thai temples, though I would describe it more as the product of someone's crazy dream.

The temple, whilst taking the shape of the Thai temples we had seen thus far with a steep pointed roof with ornate curly corners, was different in almost every other way. For starters, it was completely white as its name would suggest, apart from around all the edges where little mirrored tiles highlighted its lines and reflected the sunshine.

The temple was approached first through a garden with odd heads hanging from a tree and a statue of the Predator emerging from the grass, then across a pit with sculptures of hands reaching desperately from the depths, then finally a ridiculously over-the-top curly wurly sculpted arched bridge of the same white-and-mirror design as the temple, looking more like something from Middle Earth than Thailand.

The inside of the temple was even crazier though, with a massive mural covering all the walls. Men were working on the side walls but the rear wall was finished and seemed to depict a stylised buddha looking over a scene of destruction featuring hundreds of characters from popular movies, TV shows and computer games. It seemed to us to be some message against consumerism or capitalism but we're not really sure. It was quite impressive though.

After looking around the temple for a bit we got back on the minibus for the last leg of the trip to Chiang Khong, a sleepy little town beside the Mekong river across from Laos. Here, we were dropped off at the guesthouse included in the price of our ticket. It was a nice place with long low wooden buildings around a little garden courtyard, and a swimming pool out the back. Some of the people from our bus left to cross into Laos that evening and catch a bus to Luang Prabang, while Lucy, Patsy and I hit the pool for a bit to cool down, after leaving our passports with the staff to sort out our visas.

After a dip in the pool we went into the restaurant area of the guesthouse to get our included dinner. As we were eating another busload of people turned up from Chiang Mai, and we chatted for a bit with them before Lucy headed off to bed. I stayed to help some girls retrieve their camera memory card from inside one of the computers, involving completely dismantling the thing and putting it back together (minus one screw of course). I then followed Lucy to bed, my good deed done for the day.

After a rather warm sleep in the guesthouse, we got up and had our included breakfast and picked up our packed lunch of fried rice and chicken before piling into another minibus which took us down to the river. We then piled onto some small covered longtail boats which nipped us across the swollen brown Mekong river to Huay Xai in Laos. On the other side, we sorted out our Visas with the Laos officials before being taken to a cafe in the town to wait for our boat down river.

After an hour or so at the cafe it was time to head down the river bank, across the rickety wooden gangplank and onto the slow boat which would take us to Luang Prabang over the next 2 days. The boat was basically just a long covered barge with rows of minibus seats bolted to the floor, a toilet and a small bar. We found some seats and were soon on our way, chugging downstream.

The boat was qiute full, mainly with tourists like us, and the odd local. It made its way down the river, stopping occasionally at small villages of houses on stilts to pick up or drop off passengers, or to let kids on to try and sell us beers and snacks.

We spent our time in our seats reading, or watching the stunning scenery as we passed. We sailed along the wide brown river between towering hills and cliffs, past loads of the little villages, but always surrounded by the vivid green, dense jungle. I went up to the front of the boat for a bit and sat with some others, enjoying the breeze and the scenery as we made our way downstream.

In the late afternoon we reached our stop for the night, Pak Beng, and pulled in beside a number of other boats. We grabbed our luggage (minus a karabiner which had been stolen from my bag) and all piled off the boat, everyone heading to find a guesthouse. We had anticipated finding a room to be a hassle, so had booked a place in advance, which was conveniently just up the road from the dock. We found the place, dumped our bags and then headed out to explore Pak Beng before it got dark.

Pak Beng turned out to be just one street, winding up from the banks of the Mekong to the hills behind, lined with guest-houses, restaurants and little stalls. We walked the length of the street, then on our way back stopped at a restaurant which had a friendly owner. We ordered some soup, lap or larp (A Lao dish of minced meat chopped up with herbs and spices and a lime dressing) and some rice, and enjoyed it all. We were joined at the table beside us by two English girls who had been on our boat, and got chatting to them.

During the meal, the power in the whole town went out, which must happen a lot as the restaurant owner had some candles on all the tables and lit in less than a minute. However, the power soon came back on and everything carried on as normal, until it started raining furiously. We had planned to head to the only bar in town, but with the rain pelting down we decided just to make a run for it back to the guest-house, where we spent the rest of the evening watching the incredible lightning turn the whole sky lilac outside our window, listening to the thunder and rain and playing backpacker. There were about 3 more power cuts during the evening but luckily none for longer than a few minutes. I don't think we would have coped without our fan if the power had been out all night.

After our night in Pak Beng we grabbed some breakfast at our guest house and picked up another packed lunch of fried rice and chicken, then made our way down to the boat dock. We were ushered onto a much smaller boat but as we were some of the first there, got some decent comfy seats near the front. The rest of the people from our boat soon arrived and completely packed the boat, before we set off downstream.

The rest of the day passed much the same as the day before, puttering down the river surrounded by the incredible jungle, reading our books. Although the boat was a bit more cramped and the journey a couple of hours longer, it was still fun, and a great way to see the countryside.

As it was starting to get dark, we pulled in at what we knew must be Luang Prabang. I don't know what we'd expected to see as we approached the town. We knew it was one of the bigger towns in Laos, but a tall skyline emerging from the jungle which had surrounded us the whole way would have seemed a bit out of place. The french-style villas peeking through the palm trees and temple roofs poking above them seemed far more appropriate, and we immediately liked the look of the place.

The good feeling only improved after we got off the boat and got a surprise as we found Simone and Kai, our German friends from Chiang Mai, waiting for us at the dock. They had figured out we'd be on the boat we were, and had come to meet us. We all set off from the dock to find somewhere to stay in town.