Hey everyone!!!

So Im in Luang Prabhang now....fiiiiiiiiiinaly! It was a longgg journey to get here! We left Chiang Mai from our hostel at like 830 in the morning in an ac minivan with 8 others and drove up to the border crossing between thailand and Laos. We spent one night there in a hostel and then started the journey the next day. After getting our visas sorted and getting robbed...not literally but a laos visa is meant to be $30 anmd they charged us $40 just for their 'services' we head off to the border crossing where we had to take a slow boat across to laos to the immigration place, get our passports stamped and then take the long big slow boat! At this point we were giving away 5, 10 and 20 bahts left right and centre, daylight robbery! firstly because it was a sunday and they charge more on the weekends, then u had to pay 5 baht just for thm to stamp our passports! we gave up questioning them after a while! so after some long waiting around, getting onto and out of boats and cars and waiting around and showing what felt lijke a million people our passports we got onto the boat! it was a really long boat with benches on eash side and a place to walk down the middle. we were on this boat for about 6 hours! after 6 hours we stopped at a small village called pok pen or somthing like that! and stayed one night there. This was the worst night we've had since being away - worse then sleeping in the bat cave!!! We were playing music in our room and heard banging on teh wall from the next room and so turned the music off thinking that was the reason y! Next a guy come s knocking at our door and we open and he offers us a ciggerate. we told him we didnt smoke and told him to go, but he was trying to come into the room, he didnt speak english and then he finally left when toyosi was about to go complain. it was really freaky! then...about 10 at night (when all the electricity goes off so ther werent any light, fan etc) we hear him go back to his room and he kept knocking and scratching on the wall the WHOLEEEEEEEE night in intervals! i have never bin so scared in my life, both of us hardly slept the whole night. stupid psycho man. then  in the morning when we were leaving he had the cheek to say 'good morning' to us!!!!!!! ughhh! so not a good start to laos unfourtunately. today we wer on the boat from 9 to 5 and the seats were more uncomfortable but the views along the mekong river more than made up for that! So were in luang prahang now, so far so good, our room is amazing, pure luxury, 2 double beds and hot showers for 1.50 pounds each! we are starving now so going to eat and maybe try the beer lao'! xxx