After a VERY long few hours of being thrown about the bus we stop at midnight for dinner at a Laotian service station for food. Had stale subway baguette with salad. Only ate half of it. Get back on the bus and stop again at 2am for someone to buy vegetables!

At 5:45am I'm woken up by an American girl who says everyone had to get off the bus as we were stuck in mud! After an hour and the driver did lots of digging up of the mud we are unstuck and the bus pulls over. Some of us get back on the bus and start to nap, after about another hour of still not moving I venture outside to find someone and figure out what's going on.

Talk to a Dutch girl and an American (Aubrey) who tell me there are 2 trucks stuck in the mud next to each other so the road is blocked, some people have been stuck since 9pm! I now need a wee, typical! Try to ask the locals but they just smile and walk off, I don't think they understand! Go back to the bus and see André & Thiago (the Brazilian guys, cousins) from earlier. Luckily Thiago can speak a little bit of Thai from learning in Bangkok! He finds someone who owns a toilet so we go in to use it have to take our shoes off like in every place in Thailand. The floor's wet as you have to pour water down the loo to flush it from a big thing of water.

Go back to bus and wake Rikka up to let her know what's going on. Go back outside (its way cooler off the bus) and sit down with Thiago, André and 2 locals. They let us drink BeerLao with them. Cheers in Laotian is "thom chak". The beer is so cold, don't mind how long we have to stay here now :) Rikka tries a cricket too!

At 9am everyone gets back on the bus, we have to finish our beer "mon chak" means to finish your drink :) wobble a lot but finally get past the bit where the trucks were stuck. We are FINALLY on the way again!

Fall asleep for most of the journey and arrive in Luang Prabang bus station just before midday, just 6 hours after we were scheduled to arrive.

Get a Tuk Tuk to the hostel Rikka stayed in last year, Levady guest house. Have a shower quickly and then go next door to Mango Garden Restaurant for a vegetable sandwich, really tasty! After talk with André and Thiago, who are going to go up PhuSi mountain, we decide to go to as it was something rikka hadn't done yet :)

So hot, and after over 200 steps we are shattered and overheating! We decide to go back down after taking lots of photos, such a good view from the top! Head to a bar with a fan to cool down called 'Tangor' for a Savana cider.

Thiago and André order beer Lao and we order more, 7 bottles in total and the bill comes to 200,000kip. Hopefully mum and dad never see a bill with this number on in a pub in England!

When we leave the bar it's dark at 6:30pm and we walk through the night market. Figured out to know the amounts of things to convert back to baht. Take the three 0's off and times the number remaining by 4.

Get food at a street market where it's a buffet. You take a bowl and whatever you out in costs 10,000! Quite good really for 70p. Then go to find 'Utopia", apparently every backpacker finds it, although even with Rikka, who went last year, it took us 2 attempts. Once we get there it's really cool with lots of cushions to sit on the floor. I Got a headache so just get a coke while the others get Lao Lao and coke.

After about an hour we head home! It starts to rain on the way back but it's quite refreshing! Get back at 11pm and I go straight to sleep to get rid of my headache, probably the earliest bed time since we arrived.