A late start this morning at 10am (this is not a holiday for long lies :-/ ) Off to the airport to catch a Lao Airlines flight. Not entirely sure what to expect At best Ryan Air, at worst a propeller plane held together with string? Actually turned out more like BA :) Free food and drink, comfy seats and a problem free flight to Vietnam. :)

On the bus from the airport we were given our safety chat. Your bags might be snatched off your shoulder by people on motorbikes or your camera out your hand. Ladies with sticks on their shoulder that have baskets on each end might put it on your shoulder to take a photo. They might take your camera or pick your pocket or you'll have to pay for what's in their basket. If you touch something in the market you will be expected to buy it or you will be sworn at and damned :-/

So with this information we got off the bus, a little on edge, to walk down the street to the hotel. It was a bit of a shock to the system. The roads were heaving with motorbikes and the pavements were blocked by three deep, parked motorbikes, sellers and all sorts so were walking along the road. There was a lot of horns beeping and a lot of noise. A bit different to sleepy Laos :-/ We went out for dinner and trying to cross the road was an experience! lol It's a case of 'walk and the bikes will steer round you' Exhilirating im sure should be the word :D We also engaged in Beer Hoi which involves sitting on little plastic seats on a street corner on the road, drinking and chatting. When the police come by you jump up and onto the pavement as they have discussions with some of the 'bar' staff who scurry around doing as they are asked, before you sit back down again and carry on. Its a good place to watch the world go by particularly the crazy traffic (which you are practically sitting in). We felt very good surviving our first night and after that it turned out we had arrived on a busy Sunday night so the next few days were still crazy but not quite on the same scale as the first night. Either that or we just got used to it all.