Day 110 Hanoi - Vientiane

We reached the border at about 6am. I got lots of sleep thanks to my deafness but poor old Em hardly any because of Mr snoring Snorison below us. The border was absolutely freezing, it was like crossing a mountain. Having been stamped out of Vietnam for the price of a dollar, we headed for the Laos border. Annoyingly the coach wouldn't take us the 500 yard distance. This wouldn't normally have mattered but it was freezing and our feet were sinking into the 2 inch deep clay road and it was difficult to see a few meters in front of you. At the Laos border, we were conned with our visas because of the extremely poor exchange rate of VND to the dollar but we ended up just being grateful to be entering into Laos. Once across their was only one stop on route at a place, which was serving up some rather suspicious breakfast. I still had some though and Em probably wisely gave it a miss. We arrived in Vientiane at about 4ish after what seemed like the longest journey ever. To get into town we took a tuk tuk and walked around for a good hour looking for a cheap guesthouse to stay. We arranged to meet up with Gregg and Sarah later and booked ourselves into a guesthouse. At 6 o'clock we met with Gregg and Sarah again and had a few drinks and something to eat. We had a really good evening and went home slightly early because of our long day traveling and sleepless night from the night before.

Day 111

Our first breakfast in Laos was really nice, think we're gonna like the food here! We ventured off to do all the tourist things that Vientiane had to offer, but annoyingly our first attraction, Wat Si Sakel was closed. We then went to Patuxai via the bus station to check out the next days transportation. Patuxai was really interesting, kinda like a Laos Arch to Triumph but with lots of views of the capital city. On the way to the National History Museum we bought a little of the local delicacy, fried banana, I liked it but Em was not sure, too greasy I think. The Museum was interesting but mostly in Laos, so we weren't always entirely sure what we were looking at. Think we should brush up on the history from the LP. On the hunt for a little lunch, we headed in the direction of the Mekong and popped into the Laos equivalent of the Thai 7 Eleven. Andy who met from Cambodia, who was Kaz's friend, saw us walk in and followed us in to say hi. He was with Kaz and Steve down the road, so we hooked up and all had a beer and chat in restaurant next to the Mekong. After lunch, we arranged to meet up later after dinner in the pub to watch the footy. Chelsea was playing and won but didn't stay in the pub for too long as it had some brothel qualities!!!