We arrived in Vang Vieng quite late after another long bus journey. At the bus station we met captain boring and his equally dull girlfriend. We decided to walk into town from the station which took ages with our bags in the heat. I was still wearing a jumper and was too lazy to take it off so after five minutes of walking it looked like I'd been swimming. We eventually found a nice guesthouse by the river and after a tepid shower we had a little wander around while the sun set over the mountains. Whilst looking for somewhere to dine we bumped into Bridget (A girl we met on the boat and had travelled with in Laos) it turned out she was staying in the same guesthouse. We all had food and some BeerLao together and then had an early night.

The next day the three of us got up to do some exploring. We went off in search of a lagoon that I'm pretty sure didn't exist. We walked to the foot of this mini hill/mountain thing (It was called MoonTain on the sign) and this weird little Lao guy convinced us to try and climb it (he even made us pay). We climbed it and it was really steep and sharp (flip flops were definetely an oversight) but we conquered it nevertheless. Views were pretty sweet. After we climbed down the Lao Guy was still there and kept trying to marry Bridget and then he taught us how to get erections by drinking this potion he had made from dead animals. After that we went for a swim in the river and I took some terrible underwater pictures of patches of water where fishes had been seconds previously. Later on we met up with the other guys we met on the boat and we all had dinner together and then went to the bucket bar where drinks were served in buckets, went to some other bars in the middle of the river and were nearly marooned after this aussie guy blocked off a bridge using the medium of vomit.

The next day we went Tubing which was basically a bar crawl along a river but instead of swimming you floated down the river on an old tractor inner tube. It was pretty cool and all of the bars had massive zip-lines and swings to leap into the river. I did them all. Mad did one but then complained that "everything hurts". They were all really dangerous especially seeing as everyone was drinking. Loads of people had cuts and bruises (a girl came within a metre of death (no exaggeration) when she didn't let go off a swing in time and nearly smashed herself into a cliff face. Amusingly this led to a later conversation which went "hey, did you see that stupid girl who nearly killed herself on those rocks?" "yeah, that was me". At the final bar you were supposed to get out of the river and get a tuk tuk back to the town but obviously knowing better we decided to try and float back to Vang Vieng. Error! it took nearly 2 hours (Mad's tube burst and I valiantly swapped and swam back) It was freezing and dark by the time we made it back.

The next day we were all aching and bruised but us 2, Andy and Bridget kayaked to Vientianne (the Laos Capital). It was lots of fun and there were some rapids which we made it through unscathed (Mad and I shared a Kayak) I jumped 40ft off some rocks into the water and was terrified. It was a really good day though and much more fun than getting the bus again. We made it to Vientianne in the evening and met up with Mitch and we all got some street food which was pretty average.

The next day we wandered around Vientianne before getting a bus in the evening to Hanoi.

The bus ride took 26 hours to cover 600km. All 26 hours were at best unenjoyable. Getting to Hanoi was a massive relief.

More Soon. Ed and Mad. x .