Vang Vieng, same day. I leave Vietianne around 10.30 h. in the morning by - as a like to call it - a local chicken bus, no more VIP airco busses with built-in toilet and comfortable reclining seats as they are common these days in Thailand. Just an old rusty bus with the locals in ragged but clean clothes and often transporting their animals with them, hence the nickname "chicken bus". Slowly the bus winds it way up into the Lao hills passing small hilltribe villages, lush forests and great views of the plains below. It's only a 153 km. to [View Full Entry]

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Vientiane (pronounced Vian Chan) is the capital city of Laos. It's basically a ghost town. It's hard to fall in love with the place, unless you're an ageing man chasing young prostitutes. Nothing really seems to be going on, everything is expensive, budget accomodation is appalling... Not the kind of place you'd want to spend too much time in. I want to say some good things - it's not like I was activelly unhappy. humm. It's right on the Mekong, so it was really beautiful to eat right at the water's edge. There are cute dogs running about everywhere. There are [View Full Entry]

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Flying visit [View Full Entry]

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after koh pha gnan came a long trip to krabi. which doesnt consist of much apart from lots of trips to surrounding areas, which we took. well one, as we were only there one day. we took a boat out to phi phi, where the beach was filmed and pretended that we were leo running through the jungle and swimming in the blue waters, snorkelling and getting to see the bright coloured fish and a few jellyfish!! i know i will be snorkelling again given the chance and i will probably take a diving course in oz or fiji... a friend [View Full Entry]

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So, I had a 6 am wake up call!! I've been up in the wee hours a lot this trip. I made it to my bus (6:30 am-9:30 am so I could meet the girls in Krabi and catch a 12 oclock flight). After 10 mins on the road the bus stoppped and we had to unload to get a new bus. The new bus arrived and it was full. A few Thai ppl jumped on and he told me I had to wait for the 8 am. I insisted and forced my way on to a bus that was jam [View Full Entry]

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There are a couple of things I neglected to mention in yesterday's motorbike blog: * We road 677km in 5 days, 130km on dirt (Patrick now considers himself a dirtbike champion) * Our top speed was 105km, which we only reached on the last day after filling up with Shell fuel * The only time we came close to hitting anything was when a little pig ran out in front of us and only veered at the very last minute We are now in Vientiane after our overnight bus trip. The bus was a sleeper, but because we bought our ticket [View Full Entry]

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OK - I have just spent half an hour writing this blog out TWICE only for it to dissapear on me TWICE. So , third time lucky. We arrived in Vientiene yesterday - no tubing in Vang Vieng , torrential rain every day. Vientiene is the capital and much more obviously a relic to French colonisation than the other places we've been in Laos. All street signs and most shop signs are in both Laos and French and there are a lot of petit-chateau style buildings around. Baguettes and Croissants are abundant but that is true of Laos in general. It's [View Full Entry]

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Hello hello! Tout d'abord desole pour le silence d'une semaine mais il semble que le serveur soit allergique a nos blagues a 2 balles. Apres avoir ecrit 4X le meme blog, on devenait fou, mais il semble que les choses soient rentres dans l'ordre. Bref. On a passe les derniers jours dans une petite ville vietnamienne, Nin Binh, au milieu d'un site comparable a la baie d'Along mais sur terre, baigne par des rizieres. Histoire de decouvrir cet endroit par nous meme, on se loue un petite moto a l'hotel : le patron est tres sympa et super serviable, mais nous [View Full Entry]

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Die ersten zwei Stunden der neunstuendigen Busfahrt von Luang Prabang nach Vientiane - der Hauptstadt von Laos - erschienen mir ewig. Doch danach gings dann. Ab Vang Vieng - die Touri-Falle, welche ich vermieden habe - war der Bus fast leer. Und wieder einmal hat mit das Glueck in die Haende gespielt. Nachdem ich ne halbe Stunde Guesthouse suchen und die meisten voll waren, bin ich ueber Daniela, die GTZ-Entwicklungshelferin aus Muang Sing, gestolpert, die ein paar Tage fuer einige Meetings und ein Vorstellungsgespraech in Vientiane verbracht hat. Ob ich denn ein Guesthouse suche? Sie hat nae [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone!! Thanks for all the comments and notes. Not sure how to get them to show for anyone else, but we do get to read them and love everything you have to say!! Even you sarcastic buggers are appreciated..you know who you are! We're now in lovely Laos after a few hectic days in Vietnam. Since last writing we had our boat adventure around Halong Bay and our special treat on Cat Ba island. The junk we were on board was lovely and the views out of this world. Just the gentle noises of the water brushing the side of [View Full Entry]

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