Vientiane

28-29/04/2017

This was kind of an odd city. It's the capital of Laos so it's pretty big, and sits right on the bank of the Mekong and there are some things to see but we didn't really like the city that much. We braved the chaos of the local bus and went a few kms out of the city to see the Buddha Park, which was a park, full of Buddhas.

Buddhas in a park.

And we also went to a really interesting UXO (unexploded ordinance) Museum and did some learning about mines and cluster bombs, and also we visited the Laos version of the Arc de Triomph - a concrete construction that manages to be both hideous and majestic.

Ew.

 I wasn't feeling all that great at this part of the trip which possibly affected my attitude towards the place. Maybe some kind of reaction from the disgusting amount of insect bites or the river water I accidentally swallowed or beer I purposefully drank. Who knows.

We left on the 'King of Bus'' to Pakse. I think it was a 13 hour trip - we were on a night bus and I wasn't expecting to sleep much so I made sure I downloaded some podcasts and had something to read - all of which was made redundant as I pretty much passed out as soon as we got going; turns out I bloody love the sleeper bus.

GOOD LUCK???? WHY DO I NEED LUCK?!?!

Prize for worst meal of the trip goes to the bus

Pakse was pretty small but we loved it for the temple ruins we visited nearby, and we used it as a base for the two day scooter odyssey we took to the Bolivan Plateau where we met some lovely Americans and also played in lots of waterfalls and managed to navigate the awful roads without any disasters.
It was on this trip that I realised that I hate going fast on a scooter. I literally am happier skiing at a faster pace than the 45kph that I averaged on the road... but our brief experience on a dirt track convinced me that I would be an ace dirtbike rider as my perfect balance and engine control are really second to none.

Pakse sunset

Idiots looking at some water

Very safe walkway. Tad Lo waterfall

Look at that idiot

Highlights of this little trip was swimming at the top of the waterfall, unexpected elephant friends, and new human friends :D

Vang Vieng

25-27/04/2017

This place certainly lived up to its drunken reputation. My actual physical notes during this time are sparse.

Bus to Vang Vieng. Blackout. Hangover.

We stayed in a grown up hostel - which means it was out of town a little bit and there was no free whiskey on the tables every night. It possibly was the best decision made so far judging by other peoples stories. (We were at Keosimoon Guesthouse - nice view, lovely owners who bought a mosquito net for us and there was also a puppy)
On our first day we located Gary's Irish Bar, lovely staff, excellent pool table, highly rated. Here we bumped into some people that were staying in the same guesthouse as us, and thus began a night of drinking, talking shit, avoiding the dance floor and finally that one last regretful beer at 5am.
The next day we found a super chilled out bar on the river in which to allow our aging and sweaty bodies to recover. We took it easy to prepare for the tubing.

Tubing.

This experience was 50% awesome, 10% lost property, 20% atrocious and the rest I don't remember. You basically hire a tube, get a ride in a tuk tuk upriver and then just float along drinking your pre bought beer and also stopping in the bars to drink more and play games and get more wasted and sunburned. I managed to capsize and lost both my sunglasses and my dignity.

Basketball! Table tennis! VERY SLIPPERY SURFACE!!!

We spent maybe a bit too long in one bar, tried to continue tubing down the river with a bunch of English people we didn't know and then things got a bit rubbish. It got dark very rapidly so as soon as we saw a tuk tuk on the shore we all headed for it, apart from some people that got stuck in the middle of the river who started panicking. At this point Babs and I were in full drunken mama bear mode and so we gracefully went out to save them and did it successfully without losing our flipflops (bonus). We piled in to the tuk tuk, argued at length with the driver, finally left only to get stuck in the sand so we all piled out again to push... Finally got on the road only for a fight to break out among the tedious English meatheads that escalated to the police getting called.... at this point we bailed out the side of the truck, took our tubes off the roof and walked 2km back to town.

My favourite part of the whole experience was that during the whole time this hoard of idiots were trying to get out the river, shouting at each other and pushing the truck out of the sand, there was a candle lit table full of bemused and possibly scared Asian tourists watching the whole thing while they tried to enjoy their expensive dinner on the banks of the Mekong. Poor sods.

When I woke up in the morning I felt pretty sick... Totally down to the river water and not my good friend BeerLao. I was also covered in at least 100 insect bites that itched for a week.
We took a bus to Vientiane the next day. Fortunately our hangovers were less severe, but I have to admit I was wobbly.