Lao Plaza Vientiane

... and you’ve got a lot of fun. It was a crazy day and slightly surreal floating down the Mekong river at the end of the day as the sun is setting, feeling a bit jolly watching the scenery go by. The hostel I was staying in was brand new and owned my the same man as the hostel I stayed in in Chiang Mai. It was more like a bamboo tree house than a hostel and with lots of hammocks dotted around it was impossible not to go into relaxation mode. I also ...

... Sunset Bar" where it all got a bit messy in more ways then one. Mike threaten some ******** Chelsea fan for being racially abusive to one of the girls and this nut job on another tour was being abusive to everyone and then started crying non stop ! I didn't get to bed until after 04:00 but the best night so far without a doubt !!!<br><br>Got to get up for the tubing tmrw which is the highlight of Laos........................<br>

... fountain - it wasn't bad, but better was the people watching. <br> <br>On Wednesday we chartered a tuk-tuk out to Buddha Park (I want my dad to note that we bartered the tuk tuk man down 90,000 Kip from his original offer, we're getting better at it!). Buddha park is a totally bizarre collection of hindu and buddha statues in a small park 24km out of town. We really didn't know what to make of it, it was very odd, but a nice place for a picnic and we got ...

... they let a duck embryo grow inside of the egg until it's a few days from hatching, then they cook the egg stalling further growth. I had heard about it back when I worked in San Jose and have wanted to try it for 2 years now. We got back to the house, chatted a little, Savin made a special sauce for the eggs and we tore into them. You tap the top of the egg with a spoon and break away the top of the egg. Here you can see yolk and baby duck, it's pretty unsettling. Especially when ...

... through in the dark when a guy asked us to come and join him for a drink and some food. We initial thought that the picnic set-up was a make-shift restaurant and sat down on a mat on the floor and proceeded to order drinks. We felt so proud that we had mastered the art of ordered drinks using our newly found Laos language skills. "Jow mee song bia Loas bien bo" (I would like two cold beers). We hadn&#8217;t learned how to say &#8220;please&#8221; yet. We were ...

We arrived in Vientiane-a couple of hours later. It was neat to see the contrast between the crowded, apt-block style city of Kunming, China, and the many tree-ed, tin-roof houses of Laos from the air to the ground level. We went through customs and successfully passed to Swine flu checkpoint. We made our way to our hostel. Laos was full of western tourists. Quite the contrast from China. It seemed as though there were more tourists there than locals ...

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... in front of our TV.<br><br>Thursday we moved to Saysooly guesthouse which was a nice room. We had a great breakfast (Blue Sky restaurant) and went to the market before heading for a drink at sunset at one of the riverside bars in the city - it was cloudy and the Mekong river was pretty dry though! We went to a great bar for some happy hour drinks and cocktails and played a few drinking games before heading off to check ...