Hello All! Am now in Vang Vieng and what a very cool place it is! A lot cheaper to stay here and Brendan and I are paying $5 each for a room - no tv, a/c or fridge but we can live without those as it's fairly cool and still keeps bloody raining!!! So Vang Vieng is about 4 hours north of Vientiane and in amongst some mountains with a river running through - only a small place thats popular with backpackers. The place we're staying has a bar / restaurant down ...

Sabaidee! Despite the warning in the guide book I made it to Laos in one piece on Laos Airlines!!! So far we're finding it a lot more relaxed like Cambodia and a lot friendlier :-) There's a lot of french influence (food architecture etc) and french visitors even which is a nice change. Vietnam was good but very busy and not sure if it's made it to the news in Oz but the flooding I spoke of in Hanoi was the worst they'd had in 2 decades! Here I was cruising...