Anou Hotel Vientiane

... street signs here and things are really easy to find, I've only heard a horn once, I've only been asked a couple of times if I want a tuk-tuk/taxi despite the fact that I have been through an airport, bus station, carried my luggage for around 15 mins, been to several tourist sights, walked past many stands with many drivers and I've been walking around most of the day and the street food is mostly bbqed and not fried and my meal was plenty spicy ...

... according to the guide books and to the Canadian government travel advisory web site, the road isn't all that safe due to occasional rebel activity. Some buses even have armed guards in them just in case of trouble, not very reassuring.<br><br>They say that people always plan to stay just a couple of days in LP but always end up staying a lot longer and we now understand why. It's a UNESCO World Heritage city, peppered with charming temples ...

... m sure we&#8217;ll both be fine.<br><br>What we can&#8217;t get over is how weird it is to keep bumping into people that we have met in other countries. Just randomly walking down the street and people calling our names &#8211; very weird but really nice!<br><br>After Vang Vieng we head to Luang Prabang in Laos and then take the slow boat to Chaing Mai inThailand.<br><br>We hope you are all well and not missing us too much!<br><br>Please email me back with your news and fill me ...

... arguments at riverside food stalls over glasses of ale or the local rice whisky on their origin.The most convenient way to reach Nong Khai is to take one of the many daily flights offered from Bangkok to Udon Thani, either on the national airline Thai Airways International, or one of the low-cost airlines. The flight takes 50 ...

... solved by the sight of Lao people hurling bottles attatched to strings into the water at passing tourists who would then grab on for dear life and be hauled (somewhat safely) onto the banks. To be fair, it was amazing fun, much aided by the fact that Lao people are so generous with their cocktails as to add alchohol almost to the top of whatever drinking vessel you choose, then sort of add the mixer as an afterthought. Highlights were definetly acting ...

... called into a circle. The virgins were made to step into the middle of the circle and give some minor details about themselves, they said that they would really get to know us better later, I thought that meant over a beer or two. Wrong. More on that later. 10 minutes of basic instruction giving and we were off.<br><br>I can't describe the race in detail for two reasons, one, I can't really remember the order of any of it. And two, it would take forever. But I will say that it was an ...

... you can literally buy laws at the bookstores in the market. Some of them were translated into English, so we bought a few for their resource center. Apparently there are only 75 laws in Laos, so we saw quite a few I guess. I love to learn about new aspects of human rights which I have not been exposed to in-depth before. It can sometimes be really intense, so it was nice that she gave me a few documentaries to watch in case I was overwhelmed with the reading. <br ...

As soon as I made it to Vientiane, I found a guest house, left my bag, took a nice breakfast and jumped into a "took took" (motorbike with 3 wheels) to get Charlie, my brother, at the airport.<br><br>Then we rented a motorbike, visited a few pagodas and finished the day with a nice massage, herbal sauna and green tea in a little forest north of the city ...