101 Challenges:

This part of the journal is being written at 15:30 hours on the 5th of March. As our hands stroke the keys of the laptop, we’re cruising along at no more than 12 mph on some river which leads us from one unknown part of Laos to another. We hope that the “another” part is Luang Prabang. If it’s not – we’re lost.

Just found out – that the first unknown part was in fact Hong Sai (just asked a fellow member of our boat). It’s a slow boat (hence the 12 mph walking speed we’re trailing along at) and the scenery is absolutely breath taking. Golden sands stretching along the shallow shorelines of the no-more-than 100 foot-wide murky but nevertheless, beautiful river.

For once, this boat ride is actually rather lovely. No French people have stolen our only water supply and the waters are calm – thus making the ride smooth. As always, to bring a negative (realistic) point to the trip, the boat is over crowded – we’re sure that the safety limit capacity is 90 people. Ours, however, has well over 130.

Yesterday, we left Chaing Mai – picked up by mini-bus at 9am (should have been 8) and endured an ass-numbing squashed ride for 11 hours (which we were told should have been 4) to a guest house in the middle of nowhere and up a very high mountain.

We did however meet some very nice lassies – Cat, Nicky, Steph, Jenna, Rihanna and Hashel. This helped us to bear the insufferable uncomfyness of the day and partial night trip.

When we did eventually arrive at our resting place for the evening, everyone hurried off the open-air taxi, which we swapped over into after reaching the Laos border (where we had to fork out 500 Baht each for overstaying our visa by one day - whoops). Sadly, we weren’t fast enough and as we watched the people in front being ushered into a surprisingly beautiful guest house, we were requested to travel a further 2 minutes down the road to a shack.

It wasn’t all that bad though. Laos (in the mountains) is colder than a bad Scottish summer at night and so we had amazing fun snuggling up to each other under the heaviest and most amazing duvets and quilts in the world… ever.

Fully refreshed, we were woken up at 7am by the Thai/Laos tour guides, we were told that our taxi would be departing at 8am. Cunningly, through experience of the exaggerations (lies) that travel agents tell their customers, we refused to budge from our spoon position until 7:30am – fully in the knowledge that we’d be waiting until at least 9am until any vehicles began to move.

Eventually we did leave and, what a little adventure we had. For 2 hours, we precariously gambled with mountain ledges in a mini-bus that would struggle to make it through the streets of Edinburgh without collapsing from overheating or mechanical exhaustion.

At points, we were no more than 4 inches from the ledge of the snaking mountain roads. You see, we had to descend a drop of at least 792 giraffes on a dirt-track road which was no more than 7 metres in width.

Needless to say, Lindsay crapped himself (but, thankfully not literally for once) and at times, so too did Lee. It was a hairy scary ride.

And so, at about 11am, we boarded the slow boat (aptly named) and headed to Luang Prabang. If it wasn’t for the fact that Beer Laos was sold at a nicey-nice price of less than a quid, we’d have had the worst day ever. Fortunately though, we had enough cash and a carefree spending attitude that meant we were half-cut by the time we reached cruising speed. Bliss.

This part of the world is absolutely mesmerisingly stunning. The scenery is unbelievably lush and the tiny little villages scattered randomly across huge mountains and jungle is a beautiful sight to experience.

The boat trip, we were told, was to last 4 hours. Again, never trusting the Tourist Peeps, we fully anticipated it lasting at least 6 hours – and it did. 6 and a half to be precise.

We arrived at Luang Prabang and immediately hopped on the first tuc-tuc we saw. The driver promised us a nice and cheap guest house and the ride would be free if we stayed there – so, completely forgetting the fact that people tell white lies to us, we naively jumped in and guess what…

The guesthouse did indeed come at a cheap price – 400 Baht between us for the night. And even better, the room turned out to be lovely. Massive pillows, gigantic mattresses and a telly. Woohoo!

So, here we are in Laos and so far so good. Now it’s time to go out and buy some food, more drink and clothes as the ones we have are smelly.

Oh by the way we've not seen Frank in ages. This is the last picture he's sent us - apparently women love gnomes who can kill a man with his hands (and do other things with them too) - tart.

Peace out!

Lindsay and Lee