LAOS
Dear friends! What must you think of us? Leaving you in the dark all this time with not a word as to what we have been doing and where we have been. Shocking behaviour on our side, but you see, in the evenings it's a choice of really cheap drinks in far flung exotic locations with the creme de la creme of the travelling world (a dire boring bunch it must be said - us most definately included!) or sitting in a boiling internet cafe.... you see our prediciment and why the former normally wins out! Sorry!

So, where did we leave you last? Bangkok, yes I remember now. Well, we left Nong Khai for Vientianne in Laos. Got a bus over the border and spent an age getting our visa, a mob of people in no orderly queue waving their passports about like looneys. After being short changed at the visa desk we got a local tuk tuk into Vientiannre town, where we then spent a while walking about town looking for a guesthouse. The Lonely Planet effect had taken hold very well here as all the places listed in the book were full. We walked about shedding half our body weight in sweat and by the time someone took pity on us and let us stay we were fit to collapse, not caring that the room stank of dirty old fags, had no window and the restaurant seemingly had no food whatsoever, desperate times and desperate measures and all that!

Although Bangkok was far behind, the Bangkok Belly had followed us, so another trip to a medical clinic was needed, this time an Australian one where we begged for salvtion from the dredded bug. A pack of good old antibiotics (Tinazidole - what a wonderful word!) and another hefty price tag later, we left hoping that the wonders of modern medicine would prevail and save our souls... well, bottoms in this case! :0)

Vientianne had plenty to offer, some wats, and the vertical highway and ate some street food (suicide your thinking in our condition but when in Rome and all that...) Rice on a stick is the best thing ever and also rice with yoghurt and mango - sounds rough I know, but was delicious.

Just as soon as we had arrived we were on the move again, this time to Vang Vien, a popular stop off between Vientianne and Luang Prabang. The main activity that Vang Vien is tubing (chucking yourself down a river in a rubber ring and stopping off for drinks along the way), we were there less than 14 hours as it was just a night stop over for us so unfortunately no tubing!

After buying a bus ticket out of what James called 'Jack Johnson hell" (they played his music on repeat and at full volume all about town! ha ha!) we left for Luang Prabang. Nature called me at the last minute before we had to get on the bus, so it meant we were the last on. For the record dear reader, our transportation was the shoddiest looking piece of mini bus hell to grace a road. Ever. The seats were that bad that I can't really put into words the feeing, although the best way to describe the agony of it all was when I asked James if he was okay some 3 hours or so into our trip. 'I feel like I'm being raped by my chair' he replied with a tragic glint in his eye. Enough said I guess. Half way there, I needed the toilet again (surprise surprise) and was relieved (not literally) when the bus driver called out 'pee pee stop' Hallulah I thought, until we stepped out and low and behold we were just on the mountain side, where a walk into the bushes in front of us could have meant falling down the considerable mountain we had spent hours driving up. Ahhhh, the life of luxury huh!
We were on that stinking bus for some 7 hours dear reader - the people who had got on the bus first and had head rests and decent seats were just fine. Smug so and so's. We learnt from this that a) I'm never to go to the toilet just before a bus trip b) and if necessary fight to the death for a decent seat. However terrible the journey though dear friends we must make stop a while and remember that the scenery was some of the greatest we had seen to date, huge mountiouns covered with the densest greenery spiraling towards the heavens in a boulder like way, unlike anywhere we've experienced in our (not so) short time on this here world.

Luang Prabang... well what can we say? In a word, stunning. By far the best place we had been so far. Roads full of cars during the day would be transformed into markets at night - row upon rows of people selling local handy craft (my personal heaven - maybe not so much for James) and food. All walks of life were here too, not just the likes of dirty smelly travelling folk like us. So what did we do here you ask... well I ran round faster than a contestant on supermarket sweep grabbing any and every souvenir from the market I could get my grubby little mits on and James drank a gallons worth of beer Laos (a beer which costs about 30p - well how could the man refuse?!) Almost every building if not trying to flog food, beer or tours was a massage place, where for an hour I got a foot massage for about 3 english squids! I had to give the poor lass a bit extra though, I felt so sorry for her having to deal with my well travelled plates of meat!! Urgh! Went to a local elephant center where they care for retired and previoulsy mistreated elephants. Had a ride on one and then feed as many of them as we could bananas. At this point everyone else on the organised tour went back to town while James and I stayed around and did the 10km walk to the local village. Not the best idea we've ever had. We always seem to have a knack for doing these things in the hottest part of the day and this was no exception. Half way through the walk I had put a spare pair of trousers I was carrying on my head for some sort of shelter from the rays (great look) and was very much looking forward to getting to the waterfall for a dip. 'oh, no waterfall... it dried up... no rain in a while' the tour guide said. Well that's just great! Not only we were we dying of heat exhaustion, there would be no repreive from the sun until we got back to the hotel. Excellent. Not to be too down on the tour, we did visit a local village and have a nose about. Was plesant to see people go about normal daily life, they had no care that we were there and didn't try to sell us anything - some of these places can seem so staged and fake, set up for the tourists, but this was the real deal and was just about worth the hard slog getting there. The whole day of elephant riding and trekking wasn't over yet. The day before we had gone to a local temple and got talking to a local Buddhist Monk called Sechange. He had invited us to his temple, which was out of town and becuase of that not many visitors go there. James and I rocked up and Sechange looked amazed that we had come (think a lot of tourists must say they will go but don't) A happy Sechange showed us around the temple and even took us into his room, where we sat and just chatted - we helped him with some English words he didn't understand (he had written them on a blackboard) Things like foster father, honourable and even lust! That felt weird trying to explain to a young monk about lust I can tell you!) While we were in Luang Prabang it was ladys day, basically a day where the lovely loacl ladies get dressed up in there finest and go out to places trying to meet men - sounds nasty and tacky, but it was great. All the locals were out and everyone had a good old knees up, we were no execption of course, making full use of the happy hours and buy one get one free offers! We met up with some Irish and Canadian folk who we swapped stories with (like old war veterans, we can spin a tale or 3 so look out when we get home dear readers!) The next day we were leaving Lunag Prabang for Hanoi by propeller plane from the (very) small local airport. The Irish couple then scared us silly by recounting a story where they had got on a similar flight and the propellers had cut out for a minute or so mid flight. Fantastic news. Luang Prabang airport the next day demanded a double take. The terminal was tiny and the runway was no bigger than some driveways back in Isleworth. Well the flight was better than we thought, bit of turbulance, but as I'm typing this you can see we survied it just fine! There was even a cheer when we landed, so we obvioulsy weren't the only ones to have heard horror stories!! So there we were in Hanoi.... We must leave you again dearest reader. However, feel assured that all efforts are going on to make sure that the next installment will be posted much sooner than this one, in fact a little birdy has told me that it is being worked on (by James) as I type away at this keyboard! How exciting I hear you cry! More when's there's more dear loyal friendly ones! :0) JnJ xx