sabaai- dii everyone!! (Hello in Lao) We've spent just over a week in Laos now. Our first stop was Luang Prabang which is a really nice chilled out place. We didn't get up to much, but found a fantastic bakery/cafe on the first day and couldn't leave because the food was so delicious. We were all hoping to lose a few pounds whilst in Asia, but don't think that is going to happen now from all fantastic cakes and lushious beer!! We rented bikes on the first evening and just had a cycle around to see the area. Eileen and Breda cycled 20 miles on the second day to see a waterfall. The rest of us cycled about 4 and decided to turn back...... It was way too much hard work, but I was impressed with 8 miles considering you will rarely see me on a bike at home!! Our next destination was Vang Vieng. It was literally one street where every bar shows either Friends or films in English..... let's just say we spent a lot of our time in there! One of the highlights of the trip so far was the tubing. It was so much fun. Everyone hires a tube (a big rubber ring) and you sit into the tube and float down the river stopping at different bars. There were 5 bars in total where they had tarzan type swings over the water which you could swing on. As I'm trying everything once, I had to have a go.....however, I didn't get very far as my hand slipped off the swing and I plunged straight into the water, with everyone else cheering from the side!! The fact that I made a fool of myself had nothing to do with the alcohol i'd consumed!!! We stopped at the third and fourth bar and only had one drink in each as it was getting a bit dark and we still had a bit to go on the river. As we were leaving the fourth bar myself and Catherine were chatting to this Dublin guy who had been tubing the previous day so we just held onto him and off we floated down the river!! Thank god he knew where to get off it otherwise I reckon Catherine and I would still be on the river!! A fantastic day had by all!! If only I could set up a tubing activity on the River Thames, i'd say it has potential to make me really really rich!!!! We went on another kayaking trip the following day. Such hard work...our arms were killing us the following day!! Finally our last stop in Laos was Vientiane. We have spent the last few days just chilling...you've guessed it, EATING AND DRINKING! I treated myself to a Laos tradtional massage which was amazing.....I guess you could say that it was a bonus that I had a man massaging me....I did get the giggles at times, particularly when he was massaging my ass!! He must have done something right, as I was floating after it!! The Laos people are really nice; we ended up having a lock-in with some Laos lads who had a guitar. On Thursday nite we got chatting to these other Laos lads in a pub and they took us to the disco. It was brill!! The music was a mixture of English and Laos so we were dancing like crazy. The disco was jammed to capacity........ Do these people work at all?!!! We are heading to Vietnam later today; it's about 23 hours, so that should be fun or not!! Fingers crossed I sit next to a fittie! laa kawn Lots of love Em xx