First of all let me make a couple of things clear..

I don't like boats.
I don't like bridges.
I don't do mornings.

After spending far too much time in Changmai I left with a new group of people towards the Peoples Democratic Republic of Laos..This could be quite a long one so get a seat and get ready to read....

The slow boat from Houyxian (I think) leaves at around 10am every day. This requires one to be awake at 6am, don't really understand why but we did it..after eating a less than filling breakfast and having too much coffee the herding began...

A single truck pulled up, bear in mind there where around 50 people waiting for the truck. It took roughly twenty minutes to get on the bloody thing, this was 7am, I was ready for killing somone.

So in the truck and off to the border post . We then found out that you can only pay for your Visa into Loas in Dollars. I didn't have any so conveniently a man appeared to change the currency. This happens a lot in South East Asia. Not being too sure if I got ripped off I approached the departure cross point, you need to do this at every border, if you lose your departure card you get fined, again, this happens a lot in South East Asia.

After enough red tape to turn anybody insane we got to the river. The mighty Mekong, and boy was it mighty. Each person negotiated the boat with a fully laden backpack. The boat sits about 30cm's out of the water, it also lists from one side to another...I enjoyed this immensely. Across the river and through all kinds of bullshit in the drizzle at around 8.30am. Visa acquired bag on and up the hill, a big hill. Only to get to the top and find that there was another cue. Great. After arsing around for roughly half and hour we got to the boat. The first guy we saw approached: "Sir, you have ticket? Sir you have Kip (Laos money), Sir you want weed?" This struck me as an undercover police man, the fact his friend was talking to the police only a stones throw away also turned my stomach. Undercover police man.

Onto the boat, straight through it past the roaring, well sleeping engine and onto the floor. We had the best seats in the house. While the rest were crammed into little seats at a 90 degree angle we lounged around and got to mingle with the locals.

Six hours later we arrived in Pekbong. A small and irrelevant town full of guest houses and restaurants. We did what you would expect, got roaring drunk and played the guitar for the whole night. By this point our group had swollen from five to nine. We had Phil, an English guy that rivaled me for eccentricity, Nicky and Deets, Dutch guy's who will reappear in this yarn, Julie a Crazy Aussie, Natalie and Joanna Irish girls who just love taking pictures and Sean, the South African with the best laugh I have ever heard.

The next morning we walked down the wrong stairs just to have to walk back up them and managed to acquire a place on the boat on top of the bags....nice. The day passed with out hindrance. Apart from Phil and myself believing on numerous occasions that we were going to tip over. Great fun.

Louang Prabang was nice not great but nice. Bloody expensive. We went bowling almost every night. I threw a bowling ball across two lanes which cause a stir. We slept until twelve every day and got messy. T'was fun. After five days of Liver bashing we left to Vang Vieng.

I don't know how much you know about Laos. It is 90% jungle and has had more explosives dropped on it than the entire world during WWII. Most of this was during the Vietnam days. It was used to wage a Guerilla war against Vietnam and by the CIA to flood Europe with Heroin. It has a history.

One of these places was called Vang Vieng, where I am now. Due to the massive influx of American troops during the war it got bastardised from being a nice little Laos town to a place with more bars than a Scottish city.

We came here to tube. Tubing, for those of you who don't know it is basically jumping into the inner tube of a tractor tyre. Onto a fast flowing river which recently flood so there are tree tops to avoid. On your way down bars throw ropes out too you and drag you in. Sound fun? It is.

Drinks are cheap, the notorious bucket is about $1.50. Beers are about 90p. As you can imagine I ended up fucked. The first day my last real re-collection was hanging upside down from the roof of a bar on a bamboo cane. The second day was not so much fun...

In the last bar on the second day two people fell into the river after the bamboo they were leaning on snapped and they fell into the river. Paul Seymour ended up lost in the jungle for about half an hour and came back with a gashed little finger. Raymond was hanging upside down like a fruit bat from the rafters and the tubes all started to disappear. We left just as it started to get dark.

After making it through all the bars and down to the end of the river -by which point it is dark- you have to pray for someone to get in the river to pull you out. You would imagine this to be a very de-facto agreement but there are some hassles. It is dark and the water by now is cold. You are sobering up and you do not have a clue where you are.

Anyway. We got out and started to walk with the rest of the throng, we came to a bridge and as you do I started to cross it, tube in front of me walking straight. Unawares to me there was a small gap between two of the planks. My leg went straight through the hole and I for one moment thought that was it.

Imagine the scene; About thirty feet above the river. One foot hanging down through this gap and the rest of my leg jammed in the ruddy hole I'd fallen through. Roughly about sixty people were on this bridge at the time and half of them started to panic, apparently the bridge was about to collapse. Great. I'm stuck to said bridge with an arsehole lifting me up by the underarms because apparently my leg would fit through. If it would have been able to I would have removed it myself.

It took about fifteen minutes for people to listen to me and begin moving the planks, that's all it took. Meanwhile, behind me some ignorant bitch had decided to start screaming for me to hurry up, then she went through the same whole and the same guy reappeared to try and pull her out. It turned out to be her boyfriend, they are a perfect match.

My injuries are: A huge knee which has dropped in size, just. A deep gash in the thumb of my right hand which means opening bottles is a struggle. Cuts all down my left leg and, on the night, some acute form of shock. Thankfully my mother was in town so she looked after me, that is all you want when you hurt yourself, your mum.

Anyway, that was pretty long and if you're reading this at work you should probably be doing something else ;).