Arrived in Laos following the worst imaginable bus journey from Hanoi - 20 hours all together. It was truly unbelievable and its only two days later that I can really laugh about it. The whole bus was filled with stuff being transported from Vietnam to Laos, including scaffolding, weights, fruit and veg, flowers and huge boxes of mysterious things. The luggage compartments were also full of 'stuff' so all of the passengers (just a by-product of the whole transportation thing) had to keep their rucksacks and suitacases with them. As there was a huge roll of carpet under my chair I had to sit with my legs bent the whole journey apart from the time I managed to stretch them right up and over the seats in front - this made all the blood leave my legs though and made things worse. We kept stopping to collect more things and then spent ages visiting different addresses  - like getting a lift with an argos home delivery driver. I watched out of my window whilst they unscrewed the wheel arches and emptied over 300 power tools into white bags - the whole thing seemed really shifty - at least it wasn't guns or drugs!!

Fortunately Laos is a lovely country, much much more laid back than vietnam, it must be worse for the travellers doing the same 20 hour bus journey but arriving in Hanoi. Sort of glad I did it this way round - although most people seem to going in the other direction.

The capital, Vientiane, only has 200,000 people and is about as big as Harrow - I had this vision of a really poor country but there are these really cool coffee shops selling amazing food. Its strange sitting in one and seeing rich mums in 4X4's turning up outside with their kids - it could be any westernised city in the world.  Maybe they have more foreigners that open restaurants and cafes here in Laos as compared to vietnam - It will be interesting to see the rest of the country. I knew nothing about laos before i came and could just about point it out on a map - from what I can see its just been constantly flattened, invaded and occupied by outsiders (Burmese, Thai, French, Americans, Japanese) - it was only really in 1975 that it became a proper country and its only relatively recently that tourism has grown - first impressions are that its a really cool place, everyone coming in the other direction has said they wished they had longer to stay here which sounds promising.  

 Will add some photos tomorrow.