Chanthapanya Hotel Vientiane

... the boat racing festival. The whole of Vientiane had turned out for the event (which went on for three days) and their were thousands of people playing games, buying cheap clothes from market stalls and eating candy floss, fried birds?!, hotdogs etc....
We watched the sunset a few km further down the river at sunset kahuna (basically a shack on the banks of the river).

October 5th

Hot and sticky in Laos' capital we wisely chose a guest house with a pool ...

We left for Vientiane the next day on our VIP bus (as we had been informed - yeah right), squished like sardines in a tin we traveled to the capital..... Not much to see and do here, its more of a stop off before venturing to the next destination. We visited the Budda Park and said goodbye to everyone we had traveled with since Chiang Mai, and made our way to Hanoi.

... to get too and I'm spending over my budget already so I need to chill a bit! Also there was a risk I might not meet many other travellers on the way down so I thought I'd just head straight there....

That's the only downside to being a female, solo traveller so far... I can't just hire a motorbike and head off into the country on my own like some of the men I've met have.... well I could, but it would be a bit stupid and my dad would worry too much!

Speak soon!

Overnight bus wasn't to bad this time because we had two seats each, so we could stretch our legs. The person behing me definately got car sick though and started vomiting for a portion of the trip, but thankfully that doesnt really bother me. We arrived in Vientienne around 5 am and immediately headed for the guesthouse, so tht we could catch up on some ...

... travels and in this new year" .......as i looked around .....i saw the same string on everyone around us. More old ladies came over with more string and more mumbled blessings.......You've done this before i thought as i looked at their amazing 80 year old plus! wrinkled faces. The blessings were followed by more beer and whisky.........................then the custom soaking .................a guy walks in with a hose and starts to work the room ...

... much like all of the big gold monuments in south east asia. Bobbed out to the national history museum but it was closed. So thought i'd bob for a lunch tim drink. Got tsalking to a scottish ex marine who owns a bar in thailnd on a visa run. Nice guy, bught me a coupe of drinks and had a good chat for a few hours. Tried to buy a water proof camera case for when i go tubing torrow, but they don't ...

... u nhân
viên biết tiếng Việt. Mặt khác khách sạn này rẻ hơn, họ lấy 120.000
kip/ pḥng/ đêm trong khi khách sạn Chaleunxay (cũng của Việt Kiều, lớn
hơn, ở bên cạnh) lấy 150.000 kip.




Tắm
r& #7917;a xong hai bác cháu đi bộ xuống phố, đi qua và chụp ...

... of the population of Vietnam! On arriving at the capital we couldn't quite believe that this was a capital city! There were hardly any cars or locals, the whole place was like a sleepy rural town, not hectic at all......we could see instantly why people had said they fell in love with Laos and I could definitely see that we were going to too, the quietness was bliss! I suppose a population of 5.6 million ...