Day Twenty Four; Vang Vieng-Luang Prabang

Woke up to the alarm this morning and tried to sit up only to discover my body was no longer working, and winded up having to put some literal meaning into the phrase 'rolled out of bed'. An equally sore Claire got up besides me and we heaved our way through the last of our packing and then hobbled out to the minibus to begin a journey from Bealzabub himself!

Though fully aware that we would be winding around the mountains today I don't think I was quite prepared to just corkscrew without one tiny bit of straight road for so long. Every five bends the road was punctuated by another 's' sign in a triangle, just to remind you it was not over, and this went on for SIX solid hours, up and down, up and down, round and round, round and round. Caroline was sick, Claire was wide eyed and silent, the norwegians over dosed on travel sick pills and fell asleep and I lay with my head on my bag, eyes squeezed shut and the phrase 'don't throw up don't throw up' on mantra style repeat for the duration.

We arrived exhausted then went for a walking tour of Luang prabang. I felt quite alot like passing out on the way over a bridge and up some steep stairs to a river side restaurant for late lunch, but the food and 7up saved me.

The bridge over the river

After we were all orientated we decided to go for massages as the hobbling from yesterdays exhersion was still a plague upon us all. The one hour a tiny Laos woman spent crunching my back (literally it sounded horrific) back into place was a good one, and I felt like a new person afterwards. New enough to walk through the entire night market, and buy a chocolate crepe for good measure...yuhuhum.
Went back after this and was asleep by 9.30pm.