So as soon as we hit the Laos border the funny events started as some stupid French girl started an uproar on the coach. She held the whole coach load of people up for 40mins to try and save herself $5 which you kind of dont have to pay. But considering the whole coach was paying it... she should have just done so too. She got back on the bus boasting that she'd won!! I'm sure she regreted this within seconds when two other English guys and us gave her some abuse and basically told her to sit down and pipe down! The funniest part was when the coach driver realised we were on his side, that he decided to drive off, leaving four other Frenchies at the border trying to copy her stupid antics. We all waved and clapped... very amusing, (but unfortunatley the coach stopeed and waited for them, much to the whole coaches disappointment). So we finally arrived at Si Phan Don or also known as 4000 Islands and stayed on one of these Islands in the river called Don Det. We were majorly annoyed when we realsied Frenchie was following us with her clan. She then decided to argue with the boat driver saying that it was only $2 not $3. THe boatman thought we were all on her side until Sam just walked through, said yep $3 and on we got with about 10 others following. Apparently Frenchie called us all stupid... hmmm who was the stupid one stood stranded at the pier whilst we all sarcastically waved goodbye, haha! But the massive bonus of this all was the whole boat was full of sound people who all complained about her and it broke the ice! We met two great Belgium guys (Ben and Derek), Sally from England and Sarah from New Zealand. We all then spent the next three days together on the Island. Getting drunk (of course), walking 3miles (we didnt realise it until we were half way) to the waterfall on the other island in the midday sun and riding bikes to the other Island to go dolphin watching (We did see a dolphin, but also lots of sewage floating by too. We had a great three chilled out days on Don Det and had lots of fun and banter!!

We then headed North to Vang Vieng with Ben and Derek. It was a mammouth journey and we started to appreciate what we'd read about the roads not being all that great. Anyway we arrived in Vang Vieng. Sam wasnt a happy bunny when she realised some fish smelling fluid had leaked all over her bag from the bus! A big laundry bill later and we were off to the infamous tubing in the afternoon. You sure can see why 19 people have died already this year. Its just a massive pub crawl along a river with lots of diving boards, swings, slides and zip lines. It was so much fun. We partied until it got dark and then headed back to town. We all decided to get ready and then head out again. During this time Derek decided to give the guesthouse children an English lesson whilst intoxicated and standing in his boxer shorts. haha. We spent three nights here. On our second day the four of us hired mopeds and drove out to the blue lagoon which was beautiful and we met a lovely Thai guy who showed us round his home he built. The following day we went caving and kayaking down the river. We were pleased to discover that the kayaking trip went through the bar area for tubing. So we kind of had a very long half way stop and paddled back drunk in the dark. We also resuced an Ozzie couple who were getting nowhere fast in the tubes in the dark!

The following day we said our goodbyes to Ben and Derek (but we hope to meet them again in Australia at some point) and headed to the beautiful Luang Prabang. The bus ride was our hardest yet. Sitting on the back seat of a rickety bus, with pot holes and winding roads up into the mountains does not equal a comfy ride. Steve wasnt best pleased to spend the majority of the trip out of his seat and in the air, haha. We spent four nights in Luang Prabang. On our first night we stayed in this dirty and very noisey guest house which was majorly overpriced. We decied to change to somewhere else in the morning, but as there was noone there to check out, we 'accidentally' left less money than we should have (trying to save the pennies after all). The following day we randomly bumped into Sarah and Sally from Don Det, so spent the aftenoon and next day with them. We all decided to get up for 5.30am to see the local people giving '300monks' their food. Apparetnly it was worth seeing?!?! Our highlight was laughing at Sarah and Sally as no monk would take their sticky Rice from them..... Steve shouted across the road 'you need to kneel down'! We then got a tuk tuk up to a waterfall in the afternoon. We ate some random but nice street food here, but decided to give the pigs head, chicken heads and chicken feet a miss! The following day Sarah and Sally left us again and we went on an amazing two day trip. We basically cycled, trekked, kayaked and elephant rode through the mountains. We also stayed in a small local village in the middle of nowhere. Steve was in his element playing football with the local children for hours after they had finished school. We loved this trip, our only regret was getting food poisoning from the food we ate. We saw the local lady who cooked our meal buy rat from another local so we are convinced thats what our 'pork' really was!! So we spennt the next 6nights taking it in turns to run to the toilet..... its got to happen at somepoint of your travel ay!

In typical Laos style our next bus trip was 8am until 7.30pm... not 4pm as we were told! We headed South to Nong Khai to stay with Steve's brother Chris. We absolutely loved our time in Laos. A beautiful. chilled and friendly country which is on the top of favourite countries now!