We hadn't planned to go to Thailand, but the beauty of being flexible - that's where we were heading. We had heard about the slow boat from Luang Prabang on the mighty Mekong which takes two days and thought it would be a really great way to travel.

We were picked up at 06.30 and taken to our 35-meter long boat to meet our 38 other passengers - except there were only another 4! So, 6 of us enjoyed a 40-seater boat, with its retractable wooden roof giving us an instant sundeck, and off we went for our 9-hour journey up river. This first day is the most scenic and we enjoyed the mountain landscape, tiny villages, jungle and able to watch more village life on the riverside as the river is very low at this time of year. Lots of fishermen, farmers and their cattle and locals panning for gold.

We had one stop on the first day at the Pak Ou Caves, one of the most respected holy sites in Laos and packed with over 4000 Buddha icons, all set in a dramatic limestone cliff. Other than that, we sat on the boat admiring the scenery, watching the pilot skilfully navigating the river due to the low water (he has been doing the job for 20 years), and sat down to a lovely lunch. Finally, we arrived in a town called Pak Beng for our overnight stop. We found a bar called "Happy Bar" where we sat for a couple of hours drinking Caribbean cocktails and "chillin" to the reggae beat, with the dreadlocked geographically misplaced barman dancing in the background, before dinner and an early night.

Day 2 - another 06.30 start and very much a similar pattern to yesterday. Our stop today was at a local village and school which was so interesting to see. The kids were gorgeous and we were very impressed with the set-up, individual tooth brushes lined up for each child, soap bags, 3 classrooms but only 2 teachers. The village was like looking at a National Geographic magazine, with barefoot kids, chickens, pigs, and thatched houses on stilts everywhere - we did feel a bit intrusive but the people seemed happy to see us.

After lunch we decided to crack open our litre bottle of gin we had been carrying and share it with our fellow travellers. We had bought cans of tonic the night before and hoped the boat had ice. They didn't as such, but had frozen water bottles which they chopped up for ice. We finished ¾'s of the bottle and made for a pleasant few hours - G & T on the Mekong.

We arrived at the border post about 4.00pm and got stamped out of Laos, we then got on a bus over the friendship bridge to the Thai border. Everything went quick and smooth and by 6.00pm we were on another mini-van for the 2-hour ride to Chiang Rai. A wonderful end to our short time in Laos.