Oh my god. I am not a happy bunny today. We are now in Luang Prabang a beautiful French colonial village city on the banks of the Mekong. With 500+ year old monastries (wats) All great except its raining and i am suffering a huge attack of gout from the mammoth 11 hour bus ride yesterday.

I guess its documented everywhere that Laos has a poor road system, however nothing prepared us for the journey yesterday.

9am start and a ticket for the bus. 9.30 departure and we have seats near the back of the bus. Not much space but there's a good bunch of people to talk to, including a guy i met on the fast in the Pha-Ngan. The expected journey is about 9 hours and we start off on the new tarmac section that we had from Huay Xai. Which ended after about an hour!! So the next 10 hours were spent on bumpy rocky roads winding our way through the jungle hills. 10km per hour up them and 60km per hour down the next one, up and down, round and round. For 10 hours. I really enjoyed most of it. There was a chinese lorry that almost toppled over at one point (see photos), but our driver got our bus through the gap in no time. He was awesome. He drove with 2 or 3 stops for the 11 hours in the rain, sun and at night. With only a few scary moments!! and a lot of puking Laotians!

Anyway, im here now in Laung Prabang. The journey has ruined my foot so im in pain and its raining. Hence not happy. i might as well be in London! But with a few painkillers and a bit of rest and tomorrow should be back to normal.

Check out the photos and ill be back.