About 6 hours North of Vang Vieng on a VERY twisty mountain road and some fantastic scenery we arrived in the very beautiful Luang Prabang. We struck it lucky with a gorgeous French Mansion guest house-we are in the servants quarters out back but its like our own chalet! Where would we be without Lonely Planet? Anyway, guess what we did our first day? KAYAKING! We combined this trip with a visit to the Elephant resort. We got to ride an elephant, which I have to say was an experience. Stephen sat on her neck, I shared a seat with a Swedish girl on the nellies back. There were 3 elephants, we got the naughty one!! She kept galloping off the path to pull branches off trees, Stephen was gripping on for dear life! I felt travel sick and I felt a bit sorry for them, even though they seem well looked after and lived in the forest, the 'mahout', her trainer kept shouting at her. She was 60 years old! I did feed her about 30 bananas afterwards, I would describe her trunk as a wet vacuum cleaner nozzle! Then we had lunch and went kayaking again, just us and the guide this time. It was 3-4 hours down river back to town, however the river was hardly moving so we had to paddle really hard this time. after 15 minutes I said "My arms are killing me I need a rest" and we were both thinking God we have another 3 hours at least.... But we carried on (I paddled now and again) and we did the trip in 2 hours 20 minutes!! A record! Got sunburnt today on my legs, I'm quite pleased, at least they are not white anymore. Just red and flaky. Stephen has a rash on his inner thighs off the elephants neck, god knows what it is but I'm treating it with hydrocortisone cream any suggestions? We have booked a flight to Chaing Mai in Thailand on Tuesday, but I will be sad to leave Laos behind.