After the ridiculous fun of Vang Vieng it was necessary to swing by what has to be one of the most rubbish capital cities in the world, Vietianne. Taking cue from my Rough Guide us girls found a cheap hostel on the main backpacker road of the city and checked it out, whilst the boys went their separate way. It was on the ropey side and to be honest, was a bit creepy, but seeing as it was for one night only, we thought we'd suck it up. Lauren however had been really ill for the last couple of days and wanted somewhere a bit better because of this reason, so I went with her to find an alternative. What we found wasn't a great deal better (or so we thought) but it was at least a private room with a private bathroom (albeit with a bucket underneath the plughole of the sink to catch the water after you turned the tap on, but still).

Whilst Lauren slept I went to meet the others for dinner, only to find the boys all clean and spruced up. They'd treated themselves to a nice hotel complete with minibar, bathtub, plush towels and lovely bedding. What girls. We ventured out to a French restaurant in hopes of making the most of Vietianne with a good slap up meal, so naturally we all ordered steak. What a disaster. It took them about 1.5 hours to serve us after ordering, and when we did receive our meals, they were incorrect, mostly moo-ing (which is fine if you ordered it blue, but most people had gone for medium) and stone cold. Exhausted after a disappointing meal we all called it a night, the boys heading back to their flashpacking hotel and the girls back to their rooms that resembled a crack den. Which is exactly what the other girls found when they went back to the hostel. People shooting up heroin and the staff absolutely off their heads and inappropriately propositioning them. Nice. I think the Rough Guide to South East Asia may need an update. Needless to say they checked out and headed to a nice hotel for the night.

The next morning was spent desperately trying to book 9 tickets on an overnight sleeper bus to get us the hell out of, well, hell, and down to 4000 islands. The rest of the day was spent counting down the hours until said bus and learning how to play poker as there isn't really anything to do in Laos' great capital.

The sleeper bus was a definite highlight of the trip so far. There are 'double' bunk beds (definitely large singles) lining either side of the aisle of the bus and where the five back seats would be on a regular coach, a bed for five people. Which we had, to our childish joy. The questionable part about this bus is the fact that if you were travelling solo you could be shacked up with some random Laos man of some description, which I imagine could be fairly awkward. Luckily I was shacked up with Jamie, Matt, Joe and Lily for the night. Not the most comfortable night's sleep but the novelty outweighed the comfort factor. The driver was another of the crazy are-you-sure-you've-passed-your-driving-test variety, and being in the middle, everytime he braked I slipped a foot further into the aisle of the bus. And at the same time our pack of Oreo's would fall on me from the shelf above my head. But I lived with that, just taking an Oreo each time to aid the discomfort before replacing to the shelf for the next brake.

We woke the next morning to a further three hours of minibus and boat combo before reaching Don Det in the 4000 islands in Laos. And more importantly, to a BEACH. x