Don Det to Ban Lung

1pm Right now I am sat in a roadside cafe somewhere in Cambodia where no-one speaks English. Our bus dropped us off here saying we had to catch another bus, but didn't say when ...
Getting across the border was simple, one guy collected all of our passports and visas and we walked under the Laos border into no mans land, then limboed under the border crossing to Cambodia. Once in Cambodia, however, we had to wait for an hour to get our passports, then another hour for the bus to turn up. 30 minutes in one minivan and we were told to get out (at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere) and get on another bus that was already full. 10 minutes on that one and we got dropped off here ... hopefully I'll make it to Ban lung tonight!
2pm Just been told there is a bus from here to Ban Lung in 2 hours, as long as there is space and they accept our tickets it should be ok. would have definitely been faster to hitchhike...
4.30pm There were some busses that arrived but none would take us .... first got told 3pm, then 4 now 5. If one doesn't take us by 5.30 I think we're going to have to hitch. A foreigner arrived on a motorbike and let us use his phone to call the office number on our ticket but no,one on the line spoke English... he also told us we are 125km away from Ban Lung and it's one road that goes in that direction from here... Shouldn't be too hard  :-)
5pm woohoo! we are on a bus. didn't want to take our tickets because they were from Laos but we convinced him and are on. boom!
7pm Made it in the end. 4 hours late and minus 2.5kg of washing I left in don det, a cushion that fell off the roof rack on the first minibus and my neck pillow that I left on the 2nd bus but other than that safe and well!

Laos

I want quite sure what to expect from Laos and didn't really have any set plans of where I was going so ended up following the tourist trail... What I found in Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng was that it was more expensive than I expected and a lot more touristy.

I celebrated my birthday in Luang Prabang so signed up for another cooking course to do during the day. It wasn't as good as the Thai cooking course in Chiang Mai, mainly due to the teachers, but was still good fun. In the evening we went to Utopia followed by the bowling alley, which seems to be what every tourist in Luang Prabang does every evening, so had a good group of people I had met along the way to celebrate with.

Vang Vieng I only stopped in to go tubing down the Mekong, which was great fun, but cost the equivalent of £5 when in Don det you could rent a tube for 70p ...


Don Det the accommodation was more basic than what I'd had elsewhere in Laos, palm leaf bungalows with outside toilets, but the views made it worth it - looking out into the Mekong at 4000 islands.

Our island was so small that it had no cars and only two dirt tracks, sunrise and sunset, both with fantastic views of their namesakes. On the first day I got up to watch the sunrise and every other day spent sunset floating in a tube down the sunset side of the island.

Other than one day spent keying around the islands and visiting 2 waterfalls there wasn't much to go and do from Don Det so I was able to spend my time in personal development. I signed up to a week long online course in project management at UCLA which I completed in a day, attempted to try to learn to ride a bike and spent the rest of my time on creative studies, drawing, painting and writing. If anyone reading this ends up floating down sunset look out for Herbert the robot locked in the bungalow window - he only wants some love!

Pai to Luang Prabang

When signing up for the 3 day journey from Pai to Luang Prabang (1,700 baht bought from darling's guesthouse) I found darling and the internet quite lacking in details of the journey so here's some timings:

We booked from darling's guesthouse and had a minibus (quite a nice one) pick us up from the reception at 2.30pm.
Arrived in Chiang Mai at 6pm, minibus from there to the border was meant to leave at 7pm, actually left at 8.30pm so was meant to arrive at 11pm, actually arrived at 1am.
Stayed one night in a guesthouse right next to the border, this night's accommodation was included.
Breakfast the next morning (at 7am) was also included, we slept through it, woke up at 7.30 to find most people already outside with bags, there was a bit of bread and jam left but we just opted for the coffee.
Check out was at 8.45am and I think we were pretty prompt in leaving for the border.
Short bus to the border, short boat over the river, 3 forms to fill out on the other end and $35 to pay for the visa (if your a Brit and can pay in US dollars, costs more in Baht and $42 dollars if you're canadian)
Had visas sorted and was in Laos by 10am, no security checkpoints or bag scanning like I would've expected for a border crossing. There was somewhere to change baht into kip at immigration but most places along the border excepted baht, US dollars or kip.
Slow boat left at 11.30 am and doesn't serve food so its advisable to buy supplies for the journey before getting on (it does sell beer but is 20,000 kip on the boat and 10-15,000 if you buy it before hand) don't do what me and Hayley did and stock up on loads of food only to leave it on the pavement and have to buy more.
Was meant to arrive into Pak Ban? (name of place tbc) at 5pm, actually arrived in at around 6.30pm. This night's accommodation was not included in the price of the trip, although we thought it was, and before getting on the boat the tour guide tried to convince us to book a place to stay with him that cost 500 baht for a double room. On arrival there however there are a lot of guesthouse owners trying to convince you to stay with them and although most will start at 300 baht for a double room with free wifi you can usually get them down to 200.
The next day the boat leaves at 9.30am but people were going down from 7am to get good seats so it actually left on time! Guesthouse owners send you off with takeaway breakfast, 3 baguettes goes down nicely.
Meant to arrive into Luang Prabang at 5ish, I think we were less than an hour late, maybe even on time.
Turning right from the boat are a row of guesthouses, most have fixed prices of 150,000 kip for a double room but a few can be got cheaper (we found a basic room for 120,000 for 3 people). All the cheap places with dorm rooms were booked out so if you can, wise to book ahead, and don't do what we did and accidentally book for the wrong night!

All in all the journey was quite jolly, had a few drinks and met lots of fellow travelers. Later that night at the bowling alley (the only place open after 11.30pm) we bumped into a lot of them along with others that we or they had met in Chiang Mai and Pai. Everyone seems to be doing very similar routes so as the journey goes on I think we will pick up more and more friends along the backpacker trail!

Life in Pai

After a 3 hour, incredibly windy, bus journey from Chiang Mai to Pai, we arrived in the pouring rain. We headed almost straight away to Darling's guesthouse as my friend assured us it was social, with a fire pit that everyone chills around and massive, "they always have rooms". After  dragging my bag across bamboo bridges and up dirt tracks we found out is was a bit busier than normal and got told to sit and wait while they worked out if there was space - 5 hours later we got a room! Darling is lovely (if a little crazy) she danced around and giggled while telling us about all of the people with reservations she turned away so she could give us the VIP suite, but by that point we were just glad to  have a room and not have to head back down the dirt track!

Over the next few days we explored the surrounding area, seeing waterfalls, sitting in hot springs, playing pool, dancing to reggae and eating lots of good food. Me + Hayley strung up our hammocks next to the two already on our balcony to create the ultimate chill out zone and fully settled into life in Pai.

This is definitely the type of place I could get stuck in for a long time but I'm half way through my trip now with only 2 countries covered - Laos is calling!