But here is what happened in the meantime: I took the slow boat down the Mekong from Huay Xai (the border town) all the way to Luang Prabang. This trip takes two days, but fortunately you stop overnight and get to sleep in a bed. There is the option of taking a speed boat instead, but these are quite often involved in fatal accidents and even if you make it to your destination, you will be pacing through the scenery with your ohropax, a motorbike helmet, in sunshine and rain - so that wasn't really an option for me...
This is our boat on the first day. Quite crowded already and not everybody got a seat, so people had to sit on the floor. It looks alright, but believe me, after 8 hours you simply run out of options of how to sit...
To make things a bit worse, it started to pour again (of course!), so we had to roll down the curtains and couldn't even enjoy the view anymore (which wasn't that impressive anyways on the first day of the trip).
This is one of the typical villages we passed along the way. The Mekong really dominates their lives and many of the villages can only be reached by boat. People use the river for fishing, washing and especially the children enjoy swimming in it.
You thought it couldn't get worse? The second day we had to change to an even smaller boat and we had more passengers (and thus luggage!)!
But the scenery got a lot more impressive and compensated us for the lack of legroom.
After two days and approximately 18 hours on the boat, we finally made it to Luang Prabang and the effort was completely worth it! Luang Prabang is Laos' former royal capital and it is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.
In Luang Prabang the Nam Khan and the Mekong merge and the city has some of the most beautiful sunsets I saw on my trip.
Laos once was a French colony and many French-era buildings and a lot of French food are still omnipresent today.
Me and a beautiful sunset over the Mekong.
I only mentioned French food before, but of course they also still have French wine!!! That was the first cup of wine I had since the start of my trip (nothing compares to travelling in Argentina, where you order the wine by the bottle, though...).
The next morning, I went elephant riding with Vincent and Philippe which I met on my trek in the north. So far, I haven't been particularly keen on joining one of these very touristy events, but I have to admit that I got more and more impressed by these cute animals the more I kept running into them. Our elephant lady was 35 years old (elephants get up to 85 years!), but still very childish and cute (e.g. she always tried to grab some food on the way although she knew that her mahout would get angry :-)).
While walking through the river tough, our elephant behaved while the other two splashed the people riding on them.
After the trip, I shared some of my bananas with our elephant lady. So cute!!! If I ever get a pet, it has to be an elephant!
Back in Luang Prabang, we walked up to Phu Si to see yet another stunning sunset.
The night market in Luang Prabang had some of the most delicious food so far. Here barbecued Mekong fish with lemon grass - hmmmmmmm...
We also went to a very impressive waterfall close by.
The water was turquoise - so how could you possibly resist to jumping in?!
One morning, we seriously got up at 5 am to observe the monks giving alms (in return for receiving food).
After a few days in Luang Prabang, Rebecca (which I also met on the trek and with who I ended up travelling for nearly two weeks) and I went to a village called Nong Khiaw. We stood in one of the bungalows on the picture with a nice few of the River Nam Ou (out of our hammocks) :-)
Nong Khiaw is nestled next to looming limestone cliffs and just a stunning location.
Little boys coming back from fishing.
We also hiked to some caves where the villagers were hiding for approximately three years during the Second Indochina War. One of the US-American helicopters attacking the caves eventually killed more than 500 people.
The caves themselves were very impressive and many ways led into the inner of the rock (I was happy we had a young village boy that led us out of this labyrinth!).
On the way to the next cave - surrounded by beautiful scenery.
Some buffaloes we met on our trek the next day (and we saw leeches again!!!).
Back in Luang Prabang (we intended to take the boat down the river, but again there weren't enough people...), Rebecca and I went straight to the night market to enjoy a delicious Khao Soi soup. 
We also ran into two other girls (Hannah and Mary) we knew from the trek and enjoyed (this time a bottle!) some more red wine. We were really graving some cheese and walked for miles to get to this place that says "wine and cheese" on its door, only to find out that it just closed (and a platter of cheese would have been 11 US$ anyways...). This was definitely the fanciest night out so far!
From Luang Prabang, I took the bus further east to a city called Phonsavan.
Embarrassingly, I have to admit that I never heard of the so-called Secret War in Laos before I came to the country. From 1960 until 1973, the USA launched the largest bombing campaign in history on this tiny country. Laos remains the most heavily bombed (per capita) country in the world with half a tonne of bombs dropped for each person living in the country at that time. More bombs were dropped on Laos than by all Allies during the Second World War.
The USA intended to stop the North Vietnamese from bringing massive amounts of weapons and soldiers down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to South Vietnam. However, their bombings mainly affected / killed the villagers living in the area and still does affect them today since 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos failed to detonate. This Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) still contaminates rural areas in half of Laos and causes many deaths (mainly by children who find the mainly anti-personnel bombs and play with them) every year...
All involved parties denied this war for many years and until today Laos and the people living in the UXO-contaminated areas did not see an appropriate compensation for all the harm brought over them.
As you can see on the pictures, this war that still seems very secret today is omnipresent in Phonsavan. Phonsavan is the capital of Xieng Khuang province which is one of the most heavily provinces in this most heavily bombed country and virtually every town and village here was bombed during the war.
Phonsavan itself is not a very appealing city, but it does have beautiful sunsets.
The main reason for coming to Phonsavan (although after seeing the Mine Advisory Group's information on the war only secondary) was to see the Plain of Jars. The Plain of Jars is a large area around Phonsavan scattered with huge jars of unknown origin. The jars are about 2,500 years old and might have been used for burial purposes.
The largest jar (on the right :-)) weighs as much as six tonnes!
Since I was running out of time, I went straight from Phonsavan to the capital of Laos, called Vientiane. Vientiane has about 300,000 inhabitants and is definitely the smallest and most relaxed capital I have ever seen! Even the Ministry of Health or the national radio station are housed in a bungalow!
People fishing in the Mekong in Vientiane.
The streets of Vientiane! There is hardly any traffic but roosters everywhere.
Unfortunately, I am close to the end of my trip already... From Vientiane I took a bus back to Bangkok and tomorrow is my flight home...
I have to admit that I am seriously in love with Laos (sorry Sergio!). People are friendly, the country is very rural, the scenery is stunning and the food is great - what else can you ask for?! It is such an absorbing place with such an interesting history and culture that it is hard to put in words. Anyways, I definitely want to come back very soon before it changes too much and gets all modern. Anybody interested?
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