Laos (click here for the video)

Why did I think anything would be easy in Laos in Monsoon season? After my 2mins boat ride across the Mekong, I arrive Huay Xai the Laos border town at around 1pm. No hanging around for me though it's straight to the agent to arrange a ticket to Luang Nam Tha in the far North of Laos. "you no can get bus today" he says, "why, has it already gone?" "no, no bus today, Monsoon, road closed" "Crap!" The next 20 minutes is spent trying to arrange an alternative route, because maybe the bus will leave tomorrow, maybe it won't. In the end the friendly agent suggests I take a boat, then a pick up truck then a bus in a massive circle. This is going to add 1 or possibly 2 extra days to my travels, this is not good news. Myself and Ria (Dragonfly team member) take a walk to find other alternatives, and a good thing to as it seems, yes, the road is bad but the public bus runs every day, and you can also hire a private car (for considerable cost) to take you. It seems our friendly agent was on the blag all along and just wanted to sell us an expensive boat trip.
So this post doesn't drag and bore you to death with inane details I shall attempt to sum up the rest of the Laos trip in as few a words as possible.
12hrs driving over a giant rocky building site, in a small pick up truck with 16 people. Sore back, sore bum, in fact pretty much everything sore. 1 puncture, stuck in the mud (towed out), wheel bearings breaking (wheel off again), almost hit by Lightning while having lunch, men with AK-47 assault rifles (not soldiers, as far as we can tell), and that's just to get to Lunag Nam Tha. Find a guide to take us to two remote villages, visit the Lantun people (ethnic Chinese run out of China); then the Sida people (also ethnic Chinese run out of China). I suppose when the guide told me the walk would take 7-9 hrs I should have believed him, and not been slightly cross when after 30 mins of walking he told me "No, we're not there yet"
I really do need to get fit, I ended up swopping bags with my guide, as mine was too heavy for me (big wuss), and I still nearly gave up. It's no easy thing, to carry my considerable bulk and the school supplies up these mountains but in the end I did, or should I say we did, after all Ria was there, in fact she seem to find the trek quite easy, and so did the to Americans we met in Huay Xai and managed to talk into helping us carry the load. So, one down, and 11 to go.