We woke up that morning at around 07:00 to give us enough time to pack the last of our things up and get breakfast before we began our journey by Tuktuk at 09:00. We checked out of the guesthouse simply by placing the keys on the table out front and saying goodbye to the main woman who worked there. We proceeded 1 minute down the road and into BAP guesthouse, where the tuktuk would be picking us up.

We sat down on a table outside, it's quite surprisingly cold in the mornings and late evenings here so i had both my sarong and hoody on and i was shivering slightly. We waited and waited to be given a menu, making eye contact with a few of the women working, but we were not acknowledged. Dan decided to get up and search around for a menu for us to look at, when we finally found one (not the cleanest menu, a laminated folder that felt somehow dusty and sticky at the same time) and we flicked straight to the breakfast page.

When we were finally approached by someone, we ordered our food, mine being scrambled eggs and toast and Dan a banana pancake, the woman rushed off before we even stopped ordering. But again, you can't expect much service in Laos. We ended up waiting for what seemed hours for our drinks to arrive, just 2 coffees, but people around us had ordered the same thing and the woman had no clue what on earth she was doing, but thankfully everyone seemed to stay calm and see the comical side of it all.

My breakfast arrived first, the bread barely toasted, minus butter. Which is one of the biggest let downs in life for me; serving bread with no butter, she's lucky i'm not a french woman who would be sure to need resuscitating at the insult. Dan eventually got his pancake, although by that time i had long finished my food. Half way through the pancake the same order came out again. Eggs on toast and a pancake, we thought sod it we might as well just take the second pancake which filled us tummies a little more.

We also ordered two tuna baguettes to take away for our lunch on the long boat, which arrived soon after the second pancake. As it was getting onto 09:00 we asked to settle our bill, having to repeat to the lady what it was we ordered so she could charge us; she's lucky we're so honest otherwise we could have cheated and saved ourselves thousands of kip! We also boight two packs of marlboros for the journey ( well we originally only wanted one but the lady tricked us into buying two as she said "much better for youuuuu").

Our tuktuk was running incredibly late, it was now 09:40 and still no sign of it. Tensions were running high as we've heard stories that latecomers get a bad seat on the boat or won't be able to sit with their other halves so i was fretting about this, already irritated with the no butter scenario at breakfast. Finally our tuktuk arrived at around 09:50, so we quickly boarded it and made our way on the short drive to the port.

That driver took our passports and got the tickets for us. Soon as we got the tickets we were down those steps as quick as possible in order to get a decent seat, not realising that our tickets had allocated seats already and was relieved that i was number 39 and dan was 40. Whilst stepping onto the boat it was already around half full with backpackers, some who had been there since 08:00am! The long boats are so strange, like a paradox of tradition and modernisation in one. The beautiful shape and layout of the wood on the boat is filled with old car seats, row after row of them. Nevertheless, the journey is famous and it's always a good thing to try something new.

When we got to our assigned seats, i was sat on the outside of a row os three and dan on the outside of a row of two, feeling naughty and rebellious i switched the ticket numbers so Dan and I could sit together. It's hardly a crime as i'm sure people do it all the time! The boat was supposed to leave the dock at 10:30, which changed to 11:00 which then changed to 11:40 and in the end we set off at around midday, much to the annoyance of pretty much everybody on board. Or maybe i'm just being a bit too british and expecting much more? For christ sake an apology for the delay wouldn't go a miss would it?!

We began drifting down the murky, muddy coloured river, the temperature was slowly beginning to warm up and the sun rose above the trees and i could finally unzip my hoody (which needs a damn good clean anyway). The rock formations on either side are so marvellous. Like gigantic pieces of slate but with different layers of colour plastered across them. The hills surrounding the river are densely populated with tall, lush green trees. I keep getting the urge to swim to the shore and disappear through the gaps of the trees and escape into the Laos jungle. I could never of course, but it's a desperate urger to discover all the wildlife that live in the crevices and tree tops of the forests surrounding the river.

We made a few brief stop offs to drop locals off or pick some up. Which didn't cut into the journey too much. We passed a man sitting perched on top of a high mountain of different rocks looking out into the river which made me question "how the hell did he get up there? And what's his story?" Of course, these are only questions you can quiz yourself in your head. It was a little cramped where we were sat but we both managed to have a nap at some point. We had the baguettes as well which were quite tasty! Although i kept getting a mayonnaise leaking out of my baguette and down my cleavage; sticky.

The sun was around an hour away from setting and the boat pulled into our first stop over- pakbeng. As we all slowly got off the boat and collected our backpacks from underneath the boat we made our way up the rocky steps at the pier to be greeted with locals holding up their signs for their guesthouses. It felt like an arrivals gate at an airport, a bunch of tired looking tourists being greeted with small asians holding up laminated pieces of paper.

We went with the first guesthouse we saw, can't remember the name of it but he offered us a room for 400TB/1,000kip was was around a fiver each. He loaded a bunch of us in the back of his truck like a load of cattle and proceeded to drive 30 seconds up the road to his guesthouse. First impression was WOW. it was painted like green and purple and resembled a castle, one of which the incredible hulk may reside in. It was by far the flashiest looking place on the whole strip and boy the owner must be proud. He handed us a key and so we made our own way up the stairs along with a few others (mainly older french people, don't ask me why there's so many, cassarah!).

We unlocked our room ( i say unlocked but it was never locked to begin with, maybe because of how stiff the door was anyway, who knows). And i was relieved to see a bed that looked clean! The sheets at Gecko bar gave me a fright as i pulled them over my chin to take a whiff and got a pungent smell of B.O from it. Put me off the whole thing. So as i say, i was relieved, neigh, ecstatic to find that the mattress even had a plastic protectant over it! The room must have been newly painted as it was white as anything, which made me look even browner hehehe. The bathroom as well was large and had hot water! Woohoo! Only downside was that the door was mega stiff and didn't want to lock so we made sure to bring all our valuables with us when we went out. Pleased with our selection of guesthouse we went downstairs to pay.

While paying for the room we were offered the chance to preorder breakfast and a baguette to take with us for the boat trip. So we both went for eggs and a baguette for brekkie and a tuna baguette again for lunch. After arranging all that, we took a stroll back down the the pier, passing loads of eateries on the way including an authentic indian place (we spotted this while on the back of the truck, the indian man outside made eye contact and said "indian food" whilst pointing inside his restaurant, which tickled a few of us.)

When we reached the pied, the sun was setting so we took a few snaps while lighting a joint. Our cameras were playing up and so a few of our pics looked a bit amateur and awful however, we got a few winners from the bunch. Reasonably stoned we began to walk back up the strip where we contemplated an indian. We went inside and couldn't find a free table so we decided to just go to the restaurant back at our incredible hulk guesthouse.

Service here was as expected, slow, very slow. We were greeted around 10 minutes after sitting down given dirty menus to read. We were occupied woth our ipads however so didn't get to the menu for a while, not that anyway came to check on us or anything. Until we grabbed the attention of a timid man working at the guesthouse. The poor bloke couldn't speak a word of english and so ordering was simply pointing to the menu, where he would then squint to read what we were pointing at and write it down. I ordered a lao tea, bamboo soup, chicken curry and rice.

The tea really just tasted like twigs with hot water and i couldn't take a sip without getting a mouth full of stems. My bamboo soup never came, which is a shame as i was really looking forward to trying it but i guess it will be available elsewhere on Laos! The chicken curry, i wouldn't call it a curry so to speak as there was very little sauce with it but the flavours were lovely. Dan opted for a chicken steak and chips and he enjoyed his so i guess i drew the short straw that time.

We were still pretty peckish after dinner so we fancied ordering some banana pancakes for desert. Dan had to get up and tell the man himself as he was busy sitting out front with a fag in hand. When they eventually came they were hands down one of the best pancakes ever. The pancake itself was slightly salty on the buttery but buttery at the same time. The banana was cooked with the pancake instead of being laid fresh on top and there was a drizzle of condensed milk on top. The whole thing was perfect! The texture and flavour was out of this world! I could have easily eaten another. However, i'm trying to cut down a bit on the food, especially after my nightly binges at pai.

We settled the bill and made our way back to the room where i decided to shower and wash my hair ( a luxury that only happens once a week as to ration shampoo and conditioner). We set the alarm to 6:00am in order to have plenty of time for breakfast and to grab a decent seat.