Thursday 25th June 2009

Today after we got up and sorted we decided to try and find the friendship bakery which is recommended in the lonely planet for Brunch. In theory it should have been very easy but in practice it didn't turn out to be so easy, the map in the lonely planet was incorrect and nobody seemed to know where it was so 3 hours after leaving the guesthouse we eventually found it and it was a big disappointment (so we were now having a late lunch)!! They only had cakes no other food was being served that day, but that was fine we were quite happy with cake and coffee but it was one of the driest cakes I've ever had so 3 hours of walking around for nothing and it was such a hot day.

After lunch we popped into tourist information to find out about bus tickets for the following day to go to the capital Vientiane. From the tourist information centre we then tried to find Wat Sainyaphum which is the oldest and largest monastery in southern Laos. We think we found it but there was no sign telling us what the place we found was called and we then decided we weren't really dressed appropriately anyway to be walking around a monastery. We then decided that we would get a tuk tuk to Savannakhet Provincial Museum but this also proved a lot more difficult than it should have been as none of the tuk tuk drivers knew where it was even when we showed them on the map. So after the driver had phoned a friend who spoke English Suzie spoke to him but we still didn't really get anywhere and the museum closed at 4 and it was now 3:15pm we decided to forget it and go back to the guesthouse (All in all not a very successful day).

From the guesthouse we walked back to the main road to go to the bank to get some money exchanged but typically the bank was closed (it really wasn't a successful day!!). We did find a market though so I was happy, I managed to get a much needed nail brush our nails get so dirty here it's disgusting and a new watch because mine broke in Vietnam and I still hadn't replaced it. From the market we went to use the internet and spent a good amount of time here since we hadn't used the internet for 6 days we had a lot of updating to do. After using the internet we went back to a French restaurant that we had seen earlier and had a good meal, we then went back to the guesthouse for an early night as we were catching the 07.30am bus in the morning.

Friday 26th June 2009

Early start this morning we left the guesthouse at 06:45am and it seemed to be are lucky day today not like yesterday as there was a tuk tuk in the driveway so we jumped straight in that and we were at the bus station by 7am. Getting are tickets was very easy so we had half an hour to spare before leaving so we walked over to one of the many shops and got some breakfast. This bus journey felt like an eternity it was a 10hr very slow journey we were a bit worried as are bags ended up on the roof but luckily they were fine we arrived in Vientiane at 17.30pm. We got Straight in a tuk tuk to a guesthouse we'd picked out in the lonely planet, this was not as nice as it was described the room we were shown felt like a prison cell so we left there very promptly straight back into a tuk tuk. We actually ended up very embarrassingly looking at 5 guesthouses before we actually found two that were ok, we decided to stay at the orchid guest house as they had a twin room available. After checking in we went and found somewhere for a much needed drink (soft drink) after 10hrs of not really drinking anything, as we didn't want to need the toilet as the local buses don't stop very often at all. We also decided to eat here as well at the full moon café which was very nice. Fish and Chips Mekong style. After we had eaten we used the internet and updated the blog before going to bed.