laos

After spending 14 hours on the back row of the mini bus being squashed by bags, we made it to Vientien. When we were booking our trip to Laos we intended on getting the slow boat up the Mekong river but they have had a bit of a drought, so it was in fact the bus. When we arrived in the capital of laos (Vientien) we were dropped of in the middle of the city, you never get dropped of at a station we have come to realize. (always prepared for suprises). It didnt take us long to find somewhere to stay and it was very cheap, excellent! and in the centre. We stayed in the capital for two nights, whilst there we were very happy to see a bakery, a place that actually has a carrot cake for Charlotte and a chese cake for me, as you could imagien the americans had a bagels, and just to top of the bakery they had free wifi. We went to the local market and experienced the most amazing shakes ever!!!!! banana, lemon, mango and another one that some one else had. Vientien wasnt very exciting so we quickly headed on to Vang Vieng. Absolutly loved Vang Vieng, we caught the local bus there. On the local bus we met two american men about 50 and they were blumin halleriois!!, half way to Vang Vieng they stopped by a field 'toilet stop' men one side of the hedge woman the other. When we got to Vang Vieng the american men showed all the tourists where to go as one of the americans have been living there for a few months now. Steve one of the americans showed us to a cheap hotel and told us loads of information of where to go in town. We went tubing the day after our arrival, it was 1-2pm when we got there, it cost us 55.000kip to rent the rubber ring and get the tuktuk there. When we arrived on the river side we automatically picked up the vibe of the place, music playing, everyones chilling and drinking and when not drinking they were dancing or swinging from the trees in to the water. The swing from the tree was pretty high and when you land wrong, I speak from experiance, it hurts and bruises. There are many bars to float too but we like everyone else ended up staying in the first 4 bars. The second bar was my favourite as they had a bigger space with a lot more people to mingle with, they also had a zip wire in to the water. Me and Charlotte did the zipwire and I have never felt as much pain, there was a metal nut on the zip wire that you hit which jolts you, by the time I had seen it it was to late, I hit the nut with my face and did a back flip in the the water the pain o the pain. (I didnt do it agin) We all woke the next morning with achs and pains all over, we stayed in bed that day and watched HBO. When we had recovered we highered push bikes and went for a little meander around and out of town, we did a little off roading to try and find the lagoon. The scenery was beautiful many limestone cliffs, sets of trees, and fields. The day after we had all highered out bikes I went off on a bike on my own, I had such a fantastic day. I cycled past where tubing was and then decieded to turn down a little dusty road which took me to a little village , where there were loads of children playing when they saw me they ran after me giggling and tryig to catch me I slowed down and walk with them, when I offord them some water they got very excited which shocked me. They took me to the river, loads of children playing to my right and people bathing further down the river to my left. Before I left the village I bought them all some juice from the local shop and they managed to say thankyou in english. It was the best thing ever to see how happy they were drinking there juice. Before I handed my bike back I headed to the river close to where we were staying. I sat on the pebbles and did a bit of painting I was then joined by five to six Lao kids, so I let them play with my little pallet of paints, they played for hours, they were so sweet. On the last day me and kate diceded we were heading to Vietnam, and Charlotte and Courtney decided they were going to check out Luang Praung before coming to vietnam, Alex decided she was going to head somewhere on her own for a bit a catch up with us along the way.