After crossing the border into Laos we ended up taking two very crowded songthaews (a pick-up with converted benches in the back) and a bus; we finally arrived in Vientiane 12 hours later. The roads weren't nearly as bad as we had anticipated, and we managed to travel the whole route sans chickens!! We've been told they're common travel companions in Laos. We were fortunate enough on the bus to be seated on oh-so-comfortable plastic stools in the aisle. Now we know how it feels to be a Lao sardine!

Rest in Vientiane was paramount, but due to the high expenses in the city, we finally made the trip three hours north to Vang Vieng to await our new arrivals...Ryan are you ever coming?

We hung out and relaxed for a few days doing a whole lot of much needed nothing! We floated down a very, very slow moving river on some inner tubes, drank, and slept a lot…then came Saturday at 8:05 in the morning. I casually rolled over to check the time and couldn't find my watch. It seemed strangely warm for 7 am -- the time we were meant to be up to catch our 8 am bus back to Vientiane. It would seem that both of our watches had mysteriously hidden themselves under Cheryl's pillow so as not to disturb us after our long night of drinking with some British blokes. Lara was flying in that afternoon and we had made arrangements to be waiting at the airport with bells on!!

A very hot and crowded three hour Songthaew (that dreaded converted pick-up truck, we loved to hate) ride later, we actually got there with 30 minutes to spare!! Thank you Laos Aviation for your half hour delay!!

We were going to spend some time in Vientiane before making our way back to Vang Vieng, so I'll end this entry here before it goes on too long.