Laos - To Luang Prabang

I woke up at around six and had a cold shower. I slept quite well considering my room just had a fan and no air conditioning, however, it is more comfortable with air con. For breakfast, I was served, toast, eggs and tea, and while not much, was filling enough. My appetite has declined in the heat. After breakfast, everyone was ferried to the river where we were put in boats to be taken across to Laos. At Laos, I had to pay $42 for a visa, and changed $60 into Lao Kip. I was left with so many bills I could not fit them in my wallet. After everyone had received their visa, the tour operator gave us the choice of staying on the slow boat, as we had booked, or taking a bus instead. This was because the weather was appaling, and it had been pouring rain all night. The boat would not be too comfortable in that weather. Most of the group (17 out 0f 20) chose to take the bus, and I was swept along with the tide, although I later regretted it. WE were told (and our guidebook said) that the bus would take ten hours, which means we would arrive earlier than those who took the slowboat. We were taken to the public bus station where we had to wait two hours for the bus to leave at 1PM. The bus itself was ancient. It looked like a bus from a third world country. While waiting, I ate the lunch provided by the guest house (a baguette), and finally left just before one. The highway started out quite well, being brand new and built by the Chinese. However, once we got to a junction, with the good highway leading to the Chinese border, we turned onto a pot-holed road. At this time I also notice that the route we were taking was not direct, but was rather a semi-circle, as no direct road linked Luang Prabang to Houay Xai (the border town). Needless to say, the bus quickly became tiresome, especially after hearing the same music orver and over again. I (and the other passengers) were thrilled when the music system broke down. Sadly, a few hours later, the drvier's assistant managed to fix it. The trip took fourteen hours, and we got into Luang Prabag at 3 AM. About half the passengers went into town at this ungodly hour to find accomadation. I and serveral others decided to stay at the bus station until it was light out so we could save on a night's accomadation, and be able to see where we were going. I slept for about an hour at the bus station, and was sore afterwards. Finally, just after six our group took two tuk-tuks into town.