Lovely Laos

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What can i say i am the lamest person the blog world has ever seen. But for all you doubters out there it is back better than ever!!

I left you all on my way up to Laos last time so might aswell let you know what happened

We arrived over the friendship pass after a 12 hour bus journey from bankok, thankfully it wasnt jam packed so we were able to fully recline and get some good kip. We arrived in the capital City Vientiene and it felt like we were the only people there, the place was deserted, until we found a group of english lads in the pub who quickly recruited us into there motley drew, unfortunately vientiene was a bit of a blur as most of the time was spent throwing back beer Lao. I dont really think we missed much anyway, cos no one lives there. As you can imagine we were soon on our way we booked the luxury bus to Vang Vieng but there version of luxury means sitting in an overcrowded mini van for 4 hours, scenery on the journey included the locals showering and bathing in the rain, road check and a good police inspection (becoming bit of a common theme around these parts) thankfully the driver wasnt smuggling anything this time.

After arriving in Vang Vieng we found a brand new hotel that hadnt even been named yet and the plastic was still on the mattress, was thinking that it might be bit pricy for the old backpacker but at 1.50 a night turned out to be pretty reasonable, so we made the most of it and stayed 6. Vang Vieng is famous for one thing and that is tubing, the basics are get an inner tube for a tractor float down a river stop at various rope swings and zip lines and fill up on 50p Beer Lao on the way! AWESOME!

After 3 days of tubing and endless episodes of friends in the local cafe's we were ready to move on until we noticed 2 strangely familiar faces on the horizon, We just happened to bump into Hannah and Benzo 2 mates off our course at uni. So decided what the hell lets stay a few more days and water caving and kayaking with a BBQ lunch for a fiver probably one of the most fun things we have done so far. After another few days of tubing we thought that time was running away and decided to get back on the move so we hoped on the bus again to Luang Prabang. The Bus journey was breathtaking as it took you up into the hills of Laos where you could get a real feel for how beautifull the landscape was. We passed through many local villages which compromised of tin and wood shacks, no furniture but its good to see they have massive sky dishes and would rather spend there money on tv rather than a bed!

Luang prabang was a little dissapointing mainly cos its the only well known place in laos for tourism and prices are triple everywhere else for tours etc so we haggled with a tuk tuk driver for about half hour and manged to go see a waterfall and some pretty impressive swimming lagoons. Again with time being pretty precious we decided to dare a Laos Airlines flight to Chaing Mai to save some time, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_Airlines). A very unusual journey as no one on the plane new quite sure if we were about to land or crash, pretty hair raising stuff! but another experience to tell a story about (got plenty of those saved up)

Anyway on to Thailand!!!

For all you picture lovers out there:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2451&l=766be&id=501455138

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