Watching Friends with Friends!

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Once aboard our rickety mini bus and heading to Vang Vieng, we started to doubt the supposed 'paving' on the only paved road in Laos. It was a very bumpy ride made worse by the winding roads up and down hills, the broken seats and the random hitch-hiker we picked up who was taking up all the room! We had travelled with 'the English' and once we arrived we couldn't wait to head to a bar for a Beer Laos and some tv watching (every bar here has comfy seats and tvs). We feasted that night on Laap, a traditional dish of minced chicken, herbs and chillies, which is delish. Retiring to our room, we found some brilliant plumbing. The Asians seem to go for wet room style bathrooms with the showers randomly installed above the loo. But this place went one step further where the sink emptied directly into the floor as well (or more correctly your feet!).

Vang Vieng is a very rural feeling town in a gorgeous setting next to limestone hills (although once again the smoke was dashing the views). We only spent one full day there but found it pretty hard to amuse ourselves. It was rainy in the morning so we didn't fancy kayaking or tubing the river which is the main reason people come here. The river is also particularly low this time of year with little current. So we hired bikes and went to a fairly impressive cave just outside the town. After cycling around looking for stuff to do and failing, we gave in and submitted to watching Friends which is what all the bar owners in Vang Vieng have decided westerners want to watch. That night we met 'the Canadians' and 'the Australians' and dined to Friends, then boozed to Simpsons. Throughout the trip to Vang Vieng we managed to avoid the well advertised Happy Pizzas which as the Lonely Planet describes, doesn't mean extra pineapple! Maybe that's how people cope with the boredom.

So after an unremarkable but chilled time in Vang Vieng, we moved on to the capital city Vientiane. This was a much more comfortable ride. We had taken the laughingly named VIP bus (we'd hate to see the normal one), but our seats worked and the roads were flatter and straighter.

When we arrived we checked into Joe's Guesthouse which was really friendly and clean and no one tried to rip us off!

Vientiane too was largely unremarkable. It was quaint for a capital city and we re-met all the gang from the slow boat for various nights out which was good fun. There wasn't a huge amount to busy ourselves with so more mooching and massaging ensued. Cool things we did do though was a visit the very glittery Pha That Luang temple, a visit to Patuxay, which is modeled on the Arc de Triumphe and a place out of town called the Buddha Park, an amazing place with tonnes of Budda sculptures crammed together.

We saw off the Australians and the Canadians as they headed for northern Vietnam, we were headed to the bottom of Vietnam and Ho Chi Min City (Saigon).

We had only spent 10 days or so in Laos but this seemed enough. Luang Prabang was probably the highlight and we felt it a shame that we hadn't really loved all the other places. We decided to see Laos properly you probably need to get off the backpacker trail but the smoky skies didn't make it worthwhile at this time of year. We had a great time though and met such a great gang of people with who we enjoyed the general mooch vibe of Laos towns.

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Photos

On yer bike son!
Paul in Vang Vieng

The Laos Arc de Truimphe
Made from US cement donated for a new airport, nicknamed the 'vertical runway'

Comments

[Dids]

Hey you dudes
Hey just one thing.. whenever you send me a blog I click the first link to view it and it always takes me to an unsubscribe page! It´s very silly.. Looks fab glad all is well, big kiss m´dl sis x