Hello everyone,

Whoops, I've got a bit behind on writing these blogs, mainly because we've been too busy.

So, we left Vang Vieng on the Friday before last on a bus to the Laos capital, Vientiane. Luckily this part of the country is a lot flatter so it wasn't such a windy journey as it was to Vang Vieng. Also it was only about 3 hours, not 7! When we arrived it was early evening so we had dinner and found a hotel. Unfortunately we were put in a room with no window and just a fan so we boiled all night, though we managed to get a better room with air-con and a nice view of a temple for the rest of our time there.

On the Saturday neither of us were feeling particularly well and it rained pretty much all day. I thought this was just normal monsoon rains but apparently it was part of a big typhoon called Nock Ten. This probably explains why the roads were flooding outside the hotel! So as a result our day mostly consisted of eating and sleeping. In the morning however we wandered up to the Mekong river front where we could see Thailand on the other side.

The next morning it was still raining! So we spent a lot of it in the lobby talking to this Australian guy. When it finally cleared up we went for a walk through the city up to the Black Stupa, otherwise known as That Dam. We then attempted to find Patuxai which is actually really close but we got lost due to us not having a map! We ended up having a walk around until we came across a bowling alley where we decided to go in for a few games. It looked as though it had been built in the 1970s and hadn't been changed since! Also our lane definitely tilted to the left. We had fun though, although Ryan did beat me both times. It turns out he's rubbish at bowling at home but really good in Laos. I also embarrassed myself by letting go of the ball when I was bringing my arm back and it banged to the floor. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel in a tuk tuk.

On Sunday we found our way to Patuxai (using a map this time) which is a big war monument arch at the end of the main road in the centre of the city. We then went into the shopping mall on the same road which the Aussie guy had told us about the day before. Like the bowling alley it looked as though it had been built a few decades ago and mostly sold phones, jewellery and copied DVD's. Ryan bought some headphones for a good price there though. On the way back we walked past the presidential palace which is at the opposite end of the road from Patuxai. In the evening we went up to the water front again and then went into a restaurant where I took advantage of happy hour cocktails which turned out to be really strong. Randomly, there were books on each table containing lists of films and TV series which they would upload onto your computer for you in the restaurant for not very much money. We decided to take advantage of this and got some uploaded onto the iPad. This is probably illegal but oh well!

The day after we headed to the airport and got our flight to Hanoi! We were supposed to meet up with my neighbour Erics sister Jane while we were in Vientiane but unfortunately we just missed each other. Our time in the city wasn't particularly productive due to bad weather and the fact that both of us were feeling a bit delicate while we there. I really liked it though because although it's a capital city, it is quite small and quiet so is nice and chilled out. We couldn't get too used to this though as we had to leave for Hanoi!

Lots of love,

Jo and Ryan xxx