Hello all,

Last day in Luang Prabang today, we head to Vang Vieng tomorrow.

We've had a fantastic time here and made some really good friends. We met Emma and Marcus on the bus over and had a good night of drinking with them on the 2nd night. All the bars close here at 11.30 and we were told that the town is asleep by midnight. However, a random bowling alley, of all places, stays open serving Beer Laos until 3am! This is full to the brim with westerners continuing the party until the wee hours, so of course being the sight seers that we are we had to go along and see what the fuss was about!!

On the first day we rented bicycles and headed for a little tourist village 3km from the city. Many wrong turns later, an airport runway, confused directions from policemen and 8km later we arrived. This, combined with the searing heat, created a very irritated Lisa! Thanks "Lying Planet!" We had a really good day though cycling through tiny Laotian villages high-5ing the kids and watching the women using silk-looms. Good to see the real Laos away from other tourists!

Today we went to the most amazing waterfall!! There has been so much rain lately that it was overflowing everywhere. We walked up through a rugged, drenched path to the top, those that come in the dry season definately miss out!! We then jumped off a huge tree into a pool, great fun, but had to quickly scramble to shore before being washed away down stream and over another waterfall!!

Impressions of Laos are now very good. Luang Prabang is more like a cool chilled out village than a city. Everything is a lot smaller than in Thailand and it is much easier to escape other tourists. There are also loads of amazing spas, so we got some special Laotian treatment with a massage, a sauna in a weird, spaceage steamer pod thing, and a seaweed body mask! There are loads of monks here too and Lisa really enjoyed the night market (and the night market enjoyed Lisa's money!)

There is also a really cool temple on top of a hill in the centre of Luang Prabang. At the top you can see for miles and it is so beautiful! So green and lush! We went there for sunset. There was an old lady selling tiny birds in cages which you could buy and then release - I (Lisa) know I probably shouldn't have, as it encourages her to continue putting the tiny birds in cages to sell, but I couldn't bear the thought of the poor little birds being locked up with no one to set them free, so I bought a few and set them free at the top of the temple. I wish I could have set them all free :(

Off to Vang Vieng tomorrow, hopefully Tubing is back on after some mental floods that washed some of the bars away! Will let you know all about it!

Hope all is ok back home, bye! x x x