We set off in the morning and drove into the Xe Champhone Wetlands. It was quite remote. We stopped at a house for lunch and left the Stray bus there. With a small bag we got into two off-road trucks as the road turned into a dirt track. It was a real off the beaten track experience as it was such a bumpy ride, we had to hold on tight so we didn't fall out or bang our heads on the roof! The first of our two stops was to visit Turtle Lake which had soft-shell turtles in. The locals consider them to be sacred turtles. We bought some bags of food off the locals and spent about 20 minutes feeding the turtles. Our next stop was Old Wat Taleow which used to be a stunningly beautiful temple, it was bombed in 1969 and only the ruins remain now. The walls were falling down and full of bullet holes. Inside there were a few statues and monuments left and you could see some of the wall paintings still intact. After that we got back in the trucks and carried on towards our place to stay for the night.

That night we were having a home stay in a local village. The trucks pulled up beside a wide stream that had a forest on the other side. To get to the village we had to cross the stream. Going across the stream were three bamboo poles to make a bridge, a very uneven, wobbly bridge. So first of all we had the task of crossing the bamboo bridge. It was similar to crossing a tight rope! It was made very hard to cross with bags as they made you off balance. Some people gave up and rolled their trousers up and paddled across instead. Finally having made it across the stream we walked through the woods until we came to a clearing where the village was. The houses we all built on stilts and there were lots of dogs and children running around. We were all to stay in one house together. It was basically like having a big sleepover in a tree house as the floor was covered in matresses. We dropped our things off and went to explore Monkey Forest - a sacred forest, home to thousands of Rhesus Macaque Monkeys. We went into the grounds of the temple where all the monkeys were running around and fighting. There was one really small baby monkey that was keeping very close to mum. After that we went back to the house for the meal the locals had prepared for us. There was lots of food and we were sneakily giving the dogs some of the sticky rice as they all looked really skinny. After dinner the locals were giving a ceremony for us. It is traditionally used if a local is going on a journey to wish them luck. In the middle of the room was a centre piece of candles and flowers with sticks that had white strings hanging on them. The chief of the village conducted the ceremony. We all sat on our knees in a semi-circle around the centre piece whilst the chief said some words of blessing. At one point we had to put our hand on the bottom ledge of the centre piece whilst the chief said some more words. Next they took the white strings off the centre piece and tied them around our wrists whilst saying some more words. Every local person that was there put one string around our wrists so we ended up with about 12 pieces of white string tied around our wrists. It also then involved all of us having a sip of the Lao Lao whiskey and that was the end of the ceremony. The tradition says that you should have them on for at least a week for the luck to work and that you shouldn't cut or take them off but that they should fall off on their own accord.

The next morning we thanked the locals and said goodbye as we had to head back and once again cross the bamboo bridge to get back into the trucks. We were heading to a 200 year old Hotay Pidok Buddhist library which had ancient scriptures written on palm leafs. To enter the library all the girls had to be wearing a long skirt and if not they provided us with a long surrong and we also had to wear a white sash. We had to walk across a wooden bridge to a wooden building on stilts. Inside were some wardrobes that contained the ancient scriptures written on palm leafs wrapped up carefully in cloth.

After that we drove back to the Stray bus and continued further south to get to the waterfall of Tad Lo in the heart of the Bolaven Plateau. We had the opportunity to watch the local elephants bathe in the waterfall which was wonderful to see. We stayed in a local guesthouse in the small village which did excellent food, especially the chocolate pancakes!