(28 October)

We were on the bus for most of the day travelling to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. We arrived late afternoon and went out to explore. It was really lovely, loads of nice restaurants and bakeries, loads of sights to go see! Unfortunately most places closed around half 4, so there wasn't much we could go and see! We had lunch in a local restaurant that was really nice, then most of us went to see their version of the arc de triumphe, which is pretty cool! On the way, Anna, Laura and I split off from the group to have a quick look around the Market which was closing. Our first Laos Market was really cool, got me excited for the next one where we would actually have time to buy something!

After the arc we walked to a big temple. We stopped on the way at an ice cream place for chocolate sundaes which was awesome! So by the time we got to the temple it was dark. It was really cool because it was all lit up, and there was a massive Market/fairground set up all around it! We didn't have much time before we had to meet Bom at the hotel, so negotiated a tuk tuk back...it was pretty tricky to say the least haha. Tried to rip us off something shocking! But we made it back eventually.

We had run into Laura's friends from home randomly oh the street (!) so she went out with them and the rest of us split for dinner. Laura seeing her friends was awesome but then i think that contributed to my homesickness for the next few days! I was so jealous! Maria went for dinner with some monks that she had met on the street earlier that day (even though monks don't eat in the evenings...don't really know what was going on there!). Anna and I went with Fiona, Ursula and Claire to get pizza, but we didn't really fancy it when we got there so went for a wander, thinking we would get food in the supermarket as we weren't too hungry...about 20 minutes later we were sat in an Aussie bar ordering a beef pie with mash veg and gravy!!! It was epic haha, don't judge me, much as I love the food here I majorly miss home comforts! So that was really nice, then we headed back for an early night as we had another early start!

There was a minor battle with some ants before bed as they had decided my bed was the best place to have a party, but Claire came to the rescue with her bug spray :)