Well we made it out of Vietnam and into Laos by the skin of our teeth! Laos is so much more chilled than Vietnam and although we had a great time there it is good to be in Laos.

We finished our time in Sapa - a beautiful mountain area in the north west where the people speak a different language and it's not even like part of Vietnam at all. We took another over night train up there which was pretty good and spent most of our time trecking through the local villages, we have some cute pictures of the little kids in their local costumes......that's if Rob ever manages to upload the photos, there's hundreds of them, the interent connection is slow and we had an awful hour yesterday when it looked like one of these crappy computers had wiped our memory card! Panic over.

The bus journey into Laos was an expereince. There is only one bus that leaves Hanoi a day and departs at 7pm. We get to the bus station with about 10 other westerners and loads of Vietnamese who all seem to be moving house taking with them things like copper piping, car parts, food, etc. Consequently that meant there was no room for the real luggage - ie our bags. All the westerners got seated at the back of the bus where there were no blankets (unlike the seats for the locals at the front of the bus). We were then barracaded into our seats by the buidling of luggage all down the aisle and round us. A poor Dutch couple got on at the next town and had to sit at the back in the aisle on the luggage for the next 18 hours......we make it to the border about 4 hours before it opens, hmmm why? So that the robbing Vietnamese can get you to pay the night to stay in their friends guesthouse. All the westerners refused and sat up talking all night on the pavement outside, why they didn't just leave 4 hours later is anyones guess?! The border crossing went well and the Laos people were very welcoming, unfortunately we still had 8 hoursto go with our Vietnamese friends on the bus - on we piled. We made it to the capital Vientiane in one piece and had made some good friends along the way, there's nothing like being cramped on a bus for 20 hours to get to know someone.

From Vientiane we travelled north to Vang Vieng - a party town famous for its tubing. This involves getting dropped off 3 km upstream with a big tractor inner-tube, hopping on and floating down the river. Every 10 - 20 metres or so someone from the bank will throw you a rope to grab onto and pull you into their bar. A 'bucket' (yes literally, but like a beach bucket for kids) of gine and tonic cost 3 quid, it was fun fun fun. All the bars have rope swings and zip wires to play on. We had a lot of fun and manged to cover the 3km stretch in about 7 hours. Hopefully Rob will manage to get some photos onto Snapfish soon.

From there we headed north again and are now in the old capital Luang Prabang. This town isvery picturesque and not full of p**s heads like Vang Vieng. The shops and restaurants are lovely and there is a great night market selling silks and other stuff for us to waste our money on. The food is also amazing, we've left behind the bland noodles and rice of Vietnam and are back in the Thai / Cambodia /Laos mix of noodles, stir frys', curries and spice (much to Robs delight).

We're just relaxing here for a few days, the accomodation is lovely in an old refurbished traditional Laos house and wehave HBO and Cinemax so are very happy.

Hope everyone is keeping well

Lots of love

Rob & Steph

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