Lovely Laos

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Leaving Vientien was an ordeal.... We had a mamoth 24 hour bus ride from Ha Noi down to Vinh, then across the boarder in to Laos, then on to the capital Vientien... Our pick up from our hotel in Ha Noi was by little mopeds. This would be fine if we didnt have 22Kg backpacks on and the guys didnt drive like maniacs... Rox screamed pretty much the whole way and Peter nearly pulled his guy of backwards everytime he pulled away! We were dropped of on some side street that stank of wee and waited whilst these guys brought more and more westerners to this cruddy street on their mopeds...

There was about 19 of us in the end. A 16 seater minibus pulls up. Not quite sure how we were meant to fit in this - especially will all our whopper bags, neither was anybody else. We had a quick protest and were pushed in with the bag piled on top. Not the most comfortable start. Rox had a backpack digging in her back all the way - she wasnt impressed!

We then get bundled out of the minibus and split into two groups. One group got on one bus then the other on the next. We decided that they split us up to spread the money as we basically pay 1000% more than the locals - forigner tax! We get moved around and finally put into some seats and the bus slowley fills up. All the seats are full we're ready to go..... Er, no we're not.... They then bring out little stalls and start lying them down the isle, and proceeded in filling these.... This was going to be a long ride.... We finally set of.....

A few hours into the bus ride and we are startled with a massive explosion.... The tyre blew out... But no, we dont stop, we carry on going - for about 20 mins. We finally stop at some crappy little tyre place. They (as far as we could guess) didnt have the right tyre. So we waited an hour for one to be delivered. We went on!

We started talking to the group of westerners on our bus and found out it was one of the girls birthday... We all started laughing and messing around sharing some peanut cake thing... the locals werent so pleased with all our noise and on one of the wee stops some weird guys and an old lady had a go at rox telling her to shut up basically (I wasn't there)! Needless to say we didnt listen and carried on our gay old time! This passed some hours....

We arrived at Vinh for a food stop and saw a massive group of travellers there. They were trying to get on their connecting bus and were told that (they had paid for this bus in advanced) that it was full and had to wait an hour for the next one to see if that had room. Good for them though, they argued and managed to get on, but had to make do with the aisle stalls. Bit of shit when you well over the 'official' price!

It was fun and games trying to get of the bus when we stopped..... No one moves - even if you ask.... It's insane, they're so rude its unreal, and not just to us, but to each other... So each exit consisted of climbing over all the arm rests, treading on the top of the seat and trying to avoid smashing peoples heads or falling off and landing on the people sleeping in the isle.

We made it to the boarder.... Again another fun endevour. We were some of the first there, and our passport were kept to last in a pile on the back table. Once all the locals had been let through, they then done ours. Once all the locals had left the building they officials behind the counter told us we need to pay a dollar to get our passports back. Bloody boarder officials, such cheeky gits. We argued for a while saying no and they just threw our passports on the back table again... So obviously we had to give in and pay otherwise we'd miss the bus...

We then went throught to the Laos border control.... Just as fun... It was bloody chaos, bundles everywhere.... You get given the form to fill out at one window then go to the next to hand it in, he then gives you a reciept, then you go to another window to pay, then you get a reciet there, take it back to the second window and give it in, then the guy waits untill he stockpiles a load or forigner passports and takes them over to another window where you go and wait for a while for the guy to do his thing and give it back to you!!! Peter's passport went missing in this last 'effort', and panic kicked in, we were both running from window to window trying to see where my passport was, even going to into the office a sifting through their papers, and then after a little while the guy at the last window just pulls it out his little box and gives it to me... I wasnt impressed. What a tosser, he was laughing to, we reckon he done it on purpose! Mind you, at least they didnt make us pay more to get it back! Back on the bus and on our way to Vientien..... We made it to Laos...

Vientien is probably to most relaxed and chilled capital city we've ever been to.... Its bizzare.... We chilled here for a couple of days, visited a few temples and local sites. We also celebrated Hatties birthday, went for a bloody good pizza and then went to get pissed...

Our next stop was Vang Vieng, this place is beautiful with caves everywhere and stunning scenery. We went there with Paul and Mal our friends we made on the journey to Vientien, Paul and Peter bargined for room prices and we managed to get a room for 2pounds 50 a night - this did mean we had the coldest shower ever though! We hired bicycles and went cycling to one of the caves, Rox was so excited as she had a paink bicycle with a bell and basket- what a geek! The cave was not quite what we had anticipated, the supposed lagoon wasnt very lagoon like and the climb inside the cave was quite dangerous as it was so dark and slippery. There were huge spiders on the celings which freaked us all out a little so we didnt stay to long.

We went tubing with Paul and Mal which is what Vang Vieng is famous for, this literally involved getting in a huge rubber ring and floating down the Nam Song River - whilst stopping in bars of course. We were the most hardcore out of everyone there as we were the first people on the river and in the first bar!!!! Or we were geeks and got up to early!

This was really fun, we had plenty of beers, stopped at a crazy bar where the weird bar man kept trying to sell us magic mushrooms or spliffs, we declined, but Peter and Paul did drink the snake whiskey - a bottle of gross whiskey with a dead snake in! Peter and Paul went on all the rope swings, slides and diving boards.... Rox was nearly tempted to! After the bars finish, there is like a two hour paddle back to the town (which isnt fun - especially when the sun goes in and it's freezing!!), plus you scrape your backside on all the stones on the way back in the shallow parts. On route we bumped into a group of little kids that started to splash Peter, and Peter in his infinate wisdom told the kids to go and soak Rox. Rox wasnt happy, she didnt want to get her hair wet - even though we were in the river!!!
After this incident it took a close encounter with some water buffalos to get Rox talking again.... Infact it got her screaming and jumping about which cause her to lose a flip flop.... She was so scared she was willing to sacrifice this lonley, abandoned flip flop - i think it was flop that she was leaving! It took Peter shouting from past the buffalos to get her to go back and get it! Flip and Flop were reunited.....

From Vang Vieng we went further north to Luang Prabang. We thought we wiould be clever and go direct to the bus station to cut out the travel agent, making it cheaper for ourselves. It didnt work. We ended up in a minivan, cramed in going up the windiest roads ever... Rox was feeling pretty crappy after this, and through most of it!

It was worth it though, Luang Prabang was very nice... It had a massive French influence, lots of coffee houses and bakerys! Rooms were more expensive here as the general age of tourists had increased by about 20 years so we decided to eat cheaply in the night market.... What a find... The food was great. Every night we had BBQ chicken, a full, whopper breast which was cooked to perfection every time. We also got spring rolls, mini pork burgers, bbq sausages and lots of veggies.... All for under 4 pounds between us! Then we treated ourselves to ckaes and doughnuts for afters!

From here we went to visit a really lovely waterfall... This was a real surprise as we didnt really know what to expect, or even know that it was there. The was lots of crystal clear lagoons, pools and a bear enclosure where bears are rescued from captivity!

From Luang Prabang we had another mamoth journey to Bangkok - 24 hours. We were up at 5 am and on our first local bus at 6.30am, in which had no air conditioning so we were sweating like pigs! It stopped every five minutes for really random reasons to, so we were both stressing out like crazy as we had to catch our other bus at the boarder to Bangkok which was already pre paid... This dint help with the sweating situation!

We eventually made it, dripping wet to the boarder, crossed, was charged to leave the country and then had to try and work out where to get on the next bus! However, a lttle man stuck his head out and guided us to the coolest VIP bus ever... Thankgod for Thailand buses... The journey was uneventful, cool, arrived early, was taken to wehere we were meant to be...perfect..... Now we just had to trapse arounf Kho San Road at 5am looking for accomadation... Found it... We wasted a few days in Bangkok, and randomley bumped into Ant - a friend who was from our India trip....

Our next jouney is now to Australia.....bye bye....

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