Well....There's a phrase; words cannot describe...which essentially sums up the entirity of our somewhat comedic but in parts life threatening (Laura thought so anyway) journey from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang! The first bit was fine from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong. Air con bus, own seat, seatbelt, average road infrastructure...genius! However after our stay in Chiang Khong for the night; think hut with ply wood walls and you get the picture as to that night's accommodation, it was absolutely chucking it down with rain. Neither of us had seen anything like it. We had to get this little boat across the river to the Laos border. It was hilarious. There we are kitted out in our sexy ponchos in this boat which makes a peddlo look like a delux yatch. Then we were told that the slow boat to Laos that we were orginally supposed to get on wasn't "safe" cuz of the storm. We later found out that "not safe" was roughly translated as attempting to convince Western tourists to opt for the nemesis bus ride which incidentally enables the tour guide to pocket half of what we paid for the boat. In essence, we were robbed! haha!

The bus journey was beyond special and will definitely be in the treasured memory bank! The first surprise came when we had to sit on little stools, think like at a kiddie's tea party or something in the aisle of the bus cuz they had run out of seats. The next surprise was that the 12 hour bus journey actually ended up being 40! We had to stay overnight on the bus cuz there was a mudslide blocking the road. The bus was boiling and some of the others were drinking the rain water to stay hydrated! There were many obstacles on the way thanks to the expert Laos road infrastructure and we got to sample amazing cuisine such as egg yolk cakes and dry noodles! yum! We also had to pee at the side of the road, and as a result we both feel we have suffieciently roughed it!

We were so relieved when we arrived in Luang Prabang. We went straight to get some grub and had some traditional Laos food; a big fat pizza hehe! The town is actually really cute now we're here. It has rements of the French occupation and we went for a yummy breakfast this morn in a French inspired cafe. We've also been to the local waterfall and plan to do the night markets tonight. We're both drawn to the idea of genie pants...everyone seems to be wearing them. They'll be making an appearance in Topshop soon, just you wait!

Tomorrow we plan to go to this museum thing and then to this hill which will give us a good view of Laos, then it's on to Vang Vieng and braving those trusty buses again! Our clothes also got soaked in our bag packs. A similar effect to the storm would really just have been to turn a shower on over our backpacks and see what happened! We've had to pay 2 quid to have all our clothes washed. The laundry service is actually cheaper at home. It just seems to disappear and come back magically clean ;)

Hope all is good at home, take care everyone and speak to you soon xxxxxxxxxxxx