From Vientiane we took a short flight to Luang Prabang which was really turbulent (felt very sick by the time we landed) but thankfully our hotel was only a short drive from the airport and so we arrived very quickly. Luang Prabang is one of the backpackers' favourite places and it is easy to see why. The town is a UNESCO world heritage site and is totally charming; much of the architecture is French (dating back to when the French invaded and occupied Laos as they did much of Indochina - it's good to know it wasn't just us Brits who did all the colonising back then...). The people in Laos are really lovely - very friendly and of course everyone is very laid back and so there's no stress. We've been learning useful phrases as we've been going along; "thank you" in Lao is "Khop Chai Lai Lai" - the easy way to remember it is like the Simon & Garfunkel song The Boxer; thanks to Alan we had that song stuck in our heads the entire duration of our stay in Laos :)

Luang Prabang is right on the Mekong River and on our first day we took a stroll in the afternoon along it. It's much lower than it has been in about fifty years because of all the dry weather over here - hopefully during the rainy season things will change and make life easier for the Lao people. The Mekong starts in Tibet and flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia and provides a living for a hundred million people.

That evening we all went to dinner at a restaurant called Tamarind which is run by an Aussie and her Lao husband where we had a 'celebration' dinner (can't remember quite what it was that the Lao were celebrating, some kind of lunar something or other we think - sorry) where we had beautiful grilled fish cooked in banana leaves and Alan very kindly covered its face with a lettuce leaf so that it wasn't looking at us while we ate it.

On our second day we visited the Ethnology Museum where we learned about the different tribes in Lao and about their traditions and livelihoods, and in the afternoon we all took a trip to the Kuang Sii Falls, about twenty five km out of town where we stopped on the way and had a look around a local village and met some locals who were weaving some beautiful scarves. The Falls were incredible; we parked at the bottom of the hill and as we walked up we could hear rushing water and lots of different bird calls. The falls themselves are like something out of paradise, and we had a picnic there before jumping in to the water (icy cold but very clear) to cool down for a while. There were lots of cleaner fish there too and so we stood for a while in the water while they nibbled at our feet - it's a very odd sensation to begin with but if you can get over the fact that they're eating your skin it actually feels quite nice, a bit like having a spa pedicure! There is also a Bear Rescue centre amongst all the trees by the falls (daily fix of fluffy animals sorted) and by the time we got back to town we were knackered.

Our next day was a free day with no excursions planned and so we booked a day at Elephant Village where we learned to be Mahouts (elephant drivers). We had an amazing day; we rode on the back of an elephant in the morning, and after a lovely lunch overlooking the Mekong we each had a short lesson in how to steer an elephant (actually the hardest part is getting onto its back - although he will bend his knee to give you a bunk-up, and you have to grab onto his ear which seems a little harsh but apparently they're cool with it...). After that, we rode our elephants down to the river to give them a bath, complete with a scrubbing brush. It was fantastic; Simon's was incredibly well behaved and sat down beautifully, leaving him still above the water ready to give her a scrub. Mine was obviously a little bit hot and decided to submerge herself completely. Thank goodness it was a warm day - the only part of me not under the water was my head! The guide had taken our cameras and was on the river bank taking photographs and so we've got some lovely pictures which we'll post as soon as we're able to upload them. It was a totally amazing day and one of the best experiences of our trip so far. That evening we wandered through the night market which runs almost the entire length of the main street and has some great stuff - so tempting to buy lots of it to bring home but we were very restrained and only bought a few lanterns to put in the flat once we get home.

On our last day in Luang Prabang, we were up before six in the morning to go out to the street to see the monks collecting alms which they do every day. We then had a wander through the morning market which was packed full of stalls selling fish, meat and vegetables - everything here is so fresh. At eight o'clock we took a river boat down the Mekong to visit the Pak Ou caves where there are thousands of buddha images and where people from Lao go every new year to celebrate.

That afternoon we took a bus to the airport for our flight to Hanoi in Vietnam. The flight was about three quarters of an hour long and much less turbulent than the previous one. We had to pick up our pre-approved visas once we landed which for some reason took ages, and even though we were the first ones to arrive we were the last ones to get stamped. We were then the last to go through immigration and when we got there only one desk was open. They took our passports and kept frowning at us, at the computer screen, at our passports and at us again. When we asked if everything was okay, they said no and then carried on frowning and otherwise ignoring us. We were starting to worry a little by then, especially after the whole Israeli passport cloning fiasco, and were beginning to wonder whether we were going to be arrested or hauled off into a room somewhere, when they shoved our passports at us and just walked off. After the stress-free Laos it was an interesting introduction to the country...