Day 2:
I was woken up twice this morning, first by a loud repetitive dong sound from the temple at around 4:00am and secondly by someone sanding outside our room at around 6:00. I absolutely hate being woken up like this. We gathered together some dirty washing to give to the laundry service at our guest house, they charge 10,000 for 1kg. After leaving the washing at reception we left to walk down into town and grab some breakfast from a restaurant we passed the day before. Loads of the restaurants on the road look so familiar so it took us a while to find the right one.

We both ordered the same breakfast deal which included; a baguette with butter, eggs, bacon, sausage, ham and the choice of either coffee, tea or orange juice, all for 35,000kip. When it arrived i was pleased to see two rashers of streaky bacon on my plate rather than some dodgy looking asian equivalent. After breakfast, we began strolling up the market where we passed another silver jewellery shop, i saw the ring i'd loved so much again so decided to buy it, as well as a Lao silver bangle for my mum.

I was able to bargain with the lady at the shop and got two items for 120,000kip. Pleased with my purchases, i realised i now had no money left on me so we went back to the guesthouse so i could pick up some more. After restocking my pouch with thousands of kip we headed out again back down the same road. We were quite thirsty so got ourselves a fresh fruit shake. We both opted for mango but mine had a bit of coconut powder inside, which was delicious!

We saw a leaflet the night before for a place called "Lao lao garden" that offered two for one cocktails all day, "every hour is happy" as they printed on the little leaflet so we slowly began walking in the direction of this bar. We passed a few familiar faces on the journey, people we had seen in chiang mai, and pai; we ALWAYS see the same people around. We passed a tourist info place and saw that we could get to Van vieng for 100,000kip which is the cheapest we've seen. The catch being, that the bus leaves at 07:00am! We booked it anyway so we could save a few pounds but would be sure to get an early night tonight!

We arrived at the bar which looked very jungle orientated with a sign outside saying "do not feed the tigers!" We learned later that this was in reference to the tiny cats that were lazing about in the garden of the bar. They also had a camp fire, which was just burned out embers whilst we were there but i could imagine it at full flame in the evenings with a group of travellers circled around it. We were handed a menu and ordered 2 cocktails: "pink gay". In this cocktail was a liqueur made from sticky rice called "lao lao", pineapple juice, lime juice and grenadine. It was yummy and didn't taste too strongly of alcohol. I wish i could determine the flavour of the sticky rice alcohol but couldn't make it out with the sweetness of the grenadine.

After only one cocktail each we decided to leisurely stroll back to the area of our guesthouse. We passed romantic looking restaurant by the river and a large bamboo bridge used as a walkway from one side of the river to the other. You had to pay to have the privilege of walking on un sturdy bamboo, which always annoys me, how they can charge tourists to do something as natural as walking over a bridge. We passed a small book exchange store where we popped inside to try and find a book that we could read. After trawling through book after book and reading blurb after blurb i found a book called "bared to you" written by the same author as "fifty shades of grey". I wanted to read something light hearted which didn't involve death of any sort; to keep me in good spirits. So, i kindly asked the aussie lady in the shop if she could reserve it for me while i finished my current book "one day" by David Nicholls, to which she agreed.

Excited that i was able to find another book to read we went back to the guesthouse so we could finish off our current books. I was devastated by the ending of mine, and how quickly Emma Morely (one of the main characters) was killed off. I wanted to stop reading from the moment she died but felt inclined to read until the very last word. This took me around an hour to finish, and so we quickly got ready with our books in hand to go back to the shop and grab our new books. Before we left we picked up our laundry that was given in the morning. Daniel's top was still dirty, it smelled clean but was definitely still dirty. I noticed one of my purple tops was missing so i asked her where it was to which she laughed and replied room 2. I was NOT pleased with thia as i had to write a note and leave it in the door of room 2. The laundry service at home is much better (only joking mum). We had a cheeky smoke before going to exchange our books and played with a small friendly cat.

When we arrived at the book shop i was devastated to see that the gate was closed. The door was still open however, there was a sign on the gate stating the book shop is now CLOSED. This is when we began to panic, what will we read?! We are pretty much an old couple who would prefer to read in bed than go out on the town, meh, c'est la vie!

A bit disappointed, we continued to walk up to try and find somewhere to eat. This proved harder than you would think. Dan left it up to me to decide but he knows how terrible i am at making decisions. After walking up and down at least twice we settled on a restaurant, just like any of the others. I ordered a yellow noodle soup with a baguette on the side. Simple but filling! And not too expensive either! After dinner, we headed back to our guesthouse so we could get an early night for tomorrows trip. We bought back two pieces of chocolate cake from the market which are delicious and moreish! It turned out that the woman still had my vest top and left it on the side. So i had no reason to leave the note in room number 2! The vest was still dirty however, much to my annoyance. The laundry wasn't worth the 35,000kip she charged us! Happy anyway that i had my top back i went to bed ready for an early start the next day; VIVA VAN VIENG!