Good Morning All,

We are currently in Vientiene killing time before we get a 24 hour bus to Hanoi in Vietnam, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to tell you about our time in Laos.

So after a 2 day slow boat we eventually reached our destination in Luang Prabang, a name I still forget and miss pronounce and call anything apart from it's correct name. Our first job was to find our hostel, which we had previously booked in Chaing Khong. Haloas Backpackers, we booked this as it offered a laundry service and me and Earl were both dramatically starting to run out of clean underwear and clothes. We walked about 20 minutes too where we though our hostel was situated but we couldn't see the hostel at all so to save time and we were fed up of carrying our bags around we asked a tuk tuk driver to take us there. He took us to the other side of Laos to a hostel with a similar name, to then bring us back to where we had just cam from with the hostel being no more than 50 yards from where we got in the tuk tuk. I even think at one point we were stood next to our hostel and still didnt see it. We blamed it on the effects of being on a boat for two days and we got a drive around Laos and spotted where they were showing the football that night so it wasn't all bad.

The next day we decided to go to the Kuan Si waterfall which was absolutley amazing, we both scaled to the top where we walked across the edge, this did my fear of heights no favours, had a go on the rope swings and it was 100 times better than the one in Chiang Mai which was also amazing. On the way to the top of the waterfall we also got to visit a bear sanctuary which was pretty cool. That night after a steady walk around the night market where we got our first man bands of the trip - all backpackers need man bands it is like an unwritten rule, we bumped into the two German girls Isa and Helena we had previously met and went for a few drinks with them at Laos Laos beer gardens. This night Earl also caught himself a gecko I think he wanted to keep it as a pet and look after him or she but he accidently pulled the Gecko's tail off.

The next day we got up super early to go and see the tradition of Takbek. This is where the locals give rice to the monks. That are some pretty strict rules about Takbek such as no flash photography, do not look the mnk's in theier eyes and unfortunately some American tourists ruined this for us by being in the Monk's faces taking photos, which we found very disresptful. After this we went to visit the Whiskey village which sold some pretty strong stuff, not having breakfast on this day was a bad idea on my part and soon felt the effects of 3 or 4 shots of 50% whiskey. We then went on to visit pak ou caves which was ok but there was a lot of climbing stairs. That night we had a beer or two, Earl treated himself to an oil massage but we pretty much had an early one as we had to go uo Vang Vien the next day.