Vang Vieng, a packpackers paradise. This town is on a plateau surrounded by beautiful mountains with the river running through the valley. 90% of the tourists here were backpackers which made for a very fun week! Some of the highlights include the journey into Vang Vieng where we experienced our first punctured tyre on the bus. We were surprised by how quickly the driver put a new tyre on... and also surprised to see how much it cost for a full tank of fuel - 3g...

We knew it was going to be a long bus journey from Savannakhet. It took just over 11 hours with various stops for passengers to buy food and the bus driver to load on anything from bags of rice to 50 oak doors! Finallly we arrived tired and sweaty at Vientiane where we planned to stay three nights. We decided to have a treat here and checked into a brand new hotel (we have a good excuse, the guest houses are almost as much money so why not!). All the home lux...

The bus ride from Pakse was quite comfortable, normally the buses stop a few times for a leg stretch. Any time the bus stops it is flooded with locals ladies selling many different food stuff, from whole cooked chickens on sticks to sticky rice and chillies. As you'll see from the pics we stick to normal stuff like sweetcorn - yummy! We only spent 2 days in Savannakhet, we hired bikes and went to the local dinasour museum (strange but true) and saw the oldest ...

The next 2 days we spent in Pakse as it has good transport links going north. Pakse is very similar to a small french town surrounded by Laos countryside. We left Champassak and took the local (packed to the rims) bus with the locals, arriving in Pakse 30 minutes later and checked into our guesthouse. We spent the morning exploring Pakse and Matt decided Gem's birthday present would be a massage at the former palace now a hotel. We had a couple of beers and ...

After a cramped boat ride and a sauna of a bus ride we were told to get off the bus with a simple "Champassak!" from the driver. Most people on the bus were going straight through to Pakse but we had read about Vat Phu and decided it was a must see. The few passengers who got off with us walked down the road to the river and got on a boat. We thought they must be going somewhere else as the driver had clearly told us we were in Champassak. 2 hours later and a...