Friday 15th June

We arrived in the border town of Huay Xia very blurred eyes and hopped onto a tuk-tuk. No one had a clue where they were going so I asked to be taken to Sabadee (hello in Lao) Guesthouse. It was pretty cheap for the both of us and it was actually an ok room! We showered and went out for breakfast and then go to the office to pay for our trip tomorrow. We also booked the bus to Chiang Mai for the day after we returned. Most people get to Chiang Mai either by slow boat for two days or a bus for 20 hours from Luang Prabang. I'm glad our bus ride would literally be only 4.5 hours!

Huay Xia is like any border town, small and had everything that we needed and a good selection of restaurants!

We have a booked a (expensive) trip with the Gibbon Experience! We weren't too sure what to expect, but we knew it was going to be good! We had a pretty chilled out day, I watched some Hawaii Five-O and Stu stayed in the room watching TV! The internet here is pretty fast, I think it's because we are so close to Thailand, literally next door. I can see Thailand from our guesthouse balcony!

We eventually ventured out for some dinner and returned to back to back the bare essentials into our day sacks and pack our bigger bag ready for storage. We put our heads down as we knew it was going to be a long day!

Saturday 16th June

We woke up early got washed and dressed ready for our long day. We put our big bags into storage and grabbed some breakfast. We went to the office to wait for our pick up which was a green pickup truck converted into seats either side of the back. I opted for the back, which I regretted soon after as it started to rain and got very cold quickly! Before that the car had to be jumped started, I don't know how to Lao people can push a huge car with nine people in it!!

The car came alive, thankfully this is not uncommon in Asia, and we were off! We drove south for an hour before we stopped and got out. We were kitted out in some highly fashionable harnesses! We started our walk through the jungle! Our first mission, we had walked for 100 meters, was to bypass the angriest cow I have ever seen, no mum it wasn't you (heheee!). She was slightly over protected of her calf, we managed to find another route, but it was a funny start to the day! It was a long and hard walk, steep at times and four months of travelling showed how unfit I was! Luckily someone was smart enough to make benches every quarter of the way! We past some amazing views of the scenery around us, there were plenty of bugs trying to attack me including furry caterpillars that hung out of the tree waiting for an unexpected person to walk into them. The last thing I needed as a rash caused by these creatures so kept my eyes peeled! Soon enough we had climbed high enough to start the main reason we booked the tour, zip lining! It was a little scary at first, seeing as we were zip lining up to 500 meters across and I don't even want to think how deep! Once the first few were out the way, we were all pros, well we thought so! If you fell short of the end you had to pull yourself in, which is quite hard! If you didn't stop in time, well, you had the tree to stop you. This was Stu's method for the entire trip and we could all tell when he did it by the feel of the zip line jerking!! Stu also somehow managed to rip his shirt?!

After nine lines later and our adrenaline pumping we reached our home for the night, a tree house! It was awesome! The highest tree in the valley with amazing views! The best part was the bathroom, there was no walls (luckily no neighbours either!) and you had a great view while you showered!

We had a couple of hours to chill out, everyone played cards, and I was shattered from the walk and passed out on the mattress!

We (I) got woken by our guide Kan ready to go zip lining again! The walk was tough as we needed to get to higher ground before we could start zip lining! We did a big circuit of four in total, which we did again! It was awesome! I took a few videos of what views we got zipping across!

When we finally returned to the tree house, dinner was served! There was a lot of rice and four different dishes! It was very tasty. After dinner, I took the opportunity to have what I am calling, the best shower I have had in the world! It was cold, but didn't care as I was still hot from zip lining!

We sat around and watched the sky grow dark and played card games. We all got a bit too involved, good job we didn't have any neighbours! We ended up going to bed a 9 pm! But we were all shattered. We finally got to lie down and sleep amongst the jungle. There are some weird noises to be heard out there! I also got to see fireflies for the first time. They are so pretty, flying above our heads turning their light on and off!

It started to rain…hard…all night! Which didn't bother me as I like the sound of rain; I was half hoping it would stop as we were planning to go out looking for animals in the morning. But I also kind of hoped we didn't after the hard day we had!

Sunday 17th June

I woke up and it was still raining, no animal trekking then! I also noticed my side of the bed was wet! Damn rain! We got up and breakfast was just being served! More rice and eggs! It was yummy!

We got kitted up again and headed back out the jungle, the guides weren't sure how long we would have to walk, it all depends how far the car could get after the rain. It could take up to four hours!!! It is a lot harder walking downhill, I managed to roll both my ankles and buckle my knees! Plus the ground was wet making it a slipping hazard for me! The guide did make me a makeshift walking stick out of bamboo, I felt like Gandalf, minus the beard and all that!

We came across our first zip wires of the day; one included the longest one of them all, 800 meters. It was massive! I thought the guide said 300 meters at first, and as thinking whilst on the zip wire this is not 300 meters! Crazy people! Soon after our last zip wire we saw the car, hurray!! We had our lunch and got back in the car. It was sunny so opted to sit in the back again! It was an interesting journey! Very off road!!! It was extremely bumpy and great fun! At one point a furry caterpillar was going to attack so tried to get rid of it, but came back with a vengeance! Everyone found it amusing me screaming trying to get rid of said caterpillar!

At one point we had to get out of the car to let it cross a bridge made of logs. Good job we did as the wheel nearly went straight through! After our hectic, crazy off roading we were back on solid, flat ground. We got dropped off at the office and headed back to our guesthouse. We tried to get the same room as the fan was really good, but someone was already using it. We looked at four different rooms before settling with the second one! We had a long awaited shower and sorted our bags out! We met up with the others and had lunch before they all went to the bus stop to catch their onward travel.

We went back to the guesthouse, where I finally finished Hawaii Five-O and started on my next mission, Gossip Girl! We ventured for some more food for dinner before having an early sleep ready for our border crossing!

Overall view on Laos:

I love Laos, it is beautiful! The people are lovely and there was always something to do! We were looking forward to Laos after Vietnam and we were not disappointed! I was really sad to leave, the same with Cambodia. I would love to come back and visit the south. The weather was perfect, for me, not too hot with the daily shower to cool everything down more! I wished we had the chance to spend more time here!

Total miles travelled from UK: 14,183

Transport taken:

Trains = 20

Boats = 3

Bus = 17

Hours ahead of UK:

+7