Well Vientiane has been a place of mixed emotions and experiences. As I said a few days ago about us feeling ill, on arrival in Vientiane, Jace took a turn for the worse and he went from feeling like he was coming down with a cold to not being able to do anything at all. After a trip to the doctors he was told he had Dengue fever which is worse than Malaria and is untreatable. So instructed to rest for a few days we would check on him every few hours to make sure he was ok and had plenty of food and water. Walking about without Jace felt funny as we had done everything together for the past two weeks. The three musketeers were down to only two. We got back to our traveling roots by getting about on foot as everything is within 30minutes walk away. We decided that we would have a walk out and take a look at the Patuxai, Vientiane's haughty Arc de Triomphe replica that dominates the center of the commercial district. It was rather strange as it doesn't look like it should even be there or in Laos for that matter as it looks so different from any other type of Laos architecture. A weird fact about it is that the cement used to build it was donated by the USA. We paid to go up the Patuxai as you can stand at the top and get a view of all Vientiane. After each flight of stair, four in all, there was a market selling tat like budda's and bags. Only in Southeast Asia can you find a market in a national monument. After a good rest at the top and our eyes full of the sights we headed back down and made our way back to where we were staying. Our guesthouse was right on the river and was always busy with markets and stalls selling everything from food to TV's. The stalls played music constantly and they played it LOUD! I mean if it was Spinal Tap they had their speakers turned up to 11. The street was busy day and night but we never felt flustered like we did in other capitals.

The next few days were spent lazily walking around the city and trying the many different bakeries that it had to offer. We did take a walk out to a place that we read about in the Bible called the Cope centre. It is an organization that makes and provides artificial limbs to victims of UXO (unexploded ordnance) that were dropped by the USA in their illegal bombing campaign during the Vietnam War. An estimated 260 million submunition 'bombies' were dropped in Laos and sadly 78 million of them failed to explode resulting in many people in later years becoming new victims, many of them being children whilst playing in the fields. Despite the dark subject matter, Cope has a great feel to the place and the information is provided in fresh and interesting ways. The place had a gallery like feel that kind of took the edge off the sad and devastating material and somehow made you take in a lot more information within a short period of time. That evening we had arranged to meet up with a couple that we had meet in Kampot and bumped into again called James and Natalie. They also had a friend they had bumped into again called James also and he was a great character with a joke at the end of every sentence. We had found a small bowling alley and decided that it was the perfect way to spend a rainy week night. It was like stepping into a time warp and it felt like we were bowling in the 1960's. It was a great laugh and of course, obviously, I won!

The next day with heavy heart we left Vientiane and also parted with our third musketeer Jace. We were in two minds what to do as we were concerned for him with him not being at full health. He told us that we had to move on as he was resting up until his flight home on the 28th October. So we made sure he was comfortable, got him plenty of food and water and said our sad goodbyes. It won't be for long though as we are meeting up in Oz when we get there. We hope he is ok and I'm sure he will be fighting fit in no time. If you are reading this Jace, get well soon and get in touch to let us know your ok.

We got the bus with James and Natalie to Vang Vieng with one intention….TUBING! We arrived in Vang Vieng around 7.30pm and once we found some digs, we ditched our bags, had a walk about and found some good grub. We also had a good few drinks and chatted for hours with our new little group then hit the hay for the main event of Vang Vieng the next day. We decided to grab brunch to get something on our bellies for the day of tubing and drinking ahead. As I looked up from my table, I notice a face that I had seen before. It turned out to be Fletch, one of Peter Allan's friends that he met at university. We arrange to meet up for a drink after our day of tubing and he told us that we would be lucky if we were able to still drink and he wasn't far wrong. We have been rather good and haven't really got drunk since my birthday so we thought it was about time to let our hair down, well Ashleigh's anyway as mine wouldn't go down very far or at all in fact. Tubing is one of the greatest things I have ever done and it is perfect for every single one of my friends. It has it all, water sports, zip lines, swings, bars that stretch the length of the river, free shots and great music. Mix it all together and you've got a great time. The shots we were given on arrival at all the bars had a secret ingredient. Basically they fill bottles of whiskey with bees as they are supposed to make the whiskey taste sweet. It tasted anything but sweet but when there free you can't complain. So anyway, what is tubing? Basically you sit in an inflated inner tube of a tractor tire and float down river all day whilst people pull you in to drink at their bars, it's a hard life! It's a great way to spend the day and we are so pleased that we did. As a result of yesterdays drinking and last night's partying with Fletch down at the Bucket bar, we have been nursing bad heads pretty much most of the day. This was made easier though by sitting in a bar drinking juice whilst watching a number of different films. Again, it's a hard life!

Love Peter and Ashleigh x