Our week in Laos has been a much needed break from all the go, go, go that we've been doing through much of Southeast Asia. The Laos people are among the friendliest we've met the world over and this has directly translated into us having some great experiences throughout the country.

Our first stop in Laos was in Vientiane by means of the nightmare journey from Hoi An, Vietnam. We quickly discovered that this must be the sleepiest national capital on earth. The streets are quiet (no incessant beeping) even during rush hour and people aren't constantly trying to sell you stuff. The change from Vietnam cities was night and day with well maintained shrubbery lining the main streets and old French architecture apparent around every corner. With our limited time in Laos we didn't plan on spending much time in Vientiane, so we only stayed in the capital long enough to recover and to acquire new visas to re-enter Vietnam (much more expensive than they were in Cambodia - corrupt b******s).

The next stop in Laos would be the small town of Vang Vieng which was an easy 3 hr bus ride from Vientiane. The ride seemed like it would be a cake walk as our Super Deluxe VIP tourist bus was only half full. It would not stay this way for long, however, as about 30 large air conditioner units were loaded onto every empty seat - at least we didn't have to give up our seat and sit in the aisle this time. Vang Vieng is located on the Nam Song river and completely surrounded by startling limestone cliffs. A stroll down the main street will take you past about a dozen restaurants/bars with every single one of them showing old "Friends" episodes on their big screen TVs. We checked into a quiet guesthouse just across the river from town called the Mayla. This turned out to not be such a good idea as we each had to pay 4000 kip (50 cents) every time we wanted to cross the bridge. This may not seem like much but when you pay $5 for the room you quickly double that in walking fees. That night we remembered why we've been staying in better accommodation as of late as the rather large gecko that we shared our room with kept us up most of the night and were awoken rather early by the torrential downpour pinging off our corrugated tin roof - lovely. Our sole purpose for visiting this town was to partake in what has come to be a backpacker rite of passage - tubing down the Nam Song River. I know it doesn't sound like anything special until you realize that this is no ordinary river. A handful of local entrepreneurs have taken it upon themselves to create makeshift bars along the banks of the river. Seven of these establishments have popped up over the years and they all provide a similar service: landing docks with "fisherman" to reel you in, cheap bottles of BeerLao, large trapeze-like swings (always a good idea when alcohol is involved) and various selections of "happy" shakes. We spent the afternoon floating between establishments in the pouring rain and then warming up besides their fires with a beverage in hand. The swings provided some good entertainment especially when the largest, drunken fellas insisted on attempting back flips and time after time belly-flopping from 40 meters above the water. At the end of the journey we decided to make a raft with a half dozen others for the final leg of the journey as we were all quite inebriated and not a single one of us knew where to get out of the river as darkness had fallen by this point. We made it back successfully and called it a night.

The following morning we booked what we promised ourselves would be the final bus journey of our trip. We opted for a minivan to take us the winding 7 hour drive through the mountains to our next destination of Luang Prabang. The reason these buses take so long in Southeast Asia is due to every driver insisting that he needs a half hour break for every hour that he drives to enjoy a nice meal and/or drink. It's something that you never really want to get used to but unfortunately we have. Luang Prabang is a UNESCO listed heritage site due to its beautifully maintained French colonial architecture. We fell in love with it immediately. Our days here have been spent wandering the cobbled sidewalks, visiting unique art galleries, chatting with monks at the hilltop temple, having some drinks in the numerous restaurants lining the Mekong with and Irish and a Slovakian couple both of whom have shared every bus journey with us since Vietnam, and perusing through the handicrafts on offer at the daily night market. Unlike any night market we've ever been to, this one is pretty difficult to unload a dollar at with all the shopkeepers being so laid back. Realizing we could spend the rest of our trip just lounging around town we took the initiative to book one of the numerous tours on offer. The two day, one night Mahout training tour took our fancy and the following morning we were off. A Mahout is an elephant trainer/keeper and we would be experts within a few days.

Our training started by simply getting more familiar with the elephants and taking a 90 trek on them through the jungle and river. This portion was similar to the elephant trekking we had done previously in Chiang Mai as we just sat back on seats mounted on the elephants back - it wasn't really our cup of tea but whatever. Next we were given some instructions on commands used to guide the elephants. After we were all geared up in our sexy Mahout outfits, we each mounted our own elephant to try out what we learned. Jo had somehow been given the largest elephant in the camp - a 45 year old beauty that she could hardly straddle and from the top of which she quickly noted that "It's a long way down." We soon found ourselves shouting out "YAH YAH" every time the elephant was doing something naughty or "PAI PAI" when we wanted the elephant to pick up the pace. To round off the first day of adventure we would once again mount the elephants and take them entirely into the river to bathe them after a hard day's work. It's seems like all fun and games until you see elephant crap floating towards you as your elephant dives under the water leaving only your head above water with the floating green bomb heading straight for you. This is easily our favorite as well as the elephant's favorite part of the tour as the elephants play and splash about shooting water through their trunks and just slapping their trunks on the water to splash everyone around - it was truly memorable. After dinner we retired to the riverside bungalows and to our surprise they were truly first class - large comfy beds with hole-free mosquito nets, an outdoor attached bathroom and a priceless view of the river and mountain backdrop. We were awoken at 6 am to retrieve the elephants from their sleeping quarters in the jungle and take them for their morning baths. I'm not quite sure what the elephants do when left alone but they are much dirtier in the morning than when we left them for bed. I found myself scraping a solid 3 inches of mud off my elephants head as Jo's elephant just amused himself by dunking Jo in the river as many times as possible. After the baths we said goodbye to the elephants and continued on our tour. We spent the remainder of the day kayaking down the river and visiting a nearby waterfall. I'm not sure what the fascination with this waterfall is but it seems like every tuk-tuk driver in town wants to take you there (and if your answer is no then their next order of business is trying to sell you something to smoke - wink wink). So with our Mahout tour completed and with us exhausted, our final night in Luang Prabang we spent purchasing some house wares at the market as well as some $2 winter slippers and relaxing in a quiet wine bar along the main drag with our first decent glasses of wine since New Zealand.

In an hour we board a plane to Hanoi (no more buses) where we will spend our final 10 days exploring northern Vietnam. It'll be sad knowing that this will be the last foreign country we will enter before once again setting foot on American soil. We shall definitely make the most of it…