Hello, Well we have just arrived in Vang Vieng after a six hour journey in a mini bus. The trip up here was quite scenic really and we had great views over the mountains. Plus there were the odd batches of chickens/buffalo/pigs to be spotted along the way, and many young children waving to us from the doors of their little huts. Yesterday we took a tour to a really beautiful waterfall where we swam in the pools and got some excellent views. On our travels we also visited a bear and a tiger enclosure. The bears had been rescued when they were cubs, after poachers killed their mother. They were really sweet, and when we approached their enclosure, they ran towards us, curious as to who we were (and probably wondering if we carried food!) At one point, while Dean was stood next to the cage, one of the bears managed to steel our bottle of water. We have a great photo of the bear trying to drink out of the bottle, but we ended up calling the keeper over as we feared the bear might choke on the plastic. daft thing. Outside the bear enclosure the keeper drew our attention to a cub who was sat in a tree, out in the wild, and right above our heads. I must've taken about twenty photos. so sweet. The tiger had also been rescued from poachers when it was very young, and so was very domesticated (Though I didn't test out this theory!) Some people were petting it but I thought better of it myself (Would've been a great photo to show to Mum though!!!) Our final stop on the tour was a small village, where children swarmed around us, trying to sell us bracelets. It was a bit overwhelming really. It was clear that the villagers were very poor, and some of the young children looked very malnourished. One young girl was very persistant. I guessed she was around six or seven, and she carried a smaller child, about a year old, strapped to her back. I bought a bracelet from her (about 10p) but I then got bombarded by about twenty more children, as young as two and three, trying to sell me their own stash. I was relieved to get back into the van. Anyways, I'm off to explore our new town. We have the cheapest accommodation of our trip so far, at 75p each! Claire x