We had quite an early start for our journey to Tad Lo which is a very small village in the Bolaven Plateau, south east of Savannakhet. The bus left at 7am and was a really rubbish old death trap! The window next to me had a huge crack in it and some shards of glass sticking out the rusty frame. It also went really slow, slightly faster than a milk float! We pootled along for nearly six hours and then were deposited at Pakse's northern bus terminal - we were order...

We set off early from Vientiene, in the tuk tuk Rich realised that he had left his camera in the bike basket from the previous day - we went back and luckily it was still in the basket! We caught a very dusty old rust bucket of a bus to Savannakhet which is about 9 hours south of the capital. The drive was quite slow and the driver had some disgusting looking fish dish on the dashboard, as the journey went on the fat congealed on top of it - it was making us feel...

It was such a relief to leave Vang Vieng, we caught a bus to the capital of Laos - Vientiene. The drive took about 4 hours and we were dropped in the northern terminal several km's out of the city - despite being told we were going to be dropped in the city centre. There was another bus offering to take people into the centre but it was fairly expensive so we thought we'd go out the front of the terminal and get a tuk tuk, bizarrely all the tuk tuk drivers refuse...

We left Luang Prabang at 7am - in another minivan, I'm pretty sure the driver was suicidal - his driving was crazy. It took about 6 hours to get to Vang Vieng - the road snakes high up amongst the mountains, it's a very picturesque drive amongst the clouds but we spent most the time praying we would survive! We had been to Vang Vieng on our last trip in 2007 - and had absolutely loved it there, we had been tubing down the river (literally sitting in a big tube f...

Next, we headed further north up the Nam Ou river to a tinier place called Muang Ngoi Neua. This place was only accessible by boat so we caught a very overcrowded narrow boat and chugged upstream through more breathtaking scenery. We found a cheap bungalow to stay in and then had some lunch and played some more cards overlooking the river - it was very relaxing! Eleanor, Carolyn and Rich also came - (in fact we remain with them for the whole of our Laos trip!!) ...