When they finally allowed me to get into my bunk on the night train, I clambered up, wedged my bag safely behind my legs, drew my curtain and settled down for a bed time read with some Carla Bruni. In a matter of minutes I was fast asleep, still very much recovering from the last few sleepless nights. The train staff had been hassling me to make a decision about breakfast, claiming I could only have it if I ordered it now and the train WOULD be late, arriving about 10. I ignored this, went to sleep, and was happily the last person in my bunk when the train pulled in at Nong Khai, the Thai-Laos border town at about 9.30 the following morning. Best nights sleep ever. I met a girl called Johanna from Australia and an American guy called Aaron, who were possibly the only two other westerners on the train. Johanna was going to Vientiane for work so had organised a car from the station over the border which she offered to share with us. This was definitely the easiest way to get there as the station itself is 20km outside the city and there are not normally taxis there to pick you up unless you pre-arrange it - we hadn't! So we climbed on the second train, after officially leaving Thailand by going through an immigration gate, getting a bit concerned they wouldn't let Aaron out as he'd overstayed. Luckily it just involved a hefty fine and we were all shortly on the train, crossing over the Mekong (again!! - its everywhere!) and heading into Laos. The visas on arrival took a while in Laos, but we then climbed into the car, with another strange guy who had adopted us, and head for Johanna's hotel. It was much too nice for us at $25 a night, so we trekked off into town to find somewhere more reasonable. After finding a suitable place that did laundry and had air-con we went straight to the river for lunch (a very spicy laap) and a beer lao. Given we'd heard lots of dull things about Vientiane we decided to go and see the main sights that afternoon and leave the following morning. It didn't take long, our tuk-tuk driver and his daughter who was about 2 also seemed surprised at the speed we returned from each place! The first place we went was Pha That Luang, a very golden, tall monument, famous in Laos. It has been re-built 3 times since the original one was there, the most recently being the French in 1931. We had a look around, then moved on. After this we went to the Patuxi, which is a bit like a small Arc de Triomphe! It was very pretty though, with ornate carvings and paintings inside depicting legends. We then took the tuk-tuk back to town and went back to the riverside restaurants for dinner. The Sun was setting over the Mekong as we ate, which made the whole muddy area look absolutely stunning! We took a mid eating break to rush to the minimart to buy insect repellent - the mossies were out in force, before returning to the river and spraying it everywhere - including on the table! It started to get a bit rainy later on so we moved to an indoor top floor bar overlooking the river, where I had the most comical crepe I've ever had - on the menu it was a "nutella crepe" but on the plate it was a large, round, spongy, brownie type thing - or sponge cake. Weird. We decided to check out the bowling alley and found to our amusement we could either bowl in the rented shoes, or bare foot. We chose bare foot, which led Aaron to blaming this on why I beat him - or sorry, it was actually a draw in the first round (because I accidentally took his turn and got a 7!) - I won the second game outright!

The following morning we waited patiently for our 9.30 pick up til 10.30 (laos time!) and were dropped at a bus that was obviously waiting for us on the side of a random road with a bus full of confused passengers. The trip up to Vang Vieng was only about 4 hours and we arrived to find - as expected - a not very nice resort type town full of backpackers and bars showing friends re-runs all day. We ignored all the people selling us hotel rooms, found our own for a fraction of the price then head off to investigate a "friends" bar for lunch and find some friends to go tubing with. These turned out to be a couple called Ben and Brie, who live in Sydney and we teamed up in a tuk-tuk and head for the river. Unfortunately it had escaped all of our attentions that we needed to get the tube from town, so we decided to swim instead. The basic idea of tubing is that there are a collecion of bars with rope swings/zip lines, spread out down the river and you visit them all by either floating in a tube or swimming. Unfortunately the emphasis is on buckets and there are lots of people giving a way free alcohol, so everyone gets pretty drunk and its not particularly safe - but is a lot of fun. I didn't quite feel up to the first rope swing but by the time I got to the next bar I was up for trying the zip line, which was awesome. We gradually made our way down the river as a 4, swimming between bars, drinking buckets at each one. It was a very wet day anyway so we generally got wet and muddy and by the time we reached about the half way point we were done. We all clambered onto a tuk-tuk - about 20 of us so we were on the roof, which was fine, but as I climbed off at the other end I slipped on the step and grazed the whole front of my shin and bashed my leg in 3 places which hurt a lot! It was ok for a few hours and we went to change into dry clothes before heading out again into town, but after a while it started to hurt and seize up so I decided to go home - unfortunately it hurt more and more and by the morning I could barely bend my leg! Next day I was much better and although we had a fairly wasted morning, we head back to the river for a more leisurely tubing day - with tubes and not drinking buckets! This time we made it all the way down to the end, which meant about an hour, peacefully floating through an amazing valley with dramatic rock formations all around us as the Sun was setting. We got back to the town and returned our tubes, but we were exhausted so had a very relaxed evening again and I was a bit lame, being in bed by 10!

I head off to Luang Prabang the following day, which was in an incredible bus journey through some really windy mountain roads with beautiful craggy peaks all around. The bus was supposed to be VIP but the number of times we stopped and picked up random bags of stuff - who knows - opium??! We also picked up random passengers along the way which meant after an hour I went from having 2 seats to myself to sharing with a local mum and her half naked baby - I was praying it wouldn't wee everywhere. She kept breast feeding it, which I had no problem with til it spit up all over her! then the little girl fell asleep with her head on my knee and her mum fell asleep with her head on my shoulder! Not the comfortable ride I'd envisaged! When we stopped for lunch a nice Israeli woman offered me a spare seat next to her which as a lot better!

I arrived in Luang Prabang and tried to find the place I'd arranged to meet Paddy (who I knew from Phnom Penh) but drew a blank at the tourism office and his guest house so found my own place - bliss having my own room again! I met up with him later and we wandered around the night market and I ate at one of the stalls - some amazing veggie food, including weird fried potato that tasted like salt and vinegar crisps! We had a very chilled time in Luang Prabang until Paddy left the following day and I head off on a trip to the waterfalls - I'd heard soooo much about them I was really excited! On my bus I made friends with a group of 4 guys from UWE and hung out with them for the day. We went up to the upper pool to swim which involved a bit of a hairy scramble down the rocks to get there! The water was a really bright turquoise and it was pretty idyllic! It was quite funny as the main other group of people there was a group of young (novice?) monks, dressed in their orange robes. It was hilarious to see them back flipping into the water, not quite what you expect monks to do...! After we'd finished jumping in the pool we head down to look at the lower pools and then the bear sanctuary, before heading back to our bus. I stayed with the guys for dinner in town before heading home to my luxurious room.

The following morning I did an elephant trek which ended up being with 3 Norwegian travellers. The girl I shared my elephant with had just been living in Kunming for 9 months so gave me lots of advice about what to do in China. Shortly after starting the trek, our "driver" Eddie got me to sit on the elephant's head, and I basically stayed there the whole time! It was all pretty easy while walking straight, but when we went down hill and through the water, I very nearly fell off lots of times! Sometimes our elephant - Demh - was a bit disobedient so I had to nudge him in the ear as well as Eddie shouting at him but I seemed to get the hang of it and be the end had fairly good control over him, even though I was a bit saddle sore by that point!

My last afternoon I just wandered round the town, had a laos massage (really painful when she pressed my bruises!) and then bumped into a couple I'd met in Vang Vieng and joined up with them and another English guy for the afternoon. I took them to Utopia which is a really cool bar overlooking the river where I'd been with Paddy and then it started belting it down, so we were stuck there for hours. I just had time to grab some grilled chicken and a baguette in town before heading for my night bus back to Vientiane.

The night bus was the worst yet - it was a normal (if not more cramped) bus. I had a relatively friendly Laos woman next to me, but she wasn't small! All night, we wound our way round the windy mountain roads with one man on the bus snoring loudly the whole way. Then we broke down! I didn't sleep a wink - even with ear plugs! I arrived in Vientiane grumpy and sleepy and then proceeded to trudge round town with my backpack for most of an hour looking for a bed! Needless to say my last day in Vientiane was pretty sleepy, and my day got even worse when I managed to "corrupt" my memory card at an internet cafe and potentially lose all my Laos photos! doh! I wanted to get out of there pretty quickly, luckily I was leaving at the crack of dawn the next day!