The return to Vientiane was a short one and a pretty sad one as that is where Monique and I went our seperate ways - Monique to Bangkok before she flies home to Houston, while I continue to Southern Laos. Sad though it was we still managed to enjoy our last day or so together. We ate good food by the river and visited Phat That Luang - the beautiful Laos national monument which we inexplicably managed to miss first time round. The evening after we arrived we said our goodbyes and both took overnight trips to our next destination. [View Full Entry]

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The trip south back to lovely Luang Prabang was much shorter than the journey there but just as interesting. We took a local bus (which consists of a couple of benches in the back of a truck) which was initially not too crowded. However, the driver proceeded to stop every few minutes to let more people on with whatever sacks, bags or boxes of produce they were carrying. I think the highest count was about 20 people plus a fridge-freezer (!!!) in a truck designed to carry 10 people. Every local person who got on tried to shove us to the [View Full Entry]

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Nong Kiaw is only 3 hours North of Luang Prabang by road, however we decided to take the advice of the ever-unreliable Lonely Planet and take the most scenic trip in the whole of Laos which takes 7 hours against the current and costs 4 times as much as the bus. I'm sure that the scenery would be very nice (endless hills and mountains on either side, and the occasional tiny village complete with excitedly waving naked children) had it not been a pretty miserable day, and had we not been cramped into a boat that makes a narrow boat look [View Full Entry]

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If I thought that the scenery in between Vientiane and Vang Vieng was impressive, the views from the bus on the way to Luang Prabang were stunning. The bus made the achingly slow (about 100km in 6 hours!) journey up the windy mountain roads and through the clouds past beautiful valleys with tiny wooden huts on the slopes which were at times well over 45 degrees. I have no idea how they farm on that sort of an incline but they manage it. After checking into a guesthouse I went to check out the town. My first real sight of Luang [View Full Entry]

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The bus journey North to Vang Vieng was absolutely stunning and refreshingly short. It is a tiny town surrounded by huge limestone mountains and, during our stay at least, continually coverred by the mist from the top of those mountains. There is very little to do or see in the town itself and it seems to have been brought to life by the tourist industry as travellers stop for the fantastic scenery. It does, however, have a well developed traveller scene with loads of cafes serving western favourites (including surprisingly good pizza) and showing films/episodes of Friends 24/7. We spen [View Full Entry]

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It goes without saying that the first port of call after checking into a guesthouse in Vientiane after nearly 22 excruciatingly painful hours on the road was to relax for a while and have a short nap. This was only interupted briefly by the need to eat before retiring to bed for a much needed proper sleep. After recovering from my zombie-like state I managed to have a walk round and check out the city. The overwhelming impression was how quiet it was compared to Hanoi, and in fact compared to almost anywhere else I have been on my travels. There [View Full Entry]

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After Halong Bay I returned to Hanoi for a couple of days in order to sort out visas and tickets for Laos. This could have been sorted out beforehand but I didn't want to move on before England's World Cup quarter final just in case it wasn't possible to watch it in Vientiane. In retrospect I may have been better off not watching it but I've done enough ranting about it already so I won't fill a blog with my bitterness (well, not this particular blog anyway - see journey to Vientiane). Apart from dull admin I also did a couple [View Full Entry]

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When I started writing this blog I never once expected that a single bus journey would be worthy of it's own post but I have been proven wrong. I wasn't greatly looking forward to the 22 hour bus journey to Laos as you might expect but I didn't expect it to be quite as horrendous as it was. To start we were picked up half an hour late by a taxi when we were expecting to get straight onto a bus. I assumed that we would be taken to the bus which was waiting nearby in a less crowded street, however [View Full Entry]

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After wading through a number of tour companies with an unbelievable range of prices for Halong Bay tours (going upto over $200) I decided to reject the recommendations I had received for some expensive agencies and take a gamble on a $35 3-day all inclusive trip to Halong Bay. The next few days that followed were some of the best of my trip thus far. After a cramped bus journey to the coast we boarded our boat and settled down as we set sail. By the time we had eaten a delicious buffet lunch the boat had reached possibly the most [View Full Entry]

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The less said about the 14 hour bus journey to Hanoi the better, all you need to know is that I got there. Needless to say that the majority of my first day in the capital was spent catching up on sleep. This was followed by trying to make sense of the ratrun of streets which make up the Old Quarter of the city and finding food. The city centre is pleasantly based around a big lake which gives it a pretty open feel, which is in contrast to the tiny streets which spread out from there. Hanoi's streets are split [View Full Entry]

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