Seng Lao Hotel Vientiane

... what are they for?! The bloke who runs the place, when Mark asked him, said he didn't choose to keep them, as they were too noisy. Not that it makes any difference, as there are at least a hundred milling about the area, the little buggers.<br><br>Anyway, we both had breakfast, for a change at the guesthouse restaurant (though still a Full English - we didn't want to break tradition), packed up, paid up, then trekked into town with our bags, which was hard work in the heat ...

... watched the boat races in the afternoon on the banks of the Mekong river joined by the entire population of Vientiane. Everyone was drinking and although it was a great atmosphere, no one really seemed that bothered by who won. After another hot afternoon we watched the sunset over the river and returned to pack our bags. On our way back every house had a big party in their drive way as the whole city celebrated the end of the boat races and the end of the rains festival. <br><br><br>

... Thailand, and drank some cool Beer Laos like the best of them.<br><br>Before heading further north, we decided that some more trekking was in order, in keeping with our desire to take advantage of Laos' great and largely untouched outdoors. We hooked up with a group by the name of Green Discovery, who seemed to have fairly decent ideas on keeping Laos as untouched as possible, and we (along with a couple of moody German sisters, a very moody French Canadian, a ...

... a disco, so off we headed. Disco should be used in the loosest sense of the word, and the place was deserted. (Not surprising seeing that the prices of booze was double the rest of the city, and a basic room is $160 a night!). So off we went again, but this time looking for the tried and tested Bowling Alley. We managed to find one that had a bar until 3am so spent the rest of the night in there. Unlike the other Alleys we'd been to in Lao this one was dead, and I'm sure that had ...

... ou captures pour travailler... et le travail de bucherons les use tres vite. Et la deforestation et l&lt;utilisation accrue du territoire les privent de leur habitat naturel. <br><br>Le Village des elephants ou je me trouve est un Elephant project, qui vise a soustraire les elephants de l&lt;industrie forestiere. Ils les traient et soignent selon des normes disctees par des organisations de protection des elephants et des animaux en danger. L&lt;elephant project doit aussi se ...

... the foreseeable future.<br><br>Just as we thought the journey couldn&#8217;t get much weirder, we stopped at a restaurant for a toilet break and looked around to see a pair of buffalo ears on the side of the road, with a severed buffalo leg casually strewn next to a motorbike next to the main road. Perhaps the Israeli and his chainsaw got there first.<br><br>Now, I do make promises to myself, but I frequently break them ...

... I decided to spend another day in Vang Vieng instead of another bus ride. So I spent the most pointless 2pounds of the day by hiring a bike... had all intentions of cycling a few miles out of town to a popular lagoon... after about 5 mins my bum and legs hurt (BTW I haven't cycled since I was a teenager!) then I spent the best 2 pounds of my day..... entry to a hotel swimming pool... it was lush..... it was on the river so had great views of the river and limestone karsts... the ...

... group and tried to get away with paddling as least as possible, but it was still fun. At one point Katie and I caught up with the group to find our two instructors had jumped out of their kayaks onto the rocks and were scanning the river with terrified looks on their faces. Apparently there had been a poisonous water snake in the water a few minutes earlier! One of the instructors started beating the water with a paddle and said he'd killed it ...

... in order to get to the top for a birds eye view.<br><br>A short ride in the chauffeured car took us to Buddha Park (XIENG KHUAN) which is a park filled with statues of buddha and other deities. There a really huge pumpkin-like structure that you can climb inside and up to the top to survey the view. Dotted around the park are strange statues - perfect for clambering about on, or posing in front of.

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