Getting to laos

Got a bus from chiang rai in the morning to the boader for 170 bhat, took about 3 hours and got to the boarder at 2. Crossing the boarder into laos was fast and easy. It took about 20 minutes including the 5 minute boat trip across the river. The laos visa costs 35 dollars or 1500 bhat, I payed the bhat because it was the only money I had, it cost a bit more this way though. It seems that everything costs more in bhat than if you pay in kip or dollars.The bus through laos to luang prabang was 600 bhat, .but i think it was about half that if you paid in kip. The bus was meant to take 12 hours through the night, but it took a little longer.In laos the roads have a habbit of dissapearing. Our bus stopped at 4am. at first I thought it was to swap drivers, but then we started reversing. We went back for about three seconds and then the wheels were just spinning with no movement.we were stuck in a ditch untill about 8am later that morning. We all exited the bus through the back window into the road in the pitch black dark. we walked for 3 minutes to get to a small hut that we sat under. It wasnt fully obvious what the issue was at this point. But when the sun came upyou could see that a mudslide took the whole road into the rivver below.
took a good few hours to get moving again, and drew a big crowd of locals.