Having flown (if you don't mind) from Cambodia, another ridiculously ill-prepared border crossing - this time, no passport photos despite having had to rip the one out of my international driving permit to get into Cambodia - luckily they let us cut the photos out of our very high tech Angkor Wat passes.We later found out a dollar bribe would have worked too - how differently are you treated when you arrive by plane? Or was it something to do with this famous Lao mentality? We prefer to think the latter.

Starting in the south in Pakse, where we spent the day waiting for the bus, took a walk down the river and stopped off at a bowling alley for a quick game on the way to the market. It was good to get some bowling in, and only a dollar a game!! For the record after a hard fought match where I was losing untill that last 'round' when I hit a double strike to win the game on a measly 96 - we decided to take advantage of this cheap bowling practice, with Em declaring "that we're not leaving this place till I've got 100!" (even at a dollar a game our budget was stretched by this statement, which also turned out be false)

The market was different from those of Vietnam and China, and instantly you can see how differently the Laotions operate - with no pressure from the vendors, you are free to browse, touch and even pick up items with out having to initiate one of those painfully embarrassing 'I just want to know how much this would be' theoretical bargaining processes that I seem to get myself caught up in. I bought a fake Casio watch, to replace the one 'lost' from my room in Phnom Phen.I also picked up a torch / penknife / compass multi tool, admired the craftmanship, wondered would I could do with a tool like that, and put it down, no questions asked…only in Lao.

On the way back we stopped at a cheap riverside restaurant for a delicious, heavily salted bbq fish. And I made new friend, called 'Beer Lao' - very nice after the Bia Hoi in Vietnam, I did go on about it a lot and it may be 18p a pint, but on reflection it tasted like flat watered down Carling. Really missing the coffee and food, and many things about Vietnam though - like motorbikes,it's all bikes over there, hardly any cars on the roads,whereas over here it's all about massive pick up trucks, quite scary when you've got used to crossing the road slowly without looking (the only safe way in Vietnam - looking round just makes other road users nervous as you may alter direction or speed).

As we were leaving, some men from two different tables asked us to sit with them for a drink and chat so we decided to split up. They were both very friendly, my lot turned out to be incomprehensibly drunk. The only one who spoke English was a very reflective and confused young man who had spent the last 12 years in the States and had just come back to Pakse to work as builder (for a few dollars a day but in a country rich in ways America will never know and with his family here to boot). He was emotionally torn on where his heart lay, I tried to explain that in my view there was no debate but he was seriously missing Mcdonalds, Starbucks, KFC etc - most of the conversation on his side took place in the form of a tu-pac style rap, lots of hand gesticulations and side ways head movements - you could see what channel he watched to learn English.

On to Vientiane.That was nice.Not much to do in the city, definitely our kind of place. We found a Buddhist temple that did herbal steam saunas, message and meditation - that was a good afternoon. On the way back we had some amazing home made deep fried chicken and chips, found a shop that did software for a dollar a cd and felt ready to leave the next day - after a cursory glance at the Russian market of course - didn't notice much Russian about it.On the way to the market we got a reply to our couch surfing request - offering two nights accommodation while his housemates were away.He sounded nice, so we changed our plans.Jeffrey and Jeanie turned out to be a very nice couple. We brought them flowers which we later found out are traditionally used to decorate tomb stones - should have cottoned on that the florist was at the gates to the cemetary. They took us to a bbq, and bowling again and we stayed up to watch Arsenal thrash Chelsea.

The next day they took Em round town on the bikes.This was around the same time that my ten day eye-crushing headache started so I stayed at home (and their house was very nice, esp after cold showers, broken hot showers (there is a difference) and dirty beds).But on the whole it was worth staying back, to meet the nice people and to see the other side of life in the city - gave us an idea of what it would be like to live there and I'd say at the moment, if Em got a job working for the UN, or the EU, or Unesco - with an apartment, car and three flights home a year - I wouldn't be upset. I'm sure I could find something to do here.

So, another homecooked meal and 'love actually' concluded our time with them. Just as we were setting off we mananaged to meet up with Evan, the Can Tho Cat Killer, and we all went up to do the tubing in Vang Vieng - no description of events required here anything previously written all looks like carbon copies - can't even bring myself to give a quick summary. We did have a great time, bearing in mind the headache, it was Lao National day so the Lao Lao whiskey was doing the rounds round the camp fire.

The rest of my journal goes on about how old we feel around the young people - again, so I'll spare you that. But I'll just say we were loving the 12 o'clock curfew as it brought an end to the booming chart music echoing round the valley - you could almost replace the f with a ph…as in cur-phew, I thought while tucked up in bed with Em - such a joker.