Before heading to Laos (northern Thailand's neighbour) and to pamper myself after four days stuck to a motorbike I decided I needed to learn about the food I thoroughly enjoyed while travelling Thailand. For $20 in one day, I learned how to cook five different Thai dishes (and no I didn't learn pad thai) and got to eat them all!

It was here, over some spring rolls and Papaya salad, a Californian girl and I formulated our escape from Thailand. As my 30 day tourist visa was about to expire we took a public bus about six hours to the Thai border town of Chiang Khong.

Northern Thailand provides an easy cross-over point to the tiny, landlocked country of Laos. With lush landscape and locked between at least four Asian countries, it only gained independence from France in 1954. And like its neighbours it was also dragged into the Vietnamese war with North Vietnamese troops hiding out in the northern hills.

Remnants of the secret US bombing campaign are still littered around the country, especially in the North (apparently there's a US base that you still cannot enter). Very little in Laos is about the war, however, and instead people seem happy, relaxed and thoroughly enjoy life (laughing along with Buddhism is the religion here).

We wanted desperately to experience this beautiful country, but the border was against us and after surviving the public buses, it shut on us. Left on the Thai banks of the Mekong River, I found a decent tree house hotel that could also arrange our slow boat trip to Luang Prabang in Laos!

Bright and early the next morning we were packed away by the sweet woman running our hotel with our lunch boxes and sent to the border/ferry crossing – to Laos.

Chaos! Ok not as crazy as Egypt, I don't know if there's anywhere that could be! After surviving the tiny 'ferry' – read: elongated punt barely keeping its nose above the water – we hiked the hill where a piece of paper was thrust into our faces. This, accompanied with our passports and $35 seemed to make the immigration people happy and an hour later we were ready to enter Laos.

One word of advice if ever going to Laos: don't fight it. The bus will arrive when it wants to arrive. The slow boat will go when the captain want to go. There are no timetables and trips that should take three hours will take 10. Just have a good book and learn about patience.

Example? Well our slow boat was supposed to leave the first day at 10 a.m. At 10.30 a.m. we left immigration and arrived at a cafe. Officials told us to handover passports again. (What's going on, you ask? Who knows?).

At 11.30 a.m. we were walked down to the slow boat. The rest of the passengers did not look happy ... and we were not the last ones! We waited another hour for at least 20 more passengers to arrive.

By 12.30 p.m. we were off on our oversized crate to paddle down the Mekong to one of Laos' UNESCO World sites – Luang Prabang.

The slow boat is essentially a few wooden planks roped together with rows of church-like pew benches and an open bow. Originally these boats were a means for Laotians to transport themselves and their goods through the country when roads were non-existent. Today roads are still sparse in Laos (there is no train system) but growing so the boats have turned to transporting masochistic tourists as well as the few locals who can stand these foreigners.

As we creaked down the river, brief stops were made to grab locals with their produce heading for the markets further down river. Chickens, tons of rice, frogs, and fruit was all piled into the boat between tourists and the locals grasping for room.

With every whirlpool and rapid I thought we were going down. The Mekong is not a placid river.

Six hours of watching some of the tourists get drunk on their own whiskey buckets (yes buckets filled with Thai whiskey and cokes) and the lush Laos countryside drift by we landed at the stopover point – Pak Beng.

Me and my travel buddy were a bit sore (wooden benches for six hours is not a lot of fun) so we picked the first hostel we found. Pak Beng is a one-road ... town? Really it's about a few hostels for the slow boat visitors, a couple of market stalls and generators ... so really it's tiny.

After finding some dinner here we decided to go to bed. Good thing! Electricity is out in this 'town' at 10 p.m.! So no lights and more importantly no fans for the evening! Waking in our sweat the cold shower felt good first thing in the morning.

We had been told repeatedly to get to the boat at 8 a.m. Still not aware of Laotian time (which takes Bermuda time and laughs at it) we rushed to get on the boat. Ha ha ha! We sat. I bought some bananas. And we waited. And we sat.

At 11 a.m. those who had been indulging in Thai whiskey the day before got themselves out of bed and we finally 'took-off'' for another creaky day down the Mekong playing 20 questions with an American couple and a German boy we met.

Ahhh, Luang Prabang. Heaven. Clean, organised and a UNESCO World Heritage town it felt good to be in a structured place after the wilds of the Mekong. Colonial architecture gives this town a very coordinated air while the Laos coffee reminded me why I came! Of course while it might have been influenced by the French (and their bread is everywhere) the Laotians keep their sense of timelessness. Every day for breakfast, no matter what we ordered, someone would get their meal half an hour after everyone had eaten. It was fair though. Each day it was a different person so we all felt the pangs of hunger equally.

With the Americans and a German guy from the slow boat we found a nice clean hostel and tried to recover from the boat ride. My idea for that? The next day we rented bicycles to ride out to the waterfalls 35 km away. Brilliant idea, I thought, to stretch the legs and bum after sitting for two days.

My Californian travel buddy only lasted 'till the first hill (mountain) while me and the German guy kept going. This of course required coaxing for the next 20 km, but we eventually made it! Cursing the day we didn't look for mountain bikes before setting out on this expedition, we gladly put our bikes on a tuk tuk to take us back and hiked into the waterfalls. Even colder than others I had been in, these were refreshing to say the least after the intense bike ride.

Now shivering we returned to Luang Prabang to find our Californian travel buddy in a far more productive past time (sleeping).

At this point food was all I needed! Luckily for less than a dollar we stuffed our plates and stomachs on Laotian buffet. (I'm afraid I did not find the food here as satisfying, however, as Thai food)

Luang Prabang is infamous not just for the waterfalls and slowboat, but also the night market. We really couldn't walk through these road-based blankets of goods without shopping. Much to the German guy's chagrin, me and the Californian girl went to town (well more her than me, but I just could not resist a pair of earrings!)

The next day we spent wandering through Luang Prabang taking in this picturesque town, eating and of course a foot massage before we planned to head further south in Laos the next day. No more boats for us, though.

Next stop: A bus to Vang Vieng (tubing capital of the world)