We decided to take a local bus from Vientiane to Vang Vieng (about 4 hours north), as its cheaper than the tourist bus, and actually was less full in this case and overtook the VIP bus which had broken down! Max had taken the bus the day before us, and so had reserved us a bungalow by the river. This would all have been good, except his directions were awful and he wrote 'override guesthouse' in his text instead of 'otherside', so we searched for ages and when we eventually realsied what had happened the guesthouse had given our room away so we had to find another!! This one was at the end of what we later realsied was a paying bridge, that expected you to pay every time you crossed- we weren't happy about that and climbing around the outside seemed a good idea!!

Vang Vieng was a strange experience in the middle of Laos- very touristy with bars and restaurants set out with TVs playing movies or friends really loudly constantly all day! Was nice to have some comforts of being able to watch a movie etc whenever we wanted, and there being lots of bars and people, but was weird that there were more foreign than local people in the town.

We moved to the right guesthouse the following morning and spent the day chilling by the river, with will trying to teach me how to skim stones properly, I still can't do it! The following day we went tubing- sitting in an inner tube of a lorry, (yes the lorries here do actually have inner tubes) floating a very short distance to a bar and then stopping for a drink (or two). The bars had massive rope swings and zip wires, and one a mud bath! They also gave out Lao Lao (Lao rice whiskey) to anyone who asked! I was a wimp about the rope swings, after hearing too many stories about people being seriously hurt or killed because of shallow water or being landed on whilst on the tube! We had a great time, went in a group of six, but met loads of people during the day. The following day we had to recover- so we watched awful movies in the cafes pretty much all day!

We took a bus to Luang Prabang, through the mountains. Our driver drove so slowly around the hairpin bends (much less confident than the French bus drivers go up the snowy roads!!). We arrived in the evening, and it was absolutely freezing, but again Max had left a day early and this time actually managed to find us a room! The city is so pretty, especially at night when the night market fills the main street and is all lit up. The city is a heritage site because of all the buildings (loads of temples) and so everything built is done really nicely. We've spent about four days here, visited a temple on the hill (which was a bit disappointing), and had lovely Laos massages at the Laos Red Cross (meaning we could feel good about having massages as the money helps the red cross!!). We also did an amazing cookery class, there were 9 people (including an older couple who come from oxford!!) and we made soooo much food! Can't tell you any more as we have a really good book of recipes, so you'll have to wait till we get back for a feast!!

We're wanting now to get a bus this evening back to Vientiane, from there we will cross the border and head to Bangkok- then on down to the islands near the Cambodian border. Its been so cold up here in the mountains we're both looking forward to needing a fan to sleep, and lying on the beach (improving our tan a bit more before the pasty skins arrive from England!!!) Not really looking forward to a ten hour bus journey back down the mountain roads though, over night, with no beds!!

Will update again soon xxx