Luang Phabang

On the road again.

Hello everyone, It seems we have fallen much behind in the blogging, which makes things difficult as unless we write everyday we forget of little things to tell you. For instance we are in Vietnam at the moment in Hanoi Backpackers and are still writing about tubing which was 3 weeks ago. We are frantically chipping away at it and will try and step up our game. I guess the things you don't read about here- will have to be told at home ( although I am sure we will talk your ear off anyway and you may say ya ya--- but we will).

So back to the blog ( 3 weeks ago)

After Vang Vieng we packed back into a mini bus and embarked on what would be one hell of a long and high drive. We sat in the back, knees upto the armpits- no air let alone any oxygen to breathe in this van and we were going up a mountain. Now this was beautiful, but one minute were driving down straight flat land and then ascending into the very tops of a mountain range- we were above the clouds- now there is no barriers and the drivers here are a little loopy, passing on corners and going up hills so on top of being high up, our nerves and breath seemed to be a little air hungry but it was beautiful and we passed through a number of villages, its amazing to see the way they live. Kids everywhere, some with shoes, some without, looking at you like you are an alien through a glass window. It is amazing.

We all came together, Nico, Sebastien, Jack, Tom and I and two Laos girls at the front of the mini bus who played atrocious music out of their cell phones. ( This seems to be normal in Laos as most people we have journeyed with tend to do this)_--- even on an overnight sleeper bus. Bastards. No not really they are very very lovely people, just WHY?

So we got to the bus station- which are always ten miles out of town requiring you to be desperate and allowing the tuk tuk drivers to charge you whatever the want to bring you to a guesthouse. We negiotiated and negotiated and got it down as low as possible and went and stayed at (this is where the forgetting comes in) - I forget the name but it was okay.

We stayed two nights- walked around the town which is very quiet and much nicer paced and quiet than the party town of Vang Vieng, good resting time. We also took a tuk tuk about an hour outside of town to visit a very mad rushing waterfall which was beautiful. It had swimming holes at the bottom and a rope swing which dropped you into the small part of the falls. It was a lovely walk, because this was going to be our last night we went to watch football (on behalf of Tom and Jack of course) and played pool at a local bar.

Laos is a very relaxing country, something as soon as you enter just tells you to slow right down- this may be because of the early curfew- government states everyone should be in their registered places by midnight meaning all bars close by 11 30. Now the bar where we were playing pool at closed except Tom and Jack were playing pool with a local so we got to stay in and enjoy some Laos line dancing- quite simple but great fun and great experience.
Being this our last night together (Jack Tom and I were planning on some relaxing time while Nico and Sebastien were staying North to Trek) we werent ready for bed, but what to do?

We heard of a place, a special place you can go after 11 30 or midnight, you just need to ask the tuk tuk driver to take you- so we all piled in and headed out to the middle of nowhere to the bowling alley. Yes, a bowling alley- a proper one, ten pins, old school music, so smokey you can barely see and horrendous toilets. It was such a laugh.

The next morning the group said our goodbyes and Tom, Jack and I went our seperate way to Nico and Seb to make the what would be two day journey all the way down South to 4000 islands.



Tom -

We spent the next day in Vientiane, traipsing around markets, going back and forth to the police station (to get an incident number for Jacks insurance company - blackout buckets in Vang Vieng) and generally jsut relaxing as and when we could. We had an overnight bus with beds on (touch!) so went for a shared slap up meal to fill our bellies to help the attempt to sleep.

The first leg was 14 hours and to be honest it wasnt too bad at all. The beds were comfy, they fed you well, and the music (FOR ONCE) was quiet. We all got some sleep and woke up to pass the remaining few hours in a book, or on Championship Manager on my ipod (god i love that game on buses). All in all pretty effortless.

The next few hours were a little worse, back into a minivan for the 3 hour drive to Paxce, but nothing that we hadnt done before, finally a boat to Don Det.

By this time time we were done with boats, buses and the lot and just wanted to chill.

Luckily we'd just reached the end of the world, and there was not much to do but chill. And man would we.