Wednesday 20th December - Banana Pancake Virgin

Day One:

Up bright and early, we headed back to the airport for our flight to Laos and the ‘Vianello-Smith-Connolley Christmas Extravaganza.'

Our Bangkok Airways flight (fyi best airline ever) landed at Luang Prabang airport, where Mat and Kat were waiting for us with open arms and a Tuk-Tuk to whisk us to our guesthouse. We’re staying at the Sok Xai guesthouse, which is situated in the northern part of the peninsula. It’s a lovely place, very cosy and located just across the road from one of the many ‘monk-filled’ temples in town.

As soon as we had dumped our belongings we headed into town where Mel tried the first of many banana pancakes, Mat has mentioned these repeatedly in their blog but we didn't see them last year. I can see why he loves them so much Mmmmm bananaeree goodness.

As Kathryn had predicted we brought Christmas with us as much as we could and as we watched the sun set, we made up paperchains and strung them along the guesthouse balcony.

We have not seen Kathryn since March and have not seen Mat since our wedding in July last year, so it’s fantastic to catch up with them both and we are really looking forward to spending Christmas with them.

Mat and Kat arrived early and had luckily done some preliminary scouting of the town, so in the evening, they took us to a super barbecue restaurant, which they had discovered the night before. This involved starting a fire in the middle of the dining table and the boys cooking their own tea. At the restaurant we sampled some of the local brew, called lao-lao, which is distilled from rice and goes down far too easily. At this particular restaurant it was sweet and bright green.