Having arrived in Houei Xai we quickly realised that we wouldn't be crossing the border that night so ever so tired from the 2 day slow boat we dropped our bags at the Lonely Planet recommended BAP Guesthouse, oh were we in for a treat. Crazy is not a strong enough word to describe the 3 sisters than own the place. Every customer greeting, every reaction to a question, every waddle to the kitchen had you in fits of laughter. With only 5 teeth between them and an average age of 68 they were a sight to behold.

We we joined that evening for dinner by an Austrian girl who had travelled to Houei Xai just to go to the famous Gibbon Experience. Having heard nothing of it before we were excited to learn exactly what it involved and by the end of dinner we'd decided to stay another 3 days in Laos!

After a rare lie in we were up at 8, we booked the GB for the following day and sought advice from our new "mum" at BAP. Within the hour we were on a personal whistle-stop tour of the local area, highlights included - the local market (live fish crammed into barrels and weighed and bagged alive!), houses partially made from American bombs, a whiskey distillery (bamboo shack in a blokes garden), a rice noodle factory (bamboo shack in a blokes garden), a bamboo paper factory (bamboo shack in a blokes garden) and the Chinese electronics market.