A hello all the way from Vang Vieng!

This is our last nights stay in the luxurious "Butang hotel", we've been here to two nights now and decided to splash out a little as it was our friend Danielle's birthday yesterday. We've formed a little 5some with two girls who met whilst working in the outback (Danielle and Emily) and then they met Tessa who is from Canada, she's only 19 and has been travelling alone. They met her at the Baan Elephant Guest House that we we're staying at in Chiang Mai so I bet it won't take more than a couple of guesses as to how we all became friends. We all got chatting on our ride to Chiang Kong, an all day mini van journey further north!

Our next destination was to head to Laos but to get here was a total mission. From Chiang Mai to Chang Kong (one nights stop over and we sorted out our Laos visa), Chiang Kong to Pak Beng (one nights stay) then Pak Beng to Luang Prabang. This all in all took us 3 days. 2 were spent on the Mekong River sailing it by slow boat and when they say slow, they mean slow! 8 hours we spent on board the boat one day but the views were beautiful. It was such a refreshing way to travel. The stop overs and crossing the boarder was, let's say.. Interesting! They were both really small remote villages, one was even made up of just one road so you can imagine when the tourists came flooding the people of the village would go bizerk. We had a great time mingling with the people who also shared the slow boat with us and exploring these bizarre places. We had a scream getting off the slow boat from Pak Beng, all the locals were waiting on arrival with pieces of laminate that had photo's of the hostels that they owned ready and waiting to basically grab us and get us to stay the night. Well anyway the majority of the people on the boat all decided to follow suit stay at this one hotel, so like a herd of cattle we all crammed into the back of this truck. Rucksacks and all, there must have been at least 20 of us.. There was even two guys that had to jump onto of the roof so they could shove more people in. It's was nuts and we were all in fits of laughter squashed up against each other so you can imagine when the truck was fired up, we were all clinging on for dear life and there was even a couple of the younger kids who were running alongside the truck and just jumped up and latched onto the back of the truck! After a few moments it chugged and totally stalled and we started rolling back down the hill (surprise,surprise) we were all screaming and laughing and after the hoo harr we were made to get out and walk to hotel anyway which would have probably been the quickest option in the first place. Hahaha!

Our time in Luang Prabang was short and sweet, it was also our first dorm experience too. We rolled up in our Tuk Tuk late Saturday evening and went on the hunt for a hostel to stay at. We went with a recommendation and ended up this hostel called Spicey, we was happy with the recommendation we received as our time spent there was a blast. Being in a dorm is the best place to mingle with new people.. Whilst being in Luang Prabang we spent a day checking out the most breathtaking natural waterfall Tat Kuang Sin, Tessa and I decided to be a couple of thrill seekers and dive off a sturdy branch that hung out over the fresh water. We had so much fun! The evenings were spent at this really cool local bar "Utopia" which is the most popular bar in the area, the only downfall was that it would close at 11. For though's who don't fancy calling it a night, everyone would go a grab a Tuk Tuk and head down to the bowling alley. Of course we were one of them people!

So now we are here in Vang Vieng, this is our last night here so we have found a hostel down the road which is made up of mainly bamboo, we are just here to tie us over for one night and then tomorrow afternoon we make our way across the boarder, over to Vietnam. It's going to take us a total of 23 hours!! Wish us all the luck possible... Vang Vieng is rammed with bars and restaurants and cute little patisserie's. The whole place comes alive of the evening as no one really sticks around during the day, there isn't much to do here but the view is stunning. We arrived on Monday which was the 8th at about half 8, rucksacks down and we headed straight out to the local Irish bar called "Gary's" The pack of cards came creeping out and next thing you know we're playing the drinking game "ring of fire" Let's just say we then ended up in a club till early hours the next morning! Tessa and I kept up the good work all week... A few days were spent exploring our local surroundings, our hotel was literally a couple minute walk away from Smile beach. Smile beach has a real chilled out vibe, massive speakers with melodic music that would play softly in the background whilst we would kick back in the hammocks and watch the sunset. Bliss! On the Wednesday we had a birthday within the group, it was Danielle's 30th so we thought what better way to celebrate than to go tubbing.. It was chaos! So let me give you the low down as to what tubbing is, it's basically a booze cruise down the Mekong river where you pay for a rubber ring which then becomes your form of transport for the day. Here's where the booze part comes into play, there are 4 bars along side each side of the river bank's and what you do it float down the Mekong, with the current taking you with its flow. On arrival, workers from the bar would lob a long rope with a water bottle attached the end (the weight) up and over you so that you had something to grab onto whilst they reeled us in. The bars all had really decent music and everyone was in such good spirits out in the blazing sunshine all day! You can imagine as time went on and the drinks were heavily flowing, getting in and out of the tubes and latching onto the ropes in time became a very difficult task.. It was easily "You've been framed" material. I couldn't help but think the whole time, what a fantastic way to spend your birthday! Danielle spent most of the day prancing around with a bag of rice in her hand with about 4 phones inside of it as we all stupidly took ours with us thinking we were invisible with our dry bags, yeah right.... And we all own waterproof cameras, please tell us the logic in that!? Haha. Mines fit the bin now.

We spent all day hanging out over at the blue lagoon today, tanning and diving off the tree's that extend out over the crystal clear water. Felt so free flying through the air but now it's time to move on and we really are excited for our time out in Vietnam. We are really looking forward to spending Christmas in Hoi An. Jungle party tonight! This is something they host here every Friday so travelling with 4 other crazy girls we won't be missing out on this one...

That's all for now, will keep in touch again soon!
Lots of love always,
Orla x