We made it up to Konglor village with little incident and managed to team up with an Italian guy to share the boat ride through the cave (max of 3 to a boat, so worked well!). Having left ThaKhek at 7.30am, we made it to Konglor in time to get one of the last boats through that afternoon, meaning we would be able to leave on the 7am bus to Vientiane the next day…we've been putting in some serious bus hours recently and it's beginning to hurt (literally - the buses are biting back, as you will read later).

There isn't much to do in Konglor other than visit the cave (unless you have your own wheels for exploring) and take a boat through it on the 7km long river. It was beautiful, amazing and slightly scary at times - your boat takes you most of the way but there is a section that is lit with fancy lights where you walk through, I guess to get some nice pictures etc and actually get a good look at the cave by light (albeit artificial light)…unless you have a super duper strength flash - you won't be able to get anything other pictures inside the cave. We were provided with head torches and life jackets - although the water levels were so low in parts that we had to hop out and push/pull the boat across the stones at the bottom, even had to drag it up a few rapids - which we then got to ride down on the way back - much fun!! It was huge, took about 45 minutes to go through one way and it's so so dark in there, we switched off our lights (for a minute or 2) and you just can't describe how dark it is in there. After a quick hop stop off in a little 'tourist village' at the other end, you get back in and do it all again! This time I kept my light off and just used the light from the other 2.

It was incredible. The water is so clear in the cave and with the lights shining the reflection onto the surface of the water, everything looks 3D - a totally amazing optical illusion that makes you think you are flying through space! Wish I'd been able to get some pictures of it, but alas - these ones are stored in my brain. The only thing that could have made the whole experience better would have been to have a non-motorised boat so that you could appreciate the sounds of the cave as well - but all in all a very worthwhile experience!

Konglor was done, next stop Vientiane. We were told that the bus would leave from the village at 7am, so you can imagine our surprise when it was early and we were rushed out of our room by the owner to make sure we caught it! Neither of us were feeling particularly well with grumbling tummies, so it was probably a good thing that we were rushed onto the bus, before we had time to work out whether we were up to it or not! I passed most of the 6 hours asleep which was a blessing and as far as bus rides go, it was fairly easy…that was until I fell down the stairs at one of the rest stops, slipping on a mat on the stairs. Luckily nothing serious other than a bashed knee, a bruised arm and a rush of adrenaline to the system! We seemed to have fewer stops than usual (which resulted in less than ideal breakfasts of a pack of crisps - with our tummies, we weren't happy to risk anything 'exotic' going in there!) which meant that we arrived about 6 hours later (pretty much bang on the quoted travel time - this hasn't happened before!!), although it took another hour and a half before we left the bus station waiting for the tuk tuk to fill up. If the bus station hadn't been 8km out of town, we would have walked.

Our guesthouse choice wasn't great - we'd taken a recommendation from the guidebook (that's a few years out of date) and, well lets just say, the guesthouse was a few years out of date as well. It's also a bad idea to start reading reviews for the place you are staying once you've booked in - it took us a while to convince ourselves that we didn't have bed bugs in the room - and we didn't, thankfully!

Vientiane is quite a small city and there were only a few things we wanted to see, all of which we could cover on foot, so we booked our sleeper bus to Luang Prabang giving us just one day to see everything and also extend our visas - easy…except that the immigration office don't process same day extensions. Which we found out after we'd bought and paid for the form. Pah. We were reliably informed that we could do it in Luang Prabang though and that they'd use the form we'd already paid for. It was nice to be back in a city where everything we want to see is within easy reach and we covered everything we wanted to see within a few hours, including the COPE centre which was very humbling. It's run y a charity that provides orthopaedics and prosthetics to victims of UXO accidents (unexploded objects - Lao was the most bombed country in the world and still has a huge number of mines and live bombs still littered around the countryside). So sad to think as well that some of the fatalities/injuries could have been prevented if the local hospital had enough blood and oxygen, but they don't - it's an odd concept for us from the West and it really makes you think how privileged we are. They also help people who've been in accidents and children born with clubfoot…Well worth a visit if you're in the area.

Next stop, Luang Prabang… We were excited about our first sleeping bus - with beds! Although that excitement dwindled rather quickly once we saw our little beds that were to contain us and our day packs and shoes! It wasn't that bad though once we realised that the bed next to James was empty so offloaded some of our belongings onto it. Well, it wasn't the most comfortable night's sleep, that's for sure. It was probably the worst road we'd travelled on in Lao and the beds didn't really leave much room for manoeuvre - they were more like super reclined seats. Thankfully though there wasn't any music pumping out, and they had a bog on board….which is fine when the road is not bumpy! Que incident number 2 - just as I was attempting to get into the toilet, the bus rocked and rolled and I fell forward face first into the door, face (luckily) didn't sustain any damage other than a slight knock to the cheek, however ankle and other arm were bruised in the process. I think the buses are fighting back.

But we arrived safely in Luang Prabang, and on time as well!! Not feeling very refreshed, we stopped at a café for a bagel and a coffee before finding a place to stay. After checking out a few places, we decided to treat ourselves a little bit and chose a nice big room with a balcony and even managed to squeeze out a bit of a discount. We have a few long bus journeys coming up so want to be able to fully recuperate from the past week in relative comfort.

The visa extension saga did not end there. Once we'd finally managed to locate the immigration office (it's moved from the map location and took us a while to find it), we were kindly informed that the forms we'd paid for in Vientiane weren't valid and that we also needed a picture. After a lot of asking, gesturing, pointing and walking up and down the same streets, we found a place that did them and only hoped they were going to be the right size. Only now, we'd missed the morning opening hours, so decided to wait out the lunchbreak in a little café. The immigration gods were in our favour though and the less than friendly officer accepted our pictures, (new) forms, money and passports. Tomorrow we get them back with our 5 day extension and we will then submit them straight to the Vietnamese embassy for our visa. Hopefully this one is not as troublesome!