Good afternoon from another new country, I guess I should also say and happy belated new years to all. I again find myself catching up on at least worth of blogs from our extremely enjoyable stay in Laos. I write this having now flown into kuala lumpur, Malaysia where we will stay for a couple of days.

Anyway I will work backwards from our time in Laos and our last port of call was in Vientiane the capital of Laos. We arrived in Vientiane on new years eve, not out of choice really but more of a transit stop before proceeding onto our next airport visit and flight to kuala lumpur.

The guidebooks who have often been our faithful companion advised us 2 days stay would be sufficient and they weren't kidding. The place pretty much has nothing, on the last day we moved to a larger hotel with a swimming pool to relax on the last day but the less said about that the better. I will keep my moaning to a minimum on that one but let's just say a pool which resembled pond water, about 200 rooms with what only seemed Tina and I staying there (quite weird eating dinner with just her and I massive dining room with about 10 staff just watching you) and absolutely nothing of interest surrounding it.

Let's move on from there and start at the beginning of Vientiane where we arrived at our hotel called a name that i can't recall off hand but it was to be a tale of two sides. The hotel was supposed to be 3 stars for a cheap price but as they say never judge a book by it's cover. For the purpose of the analogy the cover being the reception looked impressive but turn a few pages and enter the hotel you get a door that was to short for the frame letting in Mosquitos for the tasty Tina. You have doors which should contain windows but have none, plugs that give me an electric shock everytime I try and plug anything in and breakfasts that had a seemingly 2 day old egg in it- no thanks.

On the flipside the hotel seemed to be family run and they asked us to join them for a new years celebration. It was one of those awkward moment when you just can't think of a way to get out of it and they had blocked off all exit points from the hotel with a BBQ. We had no choice so we joined this loation family, their griefs and a few other guests who were also roped in. We tried to politely decline the food on offer but this is seen as rude so we had to tuck in to their BBQd food with aplomb. I initially found it difficult to talk as I was chewing on some of the toughest beef known to man, it would not have been out of place in willy wonkas factory as the everlasting kebab meat.

10 minutes into my chewing I had no choice but to drink their 50% local whiskey to wash it down. It was bloody awful but needless to say the whiskey came with more refills and with beer so as always the evening gets more enjoyable. I even didn't mind that they spotted I had finished all my bee so brought some more out for as they assumed I loved it so much. We met the director of the hotel who was about 100 but he was enjoyable to try and make both hand singles at while trying to have a conversation as both did not speak each others language. We did however learn various Lao speak and learning to say hello (sabadee) and happy new year (be mie) which went down a charm. We got fairly drunk and the whiskey and stumbled down to the local Lao beer festival where we had our new years eve countdown. It was a very random night but I have to say very enjoyable. What the hotel missed on being an actual hotel it made up for on a very enjoyable evening.

Now onto the new blog of vang Vieng and the oh so brilliant tubing!

Robbie c out.