Hi everyone!

We left Luang Prabang yesterday morning and I was very sad to leave our guesthouse which was beautiful. Took a 45 minute flight to Vientiane which is the capital of Laos (surprisingly the flight was not as scary as I thought!) First impressions of Vientiane were that it was not as nice as Luang Prabang. Apparently it is normally a really quiet part of town where we are staying but there was a festival on and it was jam packed with locals and there were loads of fairground rides - no candy floss though!! Had a relaxing afternoon looking round the market which was disappointing compared to Luang Prabang (can you tell that I loved Luang!!!) Had a nice dinner by the river and then an early night. This morning we hired bikes and rode to the Prosthetic Centre called COPE. We would never had gone had it not been for a girl on our trip who studied it at uni but it was absolutely amazing. I had no idea that Laos was the most bombed country ever and there are still 80 million unexploded bombs in the country!!! It was so moving hearing about victims who had lost arms/legs or had died as a result. PLease look on their website if you get a chance. We then got back on the bikes and took a very scary trip (across main roads and roundabouts dodging people, tuk tuks and motorbikes - i'm sure a few highway codes were broken!!) to the Patuxai which is similar to the Arc de Triomphe and commemorates the Laos people who died in the war. Went to the top and the views were quite disappointing. Off to watch the sunset on the river tonight and hopefully try the local cocktails! We leave Vientiane tomorrow as we are off to Hin Boun for a night before we leave Laos and go to Vietnam. Looking forward to tomorrow as we are staying in a local home where there is no running water or electricity!!

lots of love me xxx