Vansana Vientiane

... that there was absolutely bugger all to do, owing to most museums etc closing at 4pm, we decided to head to the riverside for a beer. I say riverside, what appears to have happened is that about twenty metres of land has been reclaimed, so the view from the bar we chose was of soil and JCBs, with the river vainly attempting to catch our attention in the distance. A beer or two later we headed back to the hotel.<br><br>Later on we ...

... We paid 10 pound a night for a large room with bathroom, tv, fridge and a swimming pool which was empty the entire time (except for us!!!) However, the pool didn't satify our need to cool off so we decided to check out Laos' first and only waterpark which had recently opened. A short bike ride away we grabbed breakfast from the Joma bakery (a chain of bakeries which do AMAZING musli, cakes, pastries and coffee) outside the park and waited for it to open. 30,000K (1 pound ...

... so hopefully that is a good sign of things to come. The journey up from there started getting "fun", shall we say. The drivers in Vietnam clearly have no rules of the road to consider, and our bus was being driven like a motorbike, weaving through traffic. I don't think we got overtaken once on the journey, and there wasn't a lot we didn't overtake either. We finally arrived in Hanoi at 6pm, 25 hours after the journey had started, and I've never been so glad to get off a bus in all my life.

... which the locals eagerly partook in. We made do with giant rice krispie cakes.<br><br>We arrived at Vientiane bus station in the evening, much later than scheduled, and spent the next hour in a sawngthaew (a larger version of a tuk-tuk, it's really just a pick-up truck with a steel cage and roof for taking multiple groups of passengers in a general direction, rather than one set to a specific location) being driven backward and forward across the city ...

... se passe bien. <br><br>Toujours sur son dos, ma bestiole m&lt;emporte plus loin dans l&lt;eau, histoire de pouvoir s&lt;immerger au 3-4. On me donne une brosse et j&lt;ai la tache de la laver partout. La trompe, les oreilles, le dos. Ca une bien etrange de peau, un elephant. Toute plissee. Un peu rude, un peu cuiree.<br> Mais voila, le caractere rebelle de ma monture reapparait. Elle decide de s&lt;amuser un peu dans l&lt;eau. Plonge la tete. Plonge les fesses. Puis plonge au ...

... and stopped and dried off a bit. Eventually the rain let up and we made it there.<br><br>My favorite part of Vientiane is the riverside in the evening. All of these little restaraunts set up along the water with great fresh seafood. It's really cute, if a bit touristy. I went out for one dinner to one of the lovely French restaraunts (Thanks Mom and dad!). It didn't turn out to be the spectacular meal I was fantasizing about, but I did get the first glass of decent wine I'd had in a while! <br>

... and tried to nap on the uber uncomfortabe wooden chairs for a while. <br><br>Managed to get a dorm in the end and dumped our bags and went for a walk. Theres really not a lot in Vientiane! In fact, I thought it was kind of a pointless place. Went out for a drink in the evening and there was just no one around so we called it a night. Next day wasnt much better so decided to give up and head for Vang Vieng for a trashy couple of days partying.....

... them up... that was horrible :(<br>- at one point a woman flagged the bus down... she had a massive live lizard in her hands (tied up)... this was placed in the luggage compartment... the driver then sold the lizard to someone on a bus coming the other direction (heading towards China)<br>It was a random journey... so we had a quiet night in Luang Prabang.. and bumped into Matt (2) who'd left the previous day<br><br>The next day was another day spent on a bus - an 8 hour bus ...

... poor job of keeping the whole map to one scale . It is off-scale by different amounts in different sections of the map. Lets just say this made a predicted 25min walk into a 45 minute scorcher. It must have been over 100 degrees with 80 percent humidity. Let's just say that Sarah and Hanan sweated more than 1.5 litres of water that they consumed on their walk out there. The place was beautifully golden , though the national assembly next ...

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