So... on to Laos!

But first we had to get there and it was to take 22 hours! The plan was to jump on to a nice V.I.P bus, sit at the front so we had ample leg room with a first hand view of the DVD that hopefully they'd be showing, make a couple of friends with Westerners, sleep most of the way, and have a nice luxurious ride! Er...

Well what can I say? None of the above!

We saw the bus and the HORRORS standing outside of it and wondered whether they'd be on the journey too? They were Vietnamese locals and this particular young group of boys happen to be the most disgusting beings you will find outside Solihull. They were spitting and gobbing, swearing and perving and just generally being HORRORS! So loud as well. They would talk on their phones to someone 5 metres away but actually shout! Leanne and I were the first Westerners on to the bus. There were a couple of locals staying pretty quiet but the thing that hit us first was the stench! Let me just make it clear that the Vietnamese eat dog, yes dog. It is eaten as regularly as we would have a Sunday Lunch, namely weekly. The smell on the bus was dog food but what concerned us was the quote, "you are what you eat", meaning when dogs are slaughtered they taste and smell much like the food they eat. So, we were on a bus with dead dogs! They took up so much room in the over head cabins too. There was food and cheap produce laid all over the place. It turned out that the Vietnamese and Laos people import and export cheap goods into each other's country's and do what they will with them. And, of course, they use the paying travellers' money to pay for the petrol!
By this time we're concerned about our luggage. Lea heads outside to check up and make sure that it is actually going onto the bus and gets chatting to a few Swedish girls that are going to be on our bus too. They tell her one or two horror stories about how they have had Ipods, laptops, DVD players and mobile phones stolen off buses just like these... The locals force all the Westerners to the back of the bus for the journey, turn the lights off, wait until everyone is asleep and scamper round helping themselves!
The luggage was out of sight so Lea just hoped for the best and jumped back on the bus and the journey begins. The bus is full of locals with maybe only up to a dozen Westerners. We're in amongst the locals and there's more spitting involved so I get all huffy and puffy and we go to the back with the rest. The film that goes on is naturally Foreign so there's no chance of entertainment (even though there were one or two naked ladies in it!). Some local comes to the back and decides to pretend he's important by looking around everyone's feet!? We know his game, it was just to see if there were any nice expensive goods on offer!
Three hours later another bunch of locals get on and now the bus is so full that people are sitting on the FLOOR!! Bearing in mind, this journey is gonna be lasting 22 hours!! The lights go off and every so often, as the journey progresses, the lights go on and that same fella from earlier looks back to see if we're all asleep. One or two of us make sure he knows we're well awake and very aware of his plans!!
Fifteen groggy hours and we're finally at the Laos border! We're all off the bus queuing and there are others on it looking dodgy! It takes two hours to finally get our Visa so we can enter the country due to, again, the locals just barging us out the way so that they can be served first-naturally, the cashiers are more than willing to oblige them!
Back on the bus and we are out of food-except these custard cakes that are the most horrible tasting things that some awful baker decided to conjure up in a moment of madness! But, to ours and the Westerners relief, there is nothing missing! We have another five hours to last and are starving! There's no ATMs until we get to the destination! So the only thing we can think of is finally managing to get some sleep and we, at last, arrive at Vientienne, the capital of Laos, in one piece.

But after that journey it was all so worth it. We've heard a lot of good things about Laos but we didn't expect it to be this good! We had a great night in the capital where we found a mini local fair / festival going on with live music and bars. It was full of friendly little local children dancing away so Lea had a great time strutting her stuff with them and teaching them a fair few moves! By the end of the night she had 10 new best friends and I had none so we were all happy. The following day we got up bright and early and left to get to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng was a small, relaxed and quiet town... until the travelers decided to poke their noses in! In Vang Vieng there is the greatest idea that man could ever produce! Its a thing called Tubing! It basically consists of a river, a blow-up ring to float down it on, loads of bars with dance floors overlooking the river (if you're thinking Mailbox or the like then you're way off). They are big wooden and bamboo bars that hang over the river on the bank and there are tree houses that you can climb up and then you come back down on a zip wire or huge slides! You float down the river from bar to bar and if you're not drunk by the second one then you're a better drinker than I am. There's cheap beer and free shots. It truly is the greatest idea! The zip wires were massive and you fall from about three or four floors high into the water and sometimes, to get back to the bar, you have to swim against the current-but that just makes it all the more fun watching these people struggling! I don't think anyone has died yet-I don't know how. But they'd definitely die happy! That was the main reason that we came to Laos and it was very much worth it. Words can't describe how fun an experience it really was. Vang Vieng in general is so chilled out -to the point where every restaurant offers you a 'Special Menu'. This consists of a variety of 'happy' shakes, pizzas and cakes-all stuffed full with marajuana, magic shrooms or opium! Whichever floats your boat! Most restaurants and bars in Vang Vieng have big screen TVs showing Friends, Family Guy, etc, or films so you can just lie and chill out and recover from the Tubing or enjoy the effects of your 'Happy Shake'. Lea felt really at home here as it was the first town that she found cornflakes and frosties (breakfast, lunch and dinner...)!

We headed back to Vientienne to spend some time there before we had to get on a flight to Malaysia. We decided to sample some culture to see if God could forgive our sins of the previous couple of days. We saw the National Museum where we leaned loads about dinosaurs and the wars that the French and Americans failed to conquer Laos during! Love it! We had a walk to see the Mekong River but there had been a severe drought so there was nothing but mud and sand to see. We went to see one or two fantastic temples and got chatting to a Monk too! The temples and the food in Laos are as good as one another but what made my food taste a little sourer in a beautiful restaurant on Sunday 22nd March was watching the Villa humiliated by the 'Pool...

We got to the airport the following day and were delighted in each other about how much we'd done in such a short space of time! We really are making the most of this and are still having a wicked time! Our task of touching six countries in two and a half weeks is still on!