5th November 2009 - 9th November 2009:

After Vang Vieng we made our way to Vientiane - the capital city of Laos - for what was hoped to be a short visit simply to undertake our sole purpose of applying for a new Thai visa as we had already used our first one by taking this convoluted route around South East Asia.

We made our way to the embassy on push bikes - mainly because it was the cheapest form of transport - and having got there we were told that we couldn't collect our visa until the following working day. Obviously given our luck it was a Friday so meant we were stranded here until Monday. After a bit of a moan we took advantage of having the bikes out and went for a little cycle around the city, stopping off for some ice-creams and to see Victory Gate.

As indicated earlier we hadn't intend on staying that long in Vientiane and there wasn't much we wanted to see so spent most of the time eating, drinking and sleeping….. lots of sleeping.

The highlight of the weekend was when we changed hotels literally across the road so we could have a TV and watch the football. After collecting the visas we booked our bus journey and are now heading back to Bangkok which we are really looking forward to after our first visit.