Hello!

We have just completed our 8 days in Laos. We started off with a two day slow boat trip travelling down the Mekong river from the boader of Thailand, we stopped for the night half way in a small riverside village called Pak Ban. Pak Ban was tiny and it only had electricity until 10:30pm, so by the time we had finished our meal we had to find our way back to where we were staying by tourch light! We then continued the next day onto Luang Probang, this was an 8 hr journey which wasn't the most comfortable on the tiny wooden benches we had to sit on! We met a group of about 8 other people on the boat and continued to travel around Laos with them.

Luang Probang was a beautiful old town with French buildings and lots of cafes and restaurants! We visited some waterfalls which had lots of pools to swim in with crystal clear water, there were also some rescued bears and a tiger there. The second night there we decided to check out the local "discotheque" which was entertaining! At first it wasn't too busy with someone singing thai music on stage then when it hit midnight the hip hop came on and all the lady boys started turning up!

We next went onto Vang Viene which we really loved. The town itself was really geared towards travellers with lots of restaurants and bars and the main attraction there is Tubing! Tubing is amazing, you basically float down the river in a tractor inner tube stopping off at the bars at the side of the river getting pissed! Also at each bar they had rope swings and zip wires which you can jump into the water from, Dave especially loved this and must have gone off each one at least 5 times! We drank shots of their local rice spirit Lao Lao which is extremely foul- so foul they give it away for free! But at leat it gets you very drunk. We also bumped into the four Irish guys we met on trekking which was cool. One day we hired a ped and drove out to a lagoon and a cave which were great to see, and scenery on the ride was stunning (as you will see in pics).

Next was Vientaine which wasn't anything special so we just stopped there fro the night and then we caught a bus to Vietnam (Hanoi). The bus journey was without a doubt our toughest travelling experience so far. It was 24 hrs long and the bus was cramped with no air conditioning! There were too many people for the amount of seats and the locals on the bus had decided to load up the bus with boxes of ketchup which we had to sit with under our seats! Dave nearly refused to get on whrn the driver tried to get him to sit on a little stool in the aisle, but luckily then got him a seat.

However we survived and we have now been in Hanoi for 2 days. It is a large bustling city with so many peds i cant explain! Its like the walk of death trying to cross the road here because there is never a break in traffic, so you just have to slowly walk across the road and hope that you wont be hit! We saw a water puppet show yesterday which is a traditional Vietnamese art which was interesting and quite weird. We are gonna get a tour from one of the motorbike taxis this afternoon which will be fun and scary because the driving here is the worst we've winessed in any other country! We have been hanging around with a few people from our bus journey here and we're prob all gonna check out the bars of Hanoi tonight, and then leave for Halong Bay tommorrow.

Hope you are all ok at home

Loads of love Ems and Dave xxxxx