Today is our last day at Luang Prabang and we are heading by night bus to the capital of Laos, Vientiane, tonight. We've really enjoyed our time here and probably stayed a bit too long but it was nice to settle somewhere for a while and we had fun.

Yesterday was an interesting day! We decided to hire a jeep with some friends so that we could get around ourselves and have a look at Luang Prabang without being herded like cattle along with a tour. Everywhere you go people are trying to get you to pay to visit waterfalls and caves and do excursions and we just wanted to do it ourselves. We got completely ripped off and payed $100 to hire a pretty old jeep from a travel agency in the town. As there were 4 of us it didn't really matter. Before we were allowed to take it, we had to sign a 'contract' which consisted of a piece of A4 paper and a handwritten 'agreement' which said something along the lines of "we agree to all the things that we have spoken about". That should have really given us an indication that the whole deal was a bit dogey in the first place but we happily signed away! School boy error! The owner of the jeep (who looked a bit shifty) took Matt around for a spin before the rest of us could get in. In hindsight, we think this was so that he could check that the bloody thing worked. We don't think it had been used for some time. But it seemed to go fine, so we put some petrol in and set off. We had a great few hours driving around and seeing some villages outside of Luang Prabang which we wouldn't have seen unless we did it ourselves. It's surprisingly green here, there's many trees and plants everywhere but it's also extremely dry and dusty. As it's the dry season here, most of the lakes and waterfalls are quite low so you can't go rafting or anything at the moment.

We drove to three waterfalls and were told that we had to pay an entrance fee to get in to them! One was really crowded so we didn't bother, but we managed to find one that was fairly empty and stopped there for some lunch in the sunshine. Whilst we were eating lunch, several cars drove in to the waterfall and parked there - their owners then proceeded to get out and start to clean the car so it must have not only been a natural beauty but also a free car wash as well! No wonder it was so muddy! We decided not to go in, and continued to drive some more and find some of the caves taht all the tour operators keep going on about. Matt drove us down the most bumpy gravel road - even in a 4x4 it was pretty hard going, and we passed some jaw dropping scenery and even elephants just wandering around which was amazing. We drove along this really skinny dirt track up hill and stopped the car to admire the view. When Matt tried to start the car again... you guessed it, it wouldn't stat! We were in the middle of nowhere, blocking a road and the stupid car wouldn't start! We think it was the battery but then the car started to leak oil as well and none of us knew anything about cars at all! A local guy was nice enough to stop (we were blocking his way so he didn;t have a choice really) and managed to bump start the car - miracle! We managed to drive back in to town but were really stressing about having to pay for it - we realised that our travel insurance wouldn't cover us on a stupid hand written agreement and had no other paperwork!! So it turned in to a pretty horrible day, but luckily the guy didn't even notice when we got back - we dumped the car and legged it!!!

After calming down and having a shower we went out for our final night in Luang Prabang and had some great pasta and cocktails before having an early night - the excitement of the day really tired us out! But it was great to be independant and get around and Matt loved driving again (and did a great job considering what happened!).

Whilst we wait for our bus we are going to hang around the town and get some nice lunch and then probably treat ourselves to a massage! Hope you like the photos it took about 2 hours to upload them! Will write again when we get to Vientiane, lots of love Holls & Matt xxxxxxx