Hello everyone,

After taking some restbite in Chiang Mai for a couple of days we then decided to take to 3 day trip to Luang Prabang, Laos. We took a 5 hour journey to the border where we slept in a guesthouse for a few hours before boarding the 2 day slow boat along the Mekong River. We had been recommended to take the slow boat over the fast as the scenery is beautiful and the fast boat is rather dangerous and the guidebook said there were 'frequent fatalities' so we quickly decided against that! After crossing over into Laos we then had to wait around for our boat, during which time we met a big group of people, we were all drinking Beer Lao (which even Lou liked and she normally hates beer) before we got onto the boat and it turned into a bit of a party once we were on board. The scenery was absolutely fantastic, nothing but mountains and jungle surrounding us for the whole day and we saw the odd boat with people from the tiny villages in the mountains who seemed to be trading things with our boat. After a full day on the boat we stopped off at one of these villages, it was called Pak Beng. It really was in the middle of nowhere, there was no hot water, no electricity sfter 9pm and no one could speak any English! So we had a nice meal and then went to bed and woke up in morning before boarding our slow boat again and it was terrential rain, the village was on a hill and it had pretty much been turned into a waterfall. The second day of the boat got a little bit tedious as the boat was a lot smaller and the rain meant everyone was soaked for the whole day - everyone was also feeling a little fragile from the day before! So when we finally arrived in Luang Prabang it was quite a relief to get off the very hard seat we had been sitting on for 2 days!

Once arriving in Luang Prabang we had already booked a guesthouse on the internet so we went straight there. We hadn't been able to find many guesthouses on the internet so we booked one that was 6 pounds a night each, which seemed pretty reasonable, but when we got there it seemed we were staying in one of the nicest places in Luang Prabang, with a huge room and a walk in shower, it seemed the average prices were around 2 pounds so we were living in luxury on 6 pounds! We spent 3 nights in Luang Prabang and we thought it was absolutely beautiful. It is very touristy, but it seems that places in this part of the world continue to hold on to their history and you still feel like you are seeing the real Laos even though you are staying in a touristy area. The French influence is still very present in Luang Prabang and we had some delicious steaks (even better than Chez Gerrard!) for only 2 pounds each. The night market is pretty cool too with lots of beautiful jewellry and clothes. The highlight of Luang Prabang for us was the most amazing waterfall we have ever seen, it is called the Khong Si. Just take a look at our photos and it speaks for itself, it was on about 4 or 5 different levels and at certain points we swam in it, and at the top it was breathtaking. It was really great in Luang Prabang that we had lots of friends to meet up with that we had met on the boat, and as all the bars and restaurants have to shut at 11pm, everyone arranged to meet at the bowling alley every night which was just out of town and open until 3am. It was the first time on our trip so far that we would be all sitting around having a few drinks and you could look round the table and there would be people from all over the world, Chileans, Aussies, Brits, Kiwis, Americans, Isrealis, which we thought was pretty cool. So after about 3 days everyone decided to make their way down to Vang Vieng, which is about a 5 hour coach drive through the mountains further south into Laos.....

The roads in Laos are very, very bad and there are pot holes everywhere so you are constantly being bobbed around. The journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng involved mainly mountains so that was pretty scary too, and half way through there had been a landslide so everyone had to help clear a pathway for the cars to get through and all the locals turned up to help out too. Once we got going again the rest of the journey wasn't too bad. We arrived in Vang Vieng and managed to find a cheap guesthouse and we then met up with the other people we had met, and we were still travelling with the couple we had met in Bangkok at this point. Vang Vieng is pretty much a hippy, tourist town and there isn't much Lao culture there but it was nice to just relax and chill out there for a few days - the bars and restuarants are just shacks with beds and hammocks everywhere. The main thing to do in Vang Vieng, which is all anyone talks about, is 'tubing'. Which is basically where you go down the Mekong river in a huge rubber ring 'tube' and as you go along there are bars who throw you a rope and pull you in and there are whiskey buckets and shots of Lao Lao whiskey going round. As you can imagine it does get a bit dangerous as people get very drunk and stupid and with a very strong current and lots of rocks it's probably not really the best mix, but we have found that safety just doesn't exist in South East Asia so you have to have your wits about you. But we were fine and had such an amazing time, even with all the tourist drinking culture in Vang Vieng, you can still look up and see the most amazing mountains and the river is stunning.

After 5 days in Vang Vieng we took the bus to Vientiane, which again was quite an experience on the Lao roads! We had been told there wasn't a lot to do in Vientiane so we just strolled around the town the first day and saw all the sights. There was the That Luang which is a huge gold temple and Laos most sacred spot, the Lao Arc De Triomphe (Patouxai) which was built by the French and a replica of the one in Paris and we also saw a few temples. This was the day before Rob's birthday so as there wasn't really a lot to do we decided to book into a 'posh' hotel with a swimming pool, tennis courts etc so we could just have a pampering day for Rob's birthday. We spent 2 nights there and had a great time, our hotel had a club attached so when we got in from the bars on the first night we decided to go in. We were the only white, non-Lao people in the whole club and everyone was staring at us. The music was also Lao and all they did was sing along to the songs, it was like a mass kareoke! We found it really funny so stayed for a drink and then eventually people started coming up to us asking where we were from etc, we had a real laugh with them! From Vientiane we decided to book a flight to Hanoi as we just couldn't face getting on the Laos roads again and had heard absolute horror stories of the 24 hour journey, so 50 quid more and a 1 hour flight seemed much more appealing to us! However, booking with Lao airlines is another story..... After thinking we had booked online we then got told by the people at the hotel that you cannot buy anything on card in Lao without a signature so we recieved a message saying we were too late to book online as there wasn't enough time to fax over the invoice, fax it back and process it etc so we went directly to the airport and booked it there where they only accept cash. It was times like this in Lao that you realise where you are, that even their national airline will only accept cash and no online bookings. We did get a little frustrated at times as it seemed they had these rules in place which were making things more awkward for them to make money and being in the top 20 poorest countries inthe world they are hoping their new tourist industry is going to pull them out of that extreme poverty and into the league of Thailand. Whether this destroys such a beautiful, traditional country is another matter and we feel very lucky to have seen Laos before the tourist industry really sets in. We got frustrated at times but not many can speak English and when they can speak a little they often just pretend to understand you, but I guess this just added to the true Laos experience and everything we did there was a bit of a challenge because of all these obstacles. It was hard to see such poverty everywhere and although it is great for us that things are such so ridiculously cheap in Laos, at the same time this also means that they are so much poorer than us.

We took our flight on Lao Airlines, which we might add was probably one of the cleanest and efficient flights we have ever taken, last sunday and are now in Vietnam where we are having a brilliant time and have managed to avoid all the bad weather which has now past (as I know some of you were worried!) and we will update you all soon.

Love and missing you all loads,

Lou and Rob xoxo