We were up at 7.30am to make our way back down to the boat. If I thought scrambling up the hill was difficult the previous night getting back down the hill with my backpack and my day pack I thought I was just going to roll down at one point. The captain of thee boat helped me with my bag and we were ready to go to Ban Lad Khamoune which was a village we were visiting and staying overnight in.

He boat journey was 5 hours so I caught up on a few blogs (even started writing this one only for it to delete the whole thing after I'd finished grrrr) and we stopped at a village on route. As soon as we pulled the boat up to the village the children were running down to the boat trying to sell us bracelets, embroidery work and scarves. They followed us around the whole trip until we were back on the boat. We saw their houses and where they made curd and rice. There were three ladies working the machine to make curd and it looked pretty easy with two rocks grinding the ingredients and the two ladies working a wood mechanism to move the two stones. They offered our group to have a go and it quickly proved it wasn't that easy at all. After walking around the whole village, it was pretty small we were back on the boat and travelling to Ban Lad Khamoune.

When we arrived we had to climb a lot of steps and hills to reach the village. We were greeted by a group of men who were sifting through honeycomb and offered some to Bun, but it has a lot of grubs in so I didn't take any. It did look a bit like an I'm a celebrity challenge.

We went to the house we were staying and dropped our bags off. It was a lot nicer than the other houses in the village and it has a squat toilet and a shower (well a big metal bath tub and a plastic scoop to throw the water over yourself) but the other houses didn't have this. We then went on a village tour and saw the hospital clinic which was built in 2013 and has been provided by the Laos government and other charities. As the village is large and combines two tribes it has it's own nurse that lives full time in the village. We also visited the temple and the school which was also modern. It is law that every child age 6 and above must go to school in Laos, when we arrived school had just finished so the children were playing volleyball and football. Next we went to swim in the stream. We were told that ladies had to cover up when swimming so we all had to wear sarongs over our costumes. The walk to the steam was about 20 minutes through the forest and the rice fields and the little children held our hands down the steep bits. You could tell they had made the journey thousands of times as they were experts at throwing themselves down the hills whereas we had walked their in our flip flops with no grip so it took us a little longer than them. When we reached the stream all the children were in the water naked. One boy had carried down a basket of soap and shampoo so they were all washing. When we got in the water it was freezing but refreshing after a day in the heat of the village.

We arrived back at the house and it was time for dinner. The lady in the house next door had cooked us a feast. We had chicken and potato soup, stir fry green bean,carrot and chicken, bamboo sprouts and noodles as well as rice and sticky rice. The only problem was she kept refilling the dishes so after we were all stuffed it still looked like there was a mountain of food left. After we had finished our meal it was time for the blessing ceremony.

The blessing ceremony was to welcome us into the village and bless us on our travels. It was performed by the elders of the village. We were told that it is rude to sit with your feet pointing to people so the custom is to sit kneeling with your feet behind you. The ceremony started and we all had to kneel by a big try that had flowers and candles on. The blessing went on for quite a while and my knees were really hurting so much so that the lady behind me must have seen my legs shaking and pushed me to sit down. Next we were to be blessed by all the elders. They did it by tying bits of string around each of our wrists and saying a blessing. We are supposed to keep the string around our wrists for three days but if I'm honest I do look a little like I have been self harming.

The final part of the blessing was to give us a plate of food. After the big meal we had I was stuffed. The plate had on it a banana, peanut wafer, sticky rice and a boiled egg. I managed the banana and sticky rice but then the elder said I could pass the plate back to the other elders. The final part was a shot of rice whiskey and it was horrible. we were then given a second shot and I was starting to worry how many shots were included in the blessing! Then music was played and we all clapped along, what I didn't realise was if you continue to clap once the song had finished you had to have another shot...damn that second song, another shot! We had to tip them for the ceremony as I think the stray tours fund a big part of their village income and I guess it helped them pay for the rice whiskey!

We were then told that the children of the village were coming to dance for us. They were all dressed in traditional dress and age from 6 to 14. There dances reminded me of hula dancing hands and a shuffle in a circle but they were really good at it. They did 4 dances and then gave us flowers for our hair and we tipped them for the dancing. They then came and asked us to dance with them and after we had finished dancing hugged us and said goodnight. It was all very sweet.

We went upstairs to our rooms which was a little room with a thin mattress, a couple of duvet covers and a mosquito net. I shared a room with Saskya. I drifted off to sleep quite quickly but every so often I would wake up with the sound of the roosters crowing, ducks quacking or dogs barking. All in all it was a great experience but maybe not one I could repeat everyday.