The next part of the trip was our overall fav, Erawan waterfall park, Thailands best and most beautiful waterfall split into 7 levels, the higher you hike the more spectacular the waterfall becomes. Having said this, if we had been on our own we may have just pushed ourselves to get to, if we were lucky, the third level - it was so incredibly hot, and such a massive trek! We were however accompanied by our Slovenian freinds who encouraged us to keep up with them and get right to the top, and it was unbelievably worth it! The waterfall was so beautiful with such clear waters. After trrekking in the swealtering heat for so long Vicky hoped in straight away! (then hopped straight back out agin once she got nipped by a fish) The fish were the reason Ellie wasnt so sure about getting in....it was hilarious watching her stand by the side, even just trying to dip her toes in, shrieking everytime a fish got close! Luckily right at the top of the waterfall there were no fish at all so we merrily splashed around and chilled up there for a bit. Annoyingly both of our cameras were out of battery at the time so we didnt get any photos! In the afternoon it was time to head back to Bangkok. It's wierd how we have come to think of our little guesthouse on Khoasan Road as being home now! We dumped our stuff and decided it was time to test out the live music bar-it was great! Such a nice atmosphere in there and three guys with guitars strumming out some of our very favourite songs. It was really chilled out and we cant wait to go back again, there's nothing like a bit of live music! The next day, with huge excitement, we headed off to tesco-this is what we had been waiting for! We managed to blag the ten minute journey in the tuk tuk for free by popping into two textiles shops and pretending to shop for expensive dresses. The shop manager gives the tuk tuk guy free petrol in return for bringing us to his shop. Works out brilliantly all round! Tesco was amazing and that is no exaggeration. They have free samples everywhere and industrial quantities of anything you could ever need! They also have these other parts of the shop with lots of different independent food stalls and little shops. After tesco we felt it would be best tyo round off the day with a bit more thai culture and go to starbucks! But it was actually well worth the visit as the building it was in was gorgeous with oriental painted ceilings and walls. Soon enough it was sleeper train time=very exciting as we love them so much! We got a tuk tuk to the station and then got settled in for the night on our very luxurious train. we couldn't believe the amount of space we had in comparison to India's trains! Arriving in Nong Khai we had to go through passport control and add some pretty stamps to our passports before boarding the train to Vientienne (capital of Laos). So far the journey had been pretty good but when we got out of the minibus after the four hour journey from vientienne to Vang Vieng we had never been happier. We were sat in the back and crammed into the corner so much that everytime we went over a bump our heads hit the ceiling. And we went over a lot of bumps-it was the most pot-holed road I have ever seen! Vicky also had a random girl on her lap who had just plonked herself there and gone to sleep. Overall not a pleasant journey, but quite amusing and well worth it when we finally arrived!

We had seen a lot of tourists arriving in Vang Vieng but when you walked around the streets it was quiet and calm, in a good way. We hired bikes and cycled down to the river and all around the town to get a feel for the place. Along the way we kept seeing these restaurants that had raised platfoms with cushions that you sat in and then a low table for your food, so everyone sat cross legged around the table. It was very relaxed and sociable. Lots of them also had Friends running on big tv screens which at first we though we was a bit strange but we grew to love it! We also noticed the french influence a lot, with most of the signs being written in Lao and French-good job vicky had her A level french handy! In the evening we we went and had the best pizza EVER and were also offered a little somethingfrom the "happy menu". Don't worry we politley declined! Going back to our room we discovered a very very large cockroach on our door and a couple scampering around under the bed. We both went into minor panic and started flapping bits of paper at the ringleader who eventually moved off outside. we then barricaded ourselves in by using the duvet to cover up any gaps in the door way and huddling under our mosquito nets for protection!

Thankfully the next day we woke up unharmed and went off TUBING! It was the most fun thing ever! We didn't really know what to expect but we paid our money, grabbed a "tube" and got a tuk tuk up to the start point. All along the edge of the river are bars which have buckets of whatever kind of drink you want and free shots (mainly of snake whiskey-literally a snake in a bottle of whiskey-tastes great!) You hop in your rubber ring and then people that work at the bars chuck bottles attached to string at you so they can pull you in. The bars are wooden platforms which hang over the river and have places to sit and then dancing areas in the middle where they play some great tunes! They also hand out free bananas which is a plus! We started off floating down the river, sharing a bucket and soon enough got dragged into one of the bars, a woman came and attacked us with head bands which entitled us to cheap drinks! great! - although ellie's headband did unbfortunately say 'dirty b****' across the front! We carried on floating down the river a bit, getting dragged into more bars..it was really good fun! Most the bars had these sort of tower things coming off them which at the top had a giant rope swing, a man would stand up the top reeling it in and then if you wanted you could climb up, hold on tight, jump off and then swing over the river before jumping in from quite a height! It looked great! Well, Vicky thought so, off she went, up to the top, jumped off and absolutely loved it, although splashing into the water gives you a massive wedgie!!!!

After a couple goes i thought it was time Ellie had a go! I reassured her thats its perfectly safe and just really good fun! So up we went to the top, getting ready to jump Ellie was looking very nervous, i just kept reassuring her telling her how fun it is and that she just has to hold on tight and il tell her when to jump in.....
...well, it seems i was too busy making sure ellie was holding on tight that i myself hardly held on at all! as soon as we jumped off the tower my hands slipped off the swing and i plumeted stright into the water! OUCH! biggest back flop ever!!!! ellie however had managed to stay on fine, only she was now panicily swinging around above the river, wondering where on earth I had gone and not knowing when she should let go! in all the panic ellie ended up letting go quite early aswell meaning she also made quite a splash when she landed! we both surfaced to the top of the river, splashing arounbd looking for eachother making sure we were okay before bursting into hysterical laughter! joined by all the many other people on the bar who were looking at us and laughing! (but all quite impressed with vicky 30ft drop into the water!!) Funnily enough we both still really enjoyed tubing and were happy to swing off again, the next times were alot more successful! and overall we absolutly loved tubing, however the next morning vicky did wake up with quite a large bruise on her lower back and decided it was ironically time to go and purchase some of that tiger balm she had been forced to sample at the floating markets!

The nexy day we got a "VIP" sleeper bus back to bangkok but in no way whatsoever was it VIP and we definitley didnt sleep on it for any of the 16 hours! The seats reclined about 2cm backwards, we had water dripping on us constantly from the leaky aircon and it was very very cold-not great! The one bonus was the free buffet which, in our usual style, we made full use of.

Back in Bangkok we quickly returned to our favourite guesthouse, had a power nap and booked ourselves another sleeper bus (why?!) to Koh Tao that evening. However we were nicely surprised by the bus, which was a good thing as it took us nearly 2 hours just to get out of Bangkok due to all the protesters lining the streets (who seemed to be more partying than protesting, blaring out loud music and dancing around very happily). We got a boat to the island from Champon and when we first saw Koh Tao from the boat it looked amazing, the perfect white sand, blue sea image with an amazing backdrop of mountains. Since we've been here it's been great just to chill out for a while, the evenings are the busiest, especially as its so hot in the day. The first night we were here we went for a general look around and stumbled across the Save Koh Tao festival, which only happens for 2 days once a year, so we were really lucky to see it. It was a great night with lots of entertainment, live music and drumming and the most amazing waffles! We've also done our bit to help save Koh Tao by buying a very trendy "preserve paradise" tshirt!

Last night we watched a really impressive fire show on the beach. It was kind of scary as they come so close to you with the fire. One guy was twirling fire around vicky's head and she was worried that her poor pink hair was going to get set alight! Also yesterday we freakily bumped into Amanda, a friend we made back at the Idex camp in India. We knew she was in Thailand but had no idea where, it's so freaky when you bump into people you know, but also very handy as we are sharing a room with her for the night (after our previous old man lodger moved out) so we have very cheap accommodation.

We are now very excitedly waiting for the arrival of Rosie and Emily on Koh Tao and we have even tidied up our room and made it look homely for them!