We were all delighted to see cars, people, restaurants and general signs of life compared to where we'd come from. Things do seem to be getting more expensive the further south we're heading, by expensive i mean an extra 50p-1 quid for a room or 20p-50p for a meal which we know is nothing but you really get used to paying 1.50 pound for food and roughly 5 pound on a room, the extra couple 1,000 kip makes the difference. From Pakse there's loads of waterfalls to...

Thank God we have the car because there is Jack s*&t to do here, there's nothing going on at all. We stopped for lunch to try and give this place a shot, a simple sandwich cost 40,000kip, we'd been paying 10,000 for a huge baguette elsewhere. With that decider and all in agreement to get out of there, we pressed on to Pakse.

On the way we went to a buddha park south of Vientiene, basically exactly what it says on the tine, touristy but definitely worth seeing. We arrived in Thakek having taken a few off road options along the way, why the hell not! That night we enjoyed a few beer Lao's and discovered that Vang Vieng, Vientiene and Thakek all have the same menus even to the point where they've been photo copied but the price has been tipexed and changed. Next morning we went to exp...

We kayaked down to Vientiene from Vang Vieng, great day and Steve and i almost made through the rapids but got plunged into a whirlpool at the very end, Roger is still boasting that he never capsized! Vientiene isn't what you would expect of capital city, more the size of Luton maybe smaller with less traffic, not alot going on. We used the time here to decided on where else we wanted to go. In order to see more we chose to go South through the rest of Laos and...

I'd like to say thanks to all the s*&t heads who decided to have a drunken conversation about lesbians and Irishmen outside or hut at 3am when i'm due to be on a 7hr bus at 8.30am, it's appreciated! Grumble over. The journey was fine and hardly anyone on the bus so Jen and i spread ourselves out, enjoyed the mountainous scenery and managed to nod off now and then. Phonsavan is North Eastern Laos known for the plain of jars whic is the most important pre-hist...