Our visas for Vietnam (that we applied for in Vientiane) don't start until the 19th of July so we are beginning to make our way towards the most north eastern boarder with Vietnam to a town called Diem Bien Phu. We spent 3 days in Udomxai, a trade lane town between China and Laos. The town has a 25% chinese population and we felt very much like we were in China! We thought Oudomxai was going to be a bit nicer but it was mainly full of metal shops and mechanic sh...

Luang Prabang couldn't have been more different to Vang Vieng, it is probably Laos' most gorgeous city. It used to be the Royal capital of Laos and most of the buildings date from this time. The buddhist monks here walk the street outside the main temple from 6am in the morning to receive "alms" from the locals. They walk along collecting balls of sticky rice as an offering, a site not to be forgotten - westerners are asked not to be involved in the ancient ri...

Vang Vieng, a packpackers paradise. This town is on a plateau surrounded by beautiful mountains with the river running through the valley. 90% of the tourists here were backpackers which made for a very fun week! Some of the highlights include the journey into Vang Vieng where we experienced our first punctured tyre on the bus. We were surprised by how quickly the driver put a new tyre on... and also surprised to see how much it cost for a full tank of fuel - 3g...

We knew it was going to be a long bus journey from Savannakhet. It took just over 11 hours with various stops for passengers to buy food and the bus driver to load on anything from bags of rice to 50 oak doors! Finallly we arrived tired and sweaty at Vientiane where we planned to stay three nights. We decided to have a treat here and checked into a brand new hotel (we have a good excuse, the guest houses are almost as much money so why not!). All the home lux...

The bus ride from Pakse was quite comfortable, normally the buses stop a few times for a leg stretch. Any time the bus stops it is flooded with locals ladies selling many different food stuff, from whole cooked chickens on sticks to sticky rice and chillies. As you'll see from the pics we stick to normal stuff like sweetcorn - yummy! We only spent 2 days in Savannakhet, we hired bikes and went to the local dinasour museum (strange but true) and saw the oldest ...