Inter Hotel Vientiane

... The sunset from Phou Si (sacred hill) right in the middle of the city was stunning - see the photos. The other thing I had been really looking forward to was seeing the monks parade. Every morning at 6am they parade through the streets accepting offerings of food from the local people. Monks only eat what they are offered and miss out dinner so this is a very important part of their day. I managed to catch a glimpse of the saffron-robbed monks ...

... we had come across. We ate out by the Mekong River at these riverside restaurants - great food, cheap beer and cool scenery! Back at the hotel we thought we'd check out what the bar was like - karaoke was in full swing and as the only foreigners in there everyone wanted to talk to us and clink glasses! Somehow ended up singing Louis Armstrongs "Wonderful World", great song, but not when it's sung by two drunken louts who thought that Oasis's "Wonderwall" was coming on... <br>

<br><br><br>The bus ride was hell. 13 hours of dosing on and off. I did get some sleep, I'd say I got about 5 hours worth. The bus stopped at Udon Thani, then I had to catch another bus to the border, luckily there was no wait, I was able to hop off of one bus straight onto another. I walked through the Thai border and caught another bus across the Friendship Bridge to Laos. It took a while to get everything sorted out, but 30 minutes and 35 dollars later I had a visa for 30 days in Laos. I ...

... great hotels off the tourist beaten trail. The highlight was playing in a waterfall with a bunch of local kids. They had built bamboo rafts to float around the pool at the bottom of the falls. All the kids were jumping on and off (Roh and I were also throwing them off :-) as they steered the rafts closer to the strongest part of the falls. You had to basically close your eyes and hang on for dear life as 10 tons of water tumbled on top of you. I think that ...

... going on loop all the day. We have to admit that we've enjoyed a couple of hours of "Friends" doing nothing at a bar...not too bad in the end! We rented a beautiful bungalow on the riverside for 12 dollars a night. Our pride for the good deal went away as the night came: we were right beside the two noisiest disco bars of the village, with  music playing ridicoulously high till late...there and then we realised we're getting old! The key activity in Vang Vieng is called "tubing ...

... ng lúa... 12 gi&#7901; tr&#432;a chúng tôi &#273;&#7871;n Pakading,<br>n&#417;i có chi&#7871;c c&#7847;u b&#7855;c qua sông Kading. N&#7871;u &#273;i xe riêng c&#417; quan thì chúng<br>tôi &#273;ã &#273;&#432;&#7907;c d&#7915;ng l&#7841;i &#273;&#7875; th&#432;&#7903;ng th&#7913;c món cá sông n&#432;&#7899;ng &#7903; &#273;ây r&#7891;i! Nh&#432;ng<br>hôm nay chúng tôi ph&#7843;i ch&#7901; &#273;&#7871;n 1 r&#432;&#7905;i chi&#7873 ...