Our last stop in Laos before heading into China was Luang Prabang. This was a lovely small town with a huge, souvenir filled night market. The best bit of the market was food alley, an alley of the side of the market that had several stalls of a variety of food where you pay 10,000kip (about 60p) for a plate and pile the food on. You're only allowed one trip so you have to really fill it. We went to the same lady every night as she was lovely and all the others were chocker. It was really nice food and she heated it up for you. Our first full day we just took a walk around the town and to Phu Si, a temple at the top of a hill that gave brilliant views over the whole town and surrounding hills. The next day we went to Kreung Xi waterfalls, a set of lovely waterfalls with little pools at the bottm you could relax in. We got there and walked to the top so we could walk back down to whichever one we deemed the best. We found our chosen pool and just sat in there for an hour or so, having our feet nibbled for free by the local fish! By the time we left we were a bit chilly but very relaxed.

Our final day in Laos was definitely the highlight; an elephant ride!! Our elephant was called On and she was 35 years old, the youngest of the 3 there. I rode on her neck while Tom rode on the seat on her back. She trumpeted and she was a bit naughty and kept spraying mud all over me so that by the time we got back and bathed her (yep, had a bath in a river with an elephant!) we were both in need of a good scrub! We rode into the river on her back and the trainers (mahoot) had her spray water all over us then had her shake us off her back so we fell in the river! I found it really hard to get back on, but Tom had great fun standing on her back and jumping in the water and generally playing with her whilst I scrubbed her back! Eventually though we had to say good bye and head back to the town to pack for our 6am 24 hour long bus trip the next day to China.