Update from Vientiane

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Hey everyone,

I've now reached Vientiane the capital of Lao where I'm hoping to chill out for a couple of days before heading down south and crossing the border into Cambodia stopping in a couple of places on the way if I've time allows. Since the last blog from Chiang Mai I caught a bus to Tha Ton where I hopped on a long tail boat which took me down river to Chiang Rai, from there I headed to the Chiang Khong on the border with Lao crossed over to Hauy Xai where I caught the 2 day slow boat which took me to Lauang Prabang with a stopover in Pak beng. I then cuaght the bus to Vang Vieng where I chilled out for a few days before hopping on another bus to Vientiane.

This section of the journey has been a pretty chilled out trip with only one real adventure which was the rock climbing in Vang Vieng. This consisted of a days rock climbing which I booked through Adam's climbing school who introduced rock climbing to Lao about a decade ago, luckily the day I went climbing the guy who introduced Adam to rock climbing was in town on a climbing holiday from Oz along with a Japenese guy who came over once a year and set up most of the routes used in Vang Vieng so I got to climb with some pretty cool guys. It was great fun if extremely knackering and there was no way I could keep up with the other guys. If anyone else ever decides to do some rock climbing in Vang Vieng please use Adams climbing schools as he is the only company in town who maintains and constructs new climbing routes, whereas the other companys just use his routes and undercut his prices.

Besides the climbing I've been mainly chilling out and enjoying the sights. First up there was Tha Ton where I got to see a series of statues, temples and Wats stretching up a massive hill overlooking the town surrounding countryside. Next up was Chiang Rai where the emerald Buddha was discovered sealed inside a stuppa when it was struck by lightning before being transferred to its current home in Bangkok, they now have a replica of the emerald buddha (actually made of Jade) in the same temple it was found in, along with this is their crazy golden clock tower in the centre of town designed and built by the same guy who is currently designing and building the Wat Rong Khun (The White Temple) just outside the city. Now this place is amazing, I would say its worth making a trip to Thailand just to see this temple it truly is amazing (even the toilet block is beautiful) so far he's only finished 1 of the buildings and its not expected to be completed in his lifetime. He is also an amazing Buddhist artist, unfortunately I couldn't get any pictures of his paintings or inside the temple as it is not allowed but have a look online as I am sure there will be hundreds.

After Chiang Rai came Hauy Xai, there wasn't a massive amount to see or do here just a little temple and a half decent view back across to Thailand, then came the 2 day boat ride to Luang Prabang. This is touted as a once in a lifetime experience but to be honest it's not that amazing, lots of nice scenery, but basically it is you and 70 other tourists crammed onto a boat for 2 days, pretty boring! The one highlight of this trip is definately the destination. As Wat Krong Khun makes a trip to Thailand worth it all by itself so Luang Prabang makes a trip to Lao worth it, it truly is a beautiful town surrounded by beautiful scenery populated by beautiful people, the French might not have had a massive empire but they sure knew how to pick the right countries. They also seem to have left behind some of there plus points, the Lao people make some amazing bread, brilliant coffee and all the buildings have a lovely amalgamation of french colonial, south east asian and chinese architecture. They also seem to have given the Lao there attitude to life, everyone is very laid back and nothing happens for about 3- 4 hours around midday when they all have lunch.

Ok my arms are started to go to sleep from all this typing so I'll leave it at that and just add a load of photos now.

More soon

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