Day 224- We were up fairly early and tried to find some normal breakfast but all we could find was fancy French food which not only cost a fortune but was weird. We gave up and popped in a local joint for beef noodle soup - much better. The place was beautiful, one good French influence was the buildings, they were so beautiful, like a little colonial town. We walked around looking in temples here and there. There was a bridge crossing the river so we walked down and found a local trying to charge us to cross, we asked why and what was over there and he said local village, we couldn't believe they were charging people, we quickly declined and kept walking along the river. We found a lovely little place over looking the river so we ordered a pineapple shake and a coffee. We walked back to the hotel to change to go to the waterfall, we then realised that all buses left at 1:30pm and it was now 2pm, we couldn't believe it, there was no transport there, we were offered bikes but at an expensive price and as the Halifax was giving us bother we didn't even have that much anyway. We admitted defeat and headed to a swimming pool which we had enough money for. When we arrived they asked for a massive tab deposit, more than the pool cost and more than we had. We explained we had no money to pay a deposit but we weren't planning on eating or drinking we just wanted a swim. The owner was a moody French man who told us to go to the cash point, we tried to explain that no money would be on the card till 6pm but he didn't believe us, we offered to leave our driving licence but the man said they were worthless, eventually after Lloyd lost his temper we left our licence and phone as a deposit. Bad customer service. We were happy to be in the pool though and have some relief from the heat. The pool was nice and they were playing music so was good. Once we were done we headed back to hotel. We got changed and headed out for food, ginger beef with rice and pork fried rice over looking the river, lovely. We walked past Lao lao bar and saw a few lads we knew from the boat, we had a few drinks with them and then walked to another bar Utopia and met up with everyone else. Once curfew hit the bar started to close and everyone headed to the bowling alley (The only place open after 12pm). It was heaving, absolutely packed. It took ages to get a lane and everyone was really drunk. Once we got a lane we were ready to play - we love bowling! It turned out to be a really fun night and a great way to see everyone before we all went our separate ways.

Day 225 - We woke up feeling pretty tired, we packed, checked out and went along the road for breakfast. Our mini-bus was on time surprisingly and then it transferred us to another mini-bus which took us to Nong Khiaw. The drive went quickly and Lloyd slept most of the way. Once we arrived we had to walk a very hot 20 minutes to find a guesthouse. We stopped at a lovely one with little bungalow's and decided as it was our little 6 year anniversary we would upgrade to the nicer room with balcony over looking the river. We were pretty hungry so dropped our bags and crossed the river for some lunch. We found a lovely place serving traditional Lao food, I settled for Lap (minced chicken with herds and spices) and Lloyd got Tom Cheauw Pa (Fish soup) and we both got some sticky rice. After, we decided to try Lao coffee with condensed milk it came in a massive mug and it was so strong we both actually felt light headed after drinking it. We walked around a few travel agencies to ask about trek's, they all said it was the quiet season and not many people were trekking which meant we would have to pay ridiculously high prices. After talking to a few people we decided to leave our trekking for Vietnam and signed up to go on a 1 day Kayaking trip which had trekking and a waterfall visit included. We went back to the bungalow and read our books, I ended up falling asleep and woke up to find Lloyd asleep - backpacking is pretty tiring work! We headed back out for a big walk, we managed to cover the whole village in about 45mins, the place was so tiny, we did though find an Indian restaurant for later that night. Back at the bungalow we just chilled out on the balcony talking and reading and enjoying the beautiful views. After a shower and change we headed down to the restaurant and as it was a celebration we decided to splash out on the works; pickles and pompadoms, garlic nann, saag aloo, chicken dopiaza and of course a beer for Lloyd and a shake for myself, it was delicious not as spicy as we had hoped but the flavours we lovely, we had really enjoyed our little anniversary!