So I decided to go to Laos, it was time for a visa run and Laos was as good as any. I had booked a flight from Bangkok and headed to Vientiane. My flight was at the stupid hour of 6am and so I had to be awake at 4ish to get there. So I got drunk. It probably wasn't the best thing to do but it was fun and I was with some fun people. 4am rolled around and I got all my stuff ready then waited for my cab. Once at the airport I realized the error of my ways as I had to navigate a huge new airport whilst being a little wobbly on my feet. I had something to eat in the airport but by the time my flight was leaving I was rather tired. Once seated on the plane I started to read about Laos, trying to work out where to stay once I got there. The next thing I knew the lady was waking me up for my meal. I had fallen asleep before the plane had taken off and was still sitting bolt upright with the book open on my lap. I hope she wasn't trying to wake me for long.

The food was crap and I should have stayed asleep.

Once in Laos I had to navigate customs (It had now been 50 hours with only 2 hours sleep which was on a bus). I started talking to a man in the line who worked in the same line of work as I had been helping with in Thailand. After finding our way through he met his friend and they offered me a lift into town which was very lucky because the last thing I wanted to do was deal with taxi drivers.

I decided that I was going to head north to Vang Viang, only spending one day in Vientiane (most of which was going to be sleeping), so I booked dinto a rather plush hotel withe air-con and a tv. I spent a while wandering round the city, looking for a book and taking in the sights. I had some dinner along the Mekong. Then went to sleep.

In the morning my bus was due to leave at 9am. I got up and waited, there are lots of rumors about dodgy agents selling you tickets where you pay for a bus and get a converted ute (bucky for the Saffas). I was picked up by a large tuk tuk, and started to worry. Luckily we were dropped off at the bus station and got on a bus (not quite as grand a the one they advertised but I had the 2 seats to myself so it was ok). The bus ride was long and windy but it wasn't too bad. The next mission was finding a room. I had been told that the best place to stay was along the river so I wandered till I found and adequate place. A nice little bungalow in a resort about 10min out of town. I dropped my stuff and went for a wander to see what was on offer.

It tuns out that Vang Viang is just a bunch of places that show American sitcoms for the whole day. Seriously, if you ever want to see every series of Friends or The Simpsons ever produced, go to Vaing Vien, it won't disappoint. I ended up talking to two canadian boys called Errol and Jason who were on a grand tour of the world over lunch which then turned into the late evening when we were joined by two girls they had me earlier. Before we knew it the time was 10.30 and it was time to go to bed(all the places close at 11pm). We all decided to meet in the morning and go Tubing.

For those of you that don't know, tubing is just cool, You get a big inner tube and then float down the river.

So you're floating down the river, the sun is beaming down on you and it's stinking hot but you don't mind about that though cos your bum in submerged and if you get too hot then you can just roll to your left or right and bingo! The best part is that the clever people in Laos know how to make such a relaxing thing just a little more perfect. They give you beer (you do have to give them money in return but I am happy with that arrangement). They have built little bars along the river from which they stick a large bamboo pole to pull you in. Most of the bars have swings where you climb up a rickety bamboo structure about 15m high and grab the rope, then swing. It was very fun, however the person we saw do a massive back flop after not taking off properly probably does not agree with me.

One of the bars had a sign that said "cave 200m", we decided to go and had a man that told us he would take us. It wasn't 200m. It took us about 45min to get there, climbing up a massive hill covered in sharp rocks. Proper foot ware would have been handy, my jandles were definitely not adequate. It was a very cool cave though.

We stopped at many bars along the way and ended up doing the last part of the river in the dark. We went back to the bar where you finish the next day and realized how dark it actually was and how little you can actually see. It was quite funny seeing people realize too late that they had to stop and then start paddling madly trying to get to the shore and then falling out and then watching them try and catch their sandal as it floats away from them and then their tube. he he.

I had to be back in Bangkok to finish some work so the next day I booked a Mini Bus ( fancy name for a Van) ticket to Louang Phrabang and a flight from there. The Van ride was not very nice. It is a very long and windy journey, Wellingtonians imagine the Rimatakas lasting for 6 or 7 hours.... The rest of you just imagine a very windy road that lasts for ages and goes up a long way and then down a long way but has a very nice view. The ride was made worse by the child in the back doing a technicolor yawn all over her big brother (worse for him). This meant that for the last 3rd of the journey all you could smell was spew. Then the drivers decided that they should stop and have some lunch, for an hour! Then one of the van's breaks failed and we had to cram the 3 vans worth of people into 2 vans. We had 18 in ours.

When we arrived in Louang Phrabang there were the customary reps at the bus stop trying to get you to stay at their hotel. We chose one along the river that was really beautiful, in fact, the whole of Louang Phrabang is beautiful. It's along the river and there is a very cool night market where you can buy pretty much anything. It would have been nice to have spent more time there. The next day I had a wander round and saw as many sights as possible before getting a ride to the airport on the back of a motorcycle. I made sure I was sober this time.

On the plane I ended up being seated ext to a man from Laos who was living in Auckland. His wife was Thai and they were back for a brief visit. We got talking and they invited me back to their place for the night. Having no place to stay I accepted. They lived about an hour north of Bangkok. This made it rather difficult to get back in the morning, I got on a bus which then started to wind it's way through the streets of Bangkok and after about an hour I was starting to worry cos I hadn't seen anything I recognized, then I was the only person on the bus so I started to talk to the lady selling the tickets and she became my tour guide, pointing out all the attractions along the way. This made the trip go faster and all of a sudden I was walking into Lamphu House once again.