We took the night bus to Laos to get there in time for Christmas Eve and our plush hotel treat. We decided to take the local bus to save a bit of kip and to avoid the commission charges of the tourist offices. Besides, live like a local! We got some cracking seats right at the front - no travel sickness for us! Just an open door and copious amounts of dust flying into our faces from the bumpy, potholed, narrow dirt track that led us 377km over 12 hours to Luang Prabang. As you can imagine we got loads of sleep.... It didn't help matters that for the first four hours of the journey we stopped every half an hour at every stop imaginable, and everyone piled off the bus, and then piled back on. Just how much food do Laos people need every half hour?

Sean bought some ridiculous sandwiches off the stall, three pieces of bread, stuck together with sweet water. Tasty. We arrived early enough to see the monks' alms procession through town which was pretty atmospheric. That was soon broken by 'town centre!' 'town centre!' 'tuk tuk!!'. Not having a clue where we were going we piled into the tourist tuk tuk, which I'm sure was charged at least double what the others paid, and arrived thankfully just outside a coffee shop. A bit of caffeine and quick check on the kindle, some help from the manager and we were being picked up by the hotel manager. Now this is treatment we could get used to!!!

Our place was all we imagined and more. It was gorgeous. On the side of the hill looking out over the river, and we arrived in time for the free breakfast which was possibly the best breakfast we've ever eaten! Ham and cheese croissants, grilled, baguettes, salad, more muesli than you can shake a stick at, fresh fruit and - joy of joys - REAL MILK! A delicacy that somehow hasn't reached Asia, instead, they used condensed milk in their coffee, ick.

A few hands of Deal to pass the time and we were chatting to another manager, Evelyn from Canada, who it turns out has been teaching English in South Korea for three years. Can this place get any better?! Then into the room and it was fantastic. Fridge, hot showers, fresh towels every day, satellite TV with the best film channel in English, and best of all; the softest mattress known to mankind, which Sean's whole body actually fitted onto (lengthways!). We had three blissful night's sleep here and really didn't want to leave when Christmas was over :(

Christmas Eve was spent wandering around our new town. It's an old French colonial town, but not in a s*** way. The town is small but perfectly sized. We were staying across the river, so we had to cross the rickety bamboo bridge to get into town. They charged 50p to get across and back, because every year the floods wash it away and they have to rebuild it! We had noodle soup for lunch in a tiny little shop, just outside someone's house and a lovely Laos couple worked together to run it. We checked out all the nice restaurants for somewhere serving something resembling a Christmas Dinner, turns out it doesn't exist in Laos. There is a massive night market every night, so we window shopped and then had dinner down a dark alley where you picked all you could load onto a plate and they threw it in the wok and cooked it up for you. We had to rush back in time for Die Another Day (you truly know it's Christmas when Bond's on the telly) and Sex and the City 2 (Sean hadn't yet seen it and was dying to!).

We woke up to a sunny but chilly Christmas Day (just like England) and of course started the day stuffing ourselves full of free breakfast. We played Monopoly with tea and beer, Sean won, clearly, and wouldn't let me concede gracefully but took me for all I was worth, even after I was bankrupted. He enjoys winning far too much. At our favourite coffee shop (show us overpriced coffee and we're there) we had salmon and cream cheese bagels and turkey sandwiches, complete with gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce. It's probably the best sandwich I have ever eaten, in my entire life. The closest thing to English Christmas.

We waddled down the road to the internet cafe, having only eaten and drunk all day so far and not yet got any exercise and had a Christmas Day chat with the families. English, Australian and Laos Christmas, multi-cultural to the max this year!

Christmas Dinner was a Korean BBQ with a turkey Christmas twist. We had free lao lao shots for starters and a massive plate of meats and veg for our hot plate. It was really really good, we ordered extras. It was a shame not to have a proper turkey dinner, but at the same time I think it made us less homesick as we weren't comparing how good the roast potatoes are (oh how we miss roast potatoes!). Not quite full yet, we popped into the night market and stocked up on cakes and beer to watch The King's Speech in our room. Proper English film with some imitation English pudding, and clearly not English beer (but we don't mind too much as the price here is amazing! 80p for a 640ml bottle, can't beat it). All in all a fairly satisfying (if not fat) day.

Boxing Day we went for a cycle along the Mekong river and around some of the temples we hadn't yet seen. But fret not dear readers as we didn't exert ourselves too much, stopping along the way for coffee shakes, massages and cheese board (if the French have done one good thing for this town, it's bring along some tasty cheeses). After our hard day, we couldn't be bothered sitting in a restaurant to eat, so we got some takeaway noodles and rice, and were once again vegging out in front of the telly with our munchies, this time to watch Spiderman, Robin Hood, Salt, and then a horrific film called The Killing Room (never ever watch this, especially just before bed). We truly made the most of our last night in comfort - and then made the most of our final free breakfast the next morning before another bus out.

We hope everyone in the UK and abroad had great Christmases, we were thinking of you all, and believe it or not, sort of wished we were back there with you. (Only for a few days and then we were like, no being in the tropics is much more fun! And the tans are still going!)