Laos turned out to be a lazy couple of weeks. It's a really poor country but it's not something you would notice superficially, everyone's really friendly and no-one tries to rip you off for a being a tourist. Being a former French colony means the country's full of frogs but on the plus side it meant French baguette sandwich stalls lived everywhere. Ultimately it's a very chilled out country...

Deciding not to travel down to the South of the country, we split our time between 3 major places - Vientiane, the capital, Vang Vieng, touristville of Laos and Luang Prabang up in the Northern Highlands.

Vientiane was what you can imagine would've been a typically French town back in its day. And I mean town...for a capital city it was tiny, we could walk the centre in about 5 minutes, which we did the first day. There wasn't an awful lot to do either...after we'd seen the Patuxai (Laos version of the Arc de Triomphe), sifted through the markets and attempted a half day at the worst waterpark in the world, we'd exhausted everything...except bowling, eating and drinking. The only problem we then had was the curfew..all businesses in Laos must be closed by 11.30pm so everyone is home and tucked up before the midnight curfew.

So moving on to Vang Vieng, things livened up a little. World-renowned for its tubing antics in a gorgeous setting surrounded by yay-high mountains, it lived up to its name and was a great place to meet hundreds of new friends. Various bars are set up along the Mekong River, you get dropped off at the first bar which is really lively and has everyone up on the zipwire at some point of the day, then you grab your tube and float down the river until people from the next bar pull you in...the best bar was by far the mud-bath one..where there were a few 7ft holes filled with mud for you to fall or slip into or play tug of war across. Things get a bit crazier on the way home when you've still got a 3km ride downriver and you find its pitch black and the water's pretty shallow so there's a number of sharp rocks to challenge you. A lot of fun though.

Post Vang Vieng, we took a really scenic bus trip to Luang Prabang. The former capital, also the size of a peapod, is a pretty little place which still retains some of its old French charm, notably in its many remaining colonial houses. It's set on the Mekong (like most of Asia) but in a foresty region so the views from the top of That Phu Si Hill across the town and beyond are gorgeous. As everywhere, Wats (temples) are abundant, theres a really good night market, oh and one day we drove through the countryside to Kuang Si Waterfall, a really pretty waterfall where you could swim and climb around it and look at the Bear rescue centre in their grounds...gorgeous.

We also took our last opportunity to have a Traditional Lao Massage (which I imagine is something like a Thai one - not in the least bit relaxing, a little painful at times but you feel better afterwards) before moving onto the border town of Huay Xai.

That journey was a nightmare...the road was so holey that you had to sit to attention for the best part of 15 hours or risk falling out of your chair or over the bar into the stairwell...only trouble was there were people squished all the way down the aisle and to make things worse it was so hot at times the windows were all steamed up and someone was trumping away all night! But...we made it, went straight to bed for the day then crossed the river border to Thailand the next morning.