We are now saying goodbye to Thailand for 3 weeks and moving on to our next destination Laos.
The 4 of us (Frederike, Joe, Sarah and I) got a mini bus from Pai to Chiang Khong where we arrived at a guesthouse at 2am and then had to be up at 7am to go across to border and catch the 2day 1 night slow boat to Luang Prabang.

The boat was mixed with tourists and locals and on our way down the Mekong River we kept on stopping and picking up more locals who appeared from the cracks of the mountains as this was their public transport. It was very chilled out and the scenery was beautiful along the banks ... That evening we stopped off in a local town called Pakbeng where poverty was very obvious because as soon as you placed your foot onto the land children were holding onto our legs or bags wanting our left over food or drinks. That evening we went out for dinner with a group of people that were staying in our guesthouse and then went to bed as we had another early start in the morning.

Day 2 on the Mekong River bought us another surprise, we pulled over to the river bank where we thought we were picking up more locals.. to see a dead deer being bought by the family that owned the boat. After 10 minutes of weighing the deer and negotiating a price, they agreed on 400,000 Lao Kip (£30). We thought that they would leave the deer at the front of the boat but we were wrong. They casually carried it by its legs through the cabin where we were all sitting. Nice!!

We were quick to notice that Laos people were no where near as friendly as Thai people, mostly they didn't smile or say thank you for anything and all you heard from them was the occasionally grunt or 'NO'!! Cheer up!!

The curfew for drinking and being out in Laos is 11.30pm with all the bars shutting. We started in a bar everyone goes to called Utopia. After the clubs close the only thing open is a bowling alley until 2am. Pretty much the whole of Laos goes here, there's no music just everyone trying to play drunk bowling and chanting. We made the most of the extremely cheap local whiskey and after a game of bowling, we headed back home. Luckily just making it in by the time they shut the front gates.

We'd planned to all go to what we'd heard was a gorgeous waterfall the next day. It was now Sarah's turn to have a bad hangover so we left it until the next day. It was the most impressive waterfall we'd seen so far on our travels. Such amazingly clear water.

Luang Prabang itself has been one of the more average place's that we've visited as we felt that there were too many tourists thrown into one area and not a lot to do. Although we had a good laugh with the guys we met! After 2 nights we moved on to our next stop in Laos-Vang Vien, to do some tubing. :) but first said goodbye to Frederike as she was travelling further north for a planned trek.

In Vang Vieng we came across a lovley bungalow over looking a river full of roaming cows and surrounded by beautiful countryside for our 2night stay. The 2nd day we went tubing with a few other people that we had met along the way.
Tubing- where you hire an inner tube of a old lorry tyre and get taken to the top of the river where you glide down stream with the current and stop at bars along the way to play drinking games from beer pong to volley ball!

We all had to get our tubes back by 6pm so got in a tuk tuk for 20mins to. The guys obviously worked for the tube company, they started off at 5,000 kip per person, made everyone wait until about 10mins to 6pm and then were demanding 20,000 per person. We knew we would lose our deposit already so Joe, Sarah, Matt, Tim and I decided we'd walk the journey back with our tubes just for principal. About 10mins down the road a guy offered us 6,000 kip to take us so we hopped on :).

On our journey to Vietnam we had our 1st experience of a sleeper bus for 30hours..the bus was clean but the driving out here is on a completely different level! With some of the overtaking that our driver was doing we thought that we would never make it to Vietnam.
We arrived at the border at 6am and were all made to get off the bus and stand in the freezing cold, just wearing shorts, flip flops and a jumper. You then had to walk about 1km between the Laos and Vietnamese border and which at this point I think my toes had frost bite! After 2 hours of the locals pushing in continuousl, we got back onto the coach and continued our journey to Hanoi.

Good Morning Vietnam!

Matt