Hi

In a town in Laos called Luang Prabang now, and been here for 2 days - last stop before the journey home really! Head back to Vientiene tonight on the overight bus (Laos' capital), then arrive at about 7am tomorrow. Then get another night bus out of there to Bangkok the same day. Arrive in Bangers 6am on the 18th, for a day of shopping for cheap stuff before flying at about 3pm on the 19th (to Kuala Lumpar). Have a couple of days in KL and fly to London on the 21st at about 4pm I think. About five days of long travellingggg grr. And I'm flying budget Air Asia on he way back to London and I have a horrible feeling there's going to be no telly in the back of the seat and I am going to go crazy! Anyway.

I last wrote when I was in Vietnam, Hoi An I think it was! Got two gorgeous dresses made which I'm v happy with! Headed up the coast to Hue, but we only stayed there a day because we were so short ontime and our visas were running out! Did the main touristy stuff tho, on motorbikes again! But these were by far the scariest ones - the guys were driving really fast! Went to see some American war bunkers (and the Mekong river), the citadel, a big pagoda thingy, some elaborate temple tomb thing of some important dude... Very nice. I find it hard to remmber what I've actually done here cos I can never remember the names of stuff! I can't pronounce the words and can't read the languages so when I come to explaining it I can't remmber what it's called without seeing it written down!

Then went from Hue to Hanoi - Vietnam's capital. Spent a day tehre, and did nothing, which I'm a bit annoyed about now - we just sat in a little cafe and wandered round aimlessly, but people told us about the tomb of Ho Chi Minh (I think he was a king or something), where he's not acually in a tomb, he's in a freezer and you can see his body! Haha. Did a boat trip to Halong Bay the next 2 days, which was gorgeous! Really striking limestone rainforested cliffs jutting out the water - thousands of them! Had all our food/slept etc on the boat. The food was amazing - loads of fresh seafood and stuff. Did a bit of swimming, went into some caves and stuff, chilled out in the sun (well for the first arvo it was sunny, then it stormed).

After the trip got the overnight bus straight to Vientiene,which is a bit of a nightmare cos you have to backtrack on yourself down Vietnam to et to the right boirdercrossing. We were told the bus would take about 20 hours, but we'd heard some horror stories from people we had met doing the same trip int he opposite direction... Like the bus actually takes between 28-34 hours, you spend about 4 hours at the border, the roads in Laos are awful and you'll be sick, the bus is seating and not sleeper etcetc. It turned out to beok. At th start, leaving the bus station in Hanoi, I thought I was going to die! For some reason coming out of the bus station, there is no road, a double decker bus offroad with a dodgey driver is not the best situation a can tell you! I thought we were toppling over more than once - thechinese girl next to mewas clinging on to my bed for dear life haha! but once we got on the road it was fine. Well, apart from the dodgy Vietnamese kareoke DVD we had on for about 7 hours.

We arrived at the border at about 7am, which was in the mountains. It was beautiful - the rest of SE Asia so far has been very flat, but Laos is really hilly and greeeeen. But, I was cold. It's a lot cooler than anywhere else so far! I dunno why, maybe because the whole country is a higher than sea level than the others. Who knows! Nice though. Arrived in Vientiene at about 3pm in th end I think , so only took us about 21 hours.

Had a day wandering around the city and now I'm here and Mel and Katie have gone off to go tubing and are now probably on their way back down to the coast of Thailand for some sun time before they fly home (they fly a couple of days later than me!)

Had a day wandering around he town - it's really old, a world gheritage listed place, bordered by the Mekong and another river. There's loadddds of teples, so just did them really, walked up a big hill and went to a museum thingy which was supposed to be really good but wasn't much. There was a cool photo exhibition of monks in there tho. Went to the really nice night market!

Then, yesterday I was supposed to do a trek into the jungle and to visit some of the hill tribe villages. But the guy in the shop is a pretentious american idiot and he made a mistake when booking me in on the trip, so I didn;t get picked up and then I couldn't go (and can't go today cos my bus leaves at 5pm and there is no time!), AND herefused to give me my money back. So, I was very annoyed! And sulked for a while. But then I decided to hire a bike and rode myself out to the hills haha! Saw a little hill family, and some really nice countryside, I was on the way to a waterfall but didn;t quite make it! You should have seen me trying to get on the bikethough at the start it was hilarious, it was as if i had never bbeen on one in my lif, i could not get my balance for the life of me! Haha, but it was fine after thatapart from me being very unfit! Met a couple of lads on their way to the waterfall to collect bamboo who i was trying to chat to whilst riding up a hill, i nearly died while he was chatting away pedalling haha.

just chilling out today- found a gorgeous bar next to the Mekong river, hd away with loads of chill out areas, so might spend someof the day there. In preparation fpr the bus tonuight! This journey is so uncomforatble - hard small seats and Laos music dvd's played throuhgout the night! great. Although on the same journey on teh way here, we did get given free food! bonus!

Byee!x