We had a nice surprise up on our journey to Vientiene. We were supposed to have two bus journeys, one from Dondet to Pakse & another leaving 6 hours later from Pakse to Vientiene, however when we got to Pakse they said there was a mini bus leaving straight away & the mini bus to us seemed like a limonsine! There were only 3 other people on it & it was more like a people carrier, you could put the seats back & we all had two seats to ourselves. The journey was 10 hours long & we stopped half way for something to eat. I ordered fried chicken & it came out on the bone, everyone from the bus was chatting, when I noticed what I was eating & yelped & flung it across the table. I thought it was a funny looking bone but on closer inspection I realised it was a chickens head & I was tucking into it's brains. I gave the rest of my food to a dog & haven't eaten meat since.........! We arrived in Vietiene at 2am & the city was dead. No guest houses were open & the few we tried were full as it was new years eve. In the end we found a hotel (the mini bus driver was still ferrying us about!), it was 15 dollars a night so we found a new one the next day.

For New Years Eve we had some Mekhong whiskey back in our room & then headed out for a look around. We found a restaurant with a live dj but didn't have enough money on us for the enterance fee so we went off for another wander. Then we came across a street party, it was mainly locals & we were handed a free beer when we got there. It was pretty crazy, they were all dancing on chairs or fences & had to scramble out of the way everytime a car or motorbike came down the road. At midnight they sprayed a bottle of champagne about & carried on boogieing. We went off a bit later for something to eat & ended up at a lock in with some westerners in an English pub. They were taking requests for music videos, it was pretty cool. We also met an aussie who had been travelling around South East Asis on a 100cc motorbike, and we thought we had it bad on the buses!

New Years Day, it was really quiet. The whole city is quiet & chilled out in general & on Sundays everything is closed so I guess that New Years Day is a holiday for them (even tho they celebrate it 3 times a year!). We took a Tuk-Tuk up to Buddha Park & had a picnic. It's a small park crammed full of Buddha statues, we also hung out with some monks for a while & practised English with them.

Today is our last day in Vientiene & we will miss this city! It's so laid back & is full of old classic cars, especially Beetles! We are off to Vang Vieng later on this afternoon.