Hello from Vientiane, the Capital city of Laos!

When I last wrote, we were in Halong Bay, Vietnam. The following day we set off to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. After finding Ho Chi Minh City a little unbearable, this city was quite the same. The second we stepped off the bus, bikes were driving into you, and you could not fail to notice the smell and noise of this place. Unfortunatly, as I was still not feeling very well from all of the interesting food we have been eating and so I missed out on the days trips to spend the day by myself in the hotel room!

The following day, we went on a walking tour of the city and saw a range of different sites including the body of Ho Chi Minh himself! Getting to see this was certainly an interesting experience as we were quite literally marched in in pairs, not allowed our bags and ordered to be quiet which was very strange, and it felt more like we were being marched off to prison than going into the mausaleum.

After happily leaving another dirty city, we headed the following day over the Vietnamese/Laos border. The journey was the longest we have had to endure by bus so far, which started with us leaving the hotel at 5.30 a.m and not getting to our destination until the evening.

Once we had got through another set of border formalities, we arrived in Lac Sao, Laos. Even though this is a tiny little town barely across the border, I already love Laos! It seems to be much more peaceful than the other countries we have been to, and is both very beautiful and very chilled out which makes a nice change!

However, as Lac Sao was a temporary stop-over, there was very little to do there. We had dinner at the one and only restaurant and town, and went to bed extremely early, which was quite fortunate as we woke to the sound of cockrels the following morning! Maybe the country town was not so peaceful afterall!

I am now in Vietiane, which is the capital of Loas, but you wouldn't quite believe it if you saw how quiet it is! After leaving behind the bustling cities of Vietnam, I am quite shocked to be able to walk down a street here without the fear of being runover or hit by a bike!

This afternoon, we hired bicycles again to have a look around the city. At one point we went down to the river to watch th sunset, and it was by far the most beautiful sunset I have seen so far (we have seen quite few!) Even though we sat on the matted floor of a very bizarre restaurant over-lookinga quarry, it was still a spectacular view.

Tomorrow we are leaving for Vang Vieng, which is meant to be the party capital in Laos, and I am very excited about going tubing! It is a shame that we are leaving Vietiane so soon though, because not only is this city lovely,but the accomodation that we are staying in is so nice that I would happily spend many more nights here!

For now.....

Hope you are all well

lots of love x