17-19 April

On the morning of the 17th we caught a speed boat from Luang Prabang to the border of Thailand. It was nothing like any speed boat I had ever seen, it was a small boat with an extremely powerful car engine strapped to the back.

We had observed in the Lonely Planet after we had bought the tickets that there had been many fatalities on this form of transport and they were thinking of banning it. I was on the brink of tears when we got into the boat.

We were given life jackets and a helmet, but that wouldn't have done much use. We were travelling at more than 60mph and if we would have flipped it would have been like hitting concrete.

The boat was so cramped, I had my knees up to my face the whole time and had to share my seat with another guy from Prestwich.

The boat despite this was quite fun when it got going, but I don't think I have ever been so uncomfortable in my whole life.

The man made a couple of stops along the way to pick up a lizard and a fish for his tea.

We ended up arriving three hours late at the dock after an eight hour journey. We called the guy who was supposed to pick us up and he did half an hour later. We then found out the lad who was with us didn't have a visa and was in Laos illegally. After alot of deliberation we crossed through Laos immigration and crossed the river to Thailand, but it had just closed! We were stuck in no man's land....

The man who was supposed to see us through to Chiang Mai a further five hours away had abandoned us and we never saw him again. Adam was furious, but I wasn't that bothered, things like that happen all the time when you are travelling and you just have to accept it and move on.

While Adam ranted, I found a nice bungalow run by a lovely Thai family and got some cash and found a bar for Adam to calm down down a bit with a nice cold beer. He calmed down after a bit and we had a good laugh about it.

We ended up staying in Chiang Khong for three nights. Even though it was just a sleepy little border town it had everything we needed and we had had an intense couple of weeks and needed to chill out a bit. We attempted to go straight to Bangkok, but there was no bus tickets for a week so off to Chiang Mai we went!