Laos is so nice-we love it! Its how we imagine Thailand was 20 years ago. First we went to Louang Phabang, which involved a 2 day boat trip on the Mekong river. It was a boat full of backpackers with uncomfortable wooden seats and the noisiest motor ever, but the scenery was great and we met some nice people which made up for it! We had to stay overnight in a crazy backcountry village, and the people there were a bit strange and hyperactive and 8 year olds were drinking beer in the restaurants!! Loaung Phabang is quite a nice town, there's not a lot there but its really laid back. However, the people are weird here too! You have to take your shoes off when you go indoors, so we left our flipflops outside our hostel when we went in. We later came back down to go and have dinner, to discover they'd disappeared! We had a hunt around, which was a bit difficult as there was a dinner party going on. We then asked the hostel people, who looked for about 2 seconds and were really unhelpful. We began to panic a little as they were our only flipflops, but suddenly noticed that a guy in the corner was wearing Bec's flipflops!!! We were completely gobsmacked, and spent the next 5 minutes looking at everyones feet as they sat around the dinner table until we found a woman wearing Sarah's!!!!!! We couldn't believe it, but found it very funny in the end!! Talk about culture differences!! The next day we ventured out to a cave which has loads of little Buddhas in!! We shared a tuktuk there with some people from the boat and it was such a fun ride! Really bumpy with steep hills where we had to get out and walk! The tuktuk wasn't holding up too well, and as we hit a rock on the way back to town it made a horrible loud noise and died! We were stuck in Laos country with other people driving past laughing! Obviously we eventually got back fine! Our next stop was Vang Vieng, and what a nightmare the journey was! Our hostel sent away our pick-up to the bus stop, then when we finally made it to the bus station no-one would help us until all the locals were on the bus. We were finally pointed in the direction of a bus, and of course all the seats had gone. Next we were told to get off and wait for another bus, which turned out wasn't going to Vang Vieng. After a LOT of arguing with people, we decided to get back on the original bus and refuse to get off! We were then charged extra money, along with the 3 other backpackers, which made us even more mad, but we had no choice but to pay. The journey turned out to be terrifying, speeding round blind corners on winding mountain roads, next to cliff edges, at times with what looked like a 12 year old boy driving!! There were also lots of men with big guns along the roadside which was a bit worrying as we didn't know if it was for our protection or not! However, the scenery was really beautiful! Once we got to Vang Vieng things really picked up! It is the coolest and most relaxed place! Very backpacker/hippyish, an easy place to settle for a while. In loads of the cafes you sit on cushions at little tables, while they play endless episodes of Friends!!! Not very cultural but awesome all the same!! We were quite surprised by the variety of menus here... including on offer 'happy' shakes, pizzas, garlic bread, and your regular bags of weed and opium!!! We wandered to a cave one morning, which was a 2km walk away and took us completely out to the middle of nowhere! A little worrying considering theres loads of unexploded land mines! But we stuck to the paths and all was good. When we got there a random man appeared and took us into the cave, he freaked us out a little, but again, all was good!! The afternoon was wicked! We met up with some people and went tubing (sitting in big tractor inner tubes and floating down the river)!! It was so much fun, and there are lots of bars to stop at along the way with zip lines and jumping points. It was really peaceful and chilled, until a sea snake actually jumped into Sarah's lap!!!! Pretty funny in hindsight but a little scarey at the time!! The next day we caught a lovely, easy local bus to the capital, Vientiane, where we had 6 hours to kill until heading to Vietnam. Its a very bizarre place, again not much there and nothing to do!! Lots of nice cafes and bakeries though! That evening, we got the bus to Hanoi, Vietnam, and after again fighting for our seats, we had THE journey from hell, lasting 26 hours, with a 7 hour wait at the border, no air con, no reclining seats, and our window didn't open! Not fun!!!! However, Hanoi is fantastic!! Take care, Love Bec and Sarah! xx