After being woken by the alarm at 1.45am, Tom then commenced to make sure Rachael was awake also by flicking through all the TV channels for the next fifteen minutes trying to find the football! He eventually found it being broadcast on a Laos channel, unfortunately the picture was in black and white and the quality awful, and of course the commentary was in Laos! After a few tears and realising that it was a lost cause we went back to sleep hoping to see a repea...

Today we checked out of our guesthouse and moved into another one which was more within our budget. The reason it was more within our budget was because it smelt like an old folks home! As soon as you walked into the room the smell of stale cigarettes and foistyness hit you, never mind it would do for one night. We had breakfast with Pardeep before we left for Vietnam and we spent the afternoon walking round the city, and the evening by river for tea. We went ...

Tom's birthday!!!!!!! After spending a day recovering from the days Tubing we now planned to visit the Laos capital for a couple of nights. Again avoiding using the tourist transport like everyone else we thought it a good idea to catch the 5 hour public bus. Tom had spoken to a couple of local guys a few days earlier who'd unconvincingly advised the bus would be at 9.30 am, so the stop was only a ten minute walk from the guest house and after breakfast arrive...