We woke up this morning for a quick breakfast before heading for a boat to take us down the river. I dont know what i was expecting for this 2day trip but it wasnt what we got. We basically had a boat that if public usually has a couple of hundred passangers on it (not all sitting) to ourselves. We moved at a breezy speed, keeping us cool and we sat chatting, relaxing, reading, interacting with the boat family's children, eating a huge lunch and dozing for two days. Magic!

We have had lots of good chats within the group. I keep thinking we will run out of concersation but we havent yet. People have very different jobs and very different countries and cultures they are pqrt of and different lives to talk about. We have Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist and Christian religions to talk about and compare which has been very interesting for me, geek that i am. (And before i forget Flat Stanley is on the move Claire H! :D ) All sorts of topics have come up and everyone seems pretty open to chatting about anything and we genuinly seek to spend time with each other. A wee travelling family. Limny of course has many many stories to tell about a very different life and culture which is great. We also have a local guide that has to travel with us through Laos. He isnt all that great though.

We stopped at a hill tribe village to see how they live. Not too many tv arials here just thatch huts and a water pump. Although they did have a medical centre and a tourist office.

We stayed the night on dry land in Pak Bang where the rooms were a step up on the night before although there was a power cut when we got there. Not so good for mum's plan of finding a tv to watch Andy Murrays final :-/ We walked round the one street town which had a large amount of tack in the shops. Interesting to see a local food market with just us as tourists. A few hours later the shops had disappeared with restaurants in their place and the boat loads of tourists had arrived too. We ate BBQ goat as a Lao style starter and then had Indian for tea. A bit of a different taste to home but fantastic naan bread :)

On the Sunday we stopped at a cave with lots of Buddha statues some of which were 700 hundred years old and were just sitting mostly untouched. Although there were a few newer ones in the top cave that had their heads stolen to sell on the black market.

We arrived in Luang Prabang in the afternoon and the accommodation we stopped at was from a different world. We had our own cabins with little balconys out the front looking on to a beautiful garden with a pond and many noisy night frogs. We ate delicious pancake and fruit breakfasts which were brought to our balconies each morning and lovely people. A slice of heaven. We went out that night to drink some delicious Lao Lao whisky and some not so great wine but our whole group is pretty sensible so nothing very extreme. We wandered the night market for a while but not long as Limny was not a shopping fan :(