10:33AM

This morning was hectic!

Once again, me and Pippa woke up unbelievably late and had a last minute rush to get ready and get ourselves to the lobby to meet everyone and head out along the Mekong river for Pakbeng.

Quite literally, our alarms were each set and also dismissed the momenmt they sounded to wake us up as we felt we were that far gone- up all night drying my stupid clothes with a hairdryer is probably what did it! The last time I handwash stuff on this trip!. AT 6:17am Jason knocked on our door suspecting we were still in the land of nod- that's the only reason we got up and made it for the 6:30 departure- no time for a shower or for brushing teeth. Luckily the hairdryer trick worked and I had packed my backpack in advance!

I'm now sat on the slow boat which is taking us on a 24 hour journey- it's going to be a long one! There are no comfortable seats to sleep as the day goes on and it's an open air boat along the sides so by tonight I'm almost gaurenteed to have been eaten alive I'm sure. The house stay will be just as s***ty on that front I reckon- no electric/AC so another unfortable night to endure (lots more mozzies too). Hilariously, I got Iris to grab me a hand fan ready for the stay lastnight but I've thrown it away already! f*** knows what type of process the bamboo frame had gone through before making the fan stage because no word of a lie, it stunk of s***! - I mean seriously stunk! I just had to leave it behind because the smell from fanning the thing or your fingers after even holding it was rancid... 10,000 Kip well spent by Iris, NOT!

Me, Pippa and Simon ended up staying in lastnight instead of doing a group meal and a tour of the night markets. Instead we got a takeaway from an amazing deli called 'Joma' and settled down to watch a series of True Blood on HBO... we had a complete feast and it was well needed/ appreciated!

Anyway, I'll leave it there until later I'm sure as I've still got hours to go on this slow boat.