When we first arrived in Luang Prabang I wasn't too sure how I felt about the place. We arrived at our accommodation, the Kounsavan Guesthouse, where Ro and I shared a four bed dorm with Christoph and a newly acquired "friend", Steve.

Christoph wasn't impressed with our choice of accommodation (he's obviously travelling on a different budget to us). He was kind enough to take it a step further and compare our room to a German prison. Apparently prison is better for two reasons:

1. You don't need to share your room with others

2. There is a flat screen tv in every room

Just to clarify Chris has not been to prison. He is a public prosecutor and so he has seen many prison cells through his job.

I on the other hand (Mrs. Picky) thought the room was perfectly fine, exactly what you would expect for approximately £3.50 a night and the shower.. Oh Em Gee! It was an amazingly HOT rain shower! Just what Ro and I were screaming for after a week of cold showers whilst in the cold weather.

Ro reckons my dorm room standards have dropped since our horrendous accommodation in Pakbeng. Maybe he's right. Or maybe he's been hanging out with Chris for too long and his standards have increased.

Luang Prabang is my favourite city by far (to date)! The roads are quiet (compared to Thailand at least) and the people of Laos have a very calm and relaxed attitude to everything.

After three weeks of tourist heavy locations and busy roads in Thailand, our time in Luang Prabang was bliss.

Day 1: There's an enclosed night market in the town which offers an all you can eat buffet for 15,000 kip (£1.20) per person. Music to a backpacker's ears. The market had a really narrow pathway, sandwiched by food stalls on both sides and packed with a good mix of tourists and locals. Good food, good company, great atmosphere.

Day 2: We visited.. yes you guessed it.. another temple on top of a mountain. The sense of achievement after a forty- five minute climb up three hundred steps was great as we saw the most gorgeous sunset overlooking the beautiful city. The view point was packed with tourists, awaiting to see the sunset so all the good spots where taken. I however managed to squeeze myself through the crowd to a perfect spot. One of the many benefits of being petite. It just meant I was now surrounded by a group of strangers rather than Ro and the rest. However on the plus side I had the most stunning view of the sunset.

As the sun dipped the rosy red and orange colours disappeared and a layer of grey mist fell on the city. The crowds had filtered out by this point. Ro and I stayed on and found an awesome spot to enjoy this beautiful sight.

We sat and chatted to a fifty year old marshall artist from Berlin who was part of the punk movement back in the seventies. He shared some really interesting stories about his life. This included him cycling through India and Laos, being part of the anti-fascist movement in post war Germany and him fleeing to Amsterdam to escape persecution. As night fell we decided to make our way back down with the help of our head torches.

I think I'm templed out now. I've seen more temples over the last three weeks than I have throughout my entire life.

Day 3: We visited the Palace Museum where we learned about Laos history and the royal family. I pretended to be part of the guided tours so I could listen to the guide talk about the various paintings and objects. My favourite was a room filled with hundreds of gifts donated to the royal family from various countries ranging from Germany to India. Such beautiful ornaments.

We were advised by many travellers to cross 'the bamboo bridge' which overlooks the confluence of the Nam Khan, a clean and clear river and the murky brown Mekong river. This is not just any bamboo bridge. This bridge only survives during the dry season so it is rebuilt every six months. We were kinda mis-sold about what was on the other side of the bridge. We were under the impression that we were entering a jungle which sounded really adventurous. However we got to the other side to find that it was a quiet village home to many families and their chickens. Nevertheless the fifty second journey was still worth it.

After the long stroll we rewarded ourselves with a delicious vegetarian wrap at JoMa Bakery Cafe. I found myself lacking vegetables during our travels in Thailand which meant I was super excited to finally eat an entire meal of just vegetables.

After lunch we visited the biggest waterfall in LP and definitely the most beautiful one I've ever seen! Unfortunately because it was too cold to get in we climbed alongside it to the top and admired its natural beauty instead. This is what you call an emerald pool! The crystal clear water made it so tempting to jump in but I didn't fancy getting cold.

Wow what a day!

Day 4: Seeing as we had packed in so much over the last few days it only seemed right to enjoy a nice chilling day before we leave for Vang Vieng. We loved the not-so-cheap food at JoMa so much that we decided to re-visit the cafe and on this occasion we sat by the riverside for almost three hours, enjoying the view, watching a fisherman wash his boat and a group of local kids play footie. We hung around for so long that the staff billed us for someone else's drinks on top of our order.

Maybe we over stayed our welcome. Or maybe it's down to the fact that Laos people are super chilled and forgot to bill the couple who were sitting on the same table before we arrived. Either way we tried to explain to the waiter (who spoke very little English) that we didn't order those items. He politely insisted that we did. This went on for quite a while and was eventually resolved by the English speaking manager who originated from Europe. She was really apologetic and explained that this cafe employs individuals who would struggle to be employed by others due to their lack of education. Rather than being frustrated, we were encouraged to see such opportunities provided to the locals.

Day 5: LP is the centre of learning for monks. Every morning around 6am locals would line up and offer food, such as sticky rice, fresh fruits and traditional sweet snacks to around two hundred monks. This offering would make up their one and only meal for the entire day. Despite it being a ritual for locals, which began in the 14th century, visitors are encouraged to get involved too.

Ro and I were eager to see this sacred Laos tradition, known as the Buddhist Alms Giving Ceremony. We decided to be part of the audience as we didn't know enough about it to get involved. We saw a line of people sitting down on the floor awaiting the monks. It wasn't hard to distinguish the tourists from the locals, as they pulled out their phones and cameras to pose for photos. The camera clicking got worse as the line of monks approached.

What was once and peaceful and spiritual ceremony has now turned into a disruptive and disrespectful moment for the monks. My heart sank when I saw the young monks weaving in and out of the crowd to avoid the paparazzi that were constantly clicking in their faces. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if they turned off their flash. But on second thoughts maybe they shouldn't be taking photos at all and instead take away a beautiful memory.

The badly behaved tourists had completely ruined the experience for us too.

We've met many interesting people in Luang Prabang but the most interesting by far is the bible smuggler. So we were having our dinner at the night market and out of nowhere a random guy from Indiana, sat on our table and started chatting to us. He's on a lads holiday, but not the kind you would be familiar with. More like the kind where you fly into Hong Kong and smuggle 20,000 bibles into China with your dad, uncles and cousins. Apparently (according to Steve) it's expected by people from Indiana. Whatever that means?!

As I mentioned at the beginning... Luang Prabang is by far my favourite city.