The Border Crossing
We had yet another simple border crossing, this time between Thailand and Laos. As soon as we got over to the Laos side we booked onto a slow boat to take us to Luang Prabang – two days boat travel away. The boat trip itself was not the most interesting of journeys (and certainly not the most comfortable!) and for most of it we either had our heads buried in books or we listened to music; so we don’t have much to report for the first two days in Laos!

Luang Prabang
For the first couple of days we just relaxed and got used to a new currency, we only really did anything of interest on our last day there. We booked a tuk-tuk to take us to Kuang Si Waterfall and then on to a H’Mong village afterwards.

The Waterfall was really beautiful and we would have had a lot more time to enjoy it if we didn’t walk to the top of the damn thing looking for ‘a nice place for swimming with a cave that goes 10m back behind the falls’ – this didn’t exist or if it did it was perfectly hidden! We did get some nice views from the top in all fairness though so it wasn’t time wasted. Once we got back to the bottom of the falls we found a few pools perfect for swimming (with trees and waterfalls to hurl yourself off too!!) and spent the rest of our time freezing in them.

The H’Mong village was really quite strange, there were about 100 children and about 5 adults, not an even balance but we assumed the kids were there as less people can say no to a bracelet being sold by a tiny child who clearly needed the money – they were all really friendly though and loved posing for the camera so they could see themselves on the back, very cute.

Vang Vieng
After a long and very winding (but comfortable as we had a really nice minibus for a change) journey we arrived in Vang Vieng. We only had one plan for this place and that was to go tubing down the river; basically you sit in an inflated tractor inner tube and float from bar to bar down the river back into the town centre.

Needless to say the tubing was fantastic, it’s quite surreal floating down a river, stopping for a beer at every bar you pass and jumping off rope swings and zip lines. Luckily we didn’t get too drunk so managed to keep hold of the rope swings long enough to drop into the middle of the river, not everyone had the same fortune! Hopefully the videos we uploaded work as we didn’t take too many pictures (can you imagine trying to not fall through a tube whilst holding my beautiful camera?? We took Jon’s instead!!). As we said the day was fantastic although we did set off a little late and stopped in most of the bars, and so when we eventually floated back into town it was pitch black and very cold, all good fun though, especially when Jon floated through a huge swarm of flies, I suppose that’s what you get when you go down a river drunk and backwards!!!

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The following day we decided to get some exercise and cycle to a blue lagoon, a supposed 7km out of town. It certainly felt like a lot longer cycling on pathetic excuses for bikes (with stupid baskets on the front?!) during the heat of the day on a rock filled dirt track. No surprises that the journey got a little tense, so much so I point blank refused to get back on the damn bike and demanded to get a tuk-tuk back to the town after we had gone swimming! The lagoon, when we eventually got there, was fantastic but as it had taken us so long to get there we could only stay for an hour, this was long enough though as the water was truly freezing and after a couple of jumps off the rope swing we were feeling refreshed. Against my better judgement (plus we had found a tuk-tuk willing to take us to town for $4…) I got back on the bike and surprisingly the journey back took no time at all and it was lots of fun, especially trying to have conversations with village folk!

Vientiane
Our first day in Vientiane was quite a shock as we had pictured it as some picturesque colonial town when in fact it is just another an ugly Asian capital, ah well. The only slightly interesting part of our first day was that we were the first customers in a new restaurant, how often does that happen? And the added bonus was that we got free red wine and chocolate brownie which is always nice! (So nice in fact we left a tip for the first time in 9 months, how generous are we?!)

The following day we decided to go and see some of the sights on offer, namely Pha That Luang and Talat Sao Market. We arrived at That Luang and the first thing we got confronted with was some scam trying to get $2 out of you for taking photos, needless to say we ignored these ‘attendants’ and carried on through to the main attraction. When we got to the gates we then found out all women had to wear a traditional Lao skirt (and you could hire one for a fee obviously) – scam after scam… When we finally got inside all of the gates were locked so you couldn’t actually go in properly but we got a few snaps from outside. Not the most rewarding of experiences!!!

The market was fun to wander around for a while but it was just an ordinary fruit and vegetable market so there’s not much more to say on that one!

The one thing that saved Vientiane from being a completely boring experience was a restaurant called sticky fingers run by some Australians, they do the best sausage and mash we have had since Jon last cooked it, and even then it may have bordered on better than his!

Savannakhet
Before we got here the Lonely Planet Guidebook (my how we hate that thing) made this place sound quite nice, waterfalls near by, free bicycles from your guesthouse and a sacred forest to wander through, only when we arrived there were not free bikes, tuk-tuks charged a fortune to go to the waterfalls, motorbike rent charges were ridiculous and the tour office where you can book to go to the sacred forest tour was shut for two days. We left the next morning; it was not looking good for Southern Laos…

Sekong
After an 11 hour bus journey (which was meant to be 6) we arrived into Sekong, a town that is described as a ‘local experience’. It certainly was, no-one spoke English and when we tried to speak Laos they would just stare, there were two bad restaurants, no-one rents bikes or motorbikes to Falang (us) and you cant book on a tour as no-one understands you! After we got passed these small problems we decided to go on a wander around the town, it certainly was nice in parts and it seemed completely deserted in others, very odd. Occasionally someone said hello but mainly people just pointed or stared, we became the tourist attraction! The South was looking worse and worse…

Pakse
Getting to Pakse was extremely easy and pain free considering how many different times the bus was expected by the locals; every person we asked, admittedly mainly in sign language, gave a different time and so eventually we got out the Bible a.k.a. the guidebook and figured it out ourselves! A short 3 hour bus journey later and we got into Pakse. There isn’t actually anything to do in Pakse, it is more of a gateway into other remote areas, knowing this we booked on a tour for the following day and got through our ever increasing to-do list!

Tour of Bolaven Plateau
Our grand tour of the Bolaven Plateau started in a Tea and Coffee Plantation, the tea section wasn’t much compared to the ones we saw back in Sri Lanka and India but it was the first time we had seen coffee trees and berries (the berries are quite tasty to chew on as they have a nice jelly bit around the bean!).

Next on our tour was a stop at one of the most impressive waterfalls in Laos, Tat Fan. You can’t actually get near the falls themselves as they flow over a rather steep cliff face surrounded by jungle, an impressive sight. Another waterfall followed called Tat Luang, you can actually get closer to this one (the spray from the falls was not so good for my poor lens though!) and we had chance to sit down, paddle and relax at the top which was really nice.

After a brief lunch stop close to the waterfall we stopped in a Katu ‘Smoking’ Village, this place was quite bizarre firstly as there were about 50 children and only about 5 adults and secondly because the small children smoked big bamboo pipes filled with their own freshly grown tobacco, obviously they like to start them smoking at an early age over this side of the world!

Tat Lo was our final destination for the day and we had opted to stay overnight here and make our own way back to the guesthouse the following day. I think as we had already seen two large waterfalls that day we were a little waterfalled out, and very tired, so we just wandered around the village for a while and had an early night!

The following morning we awoke to the sights of a piglet being gutted in the river outside our hut which kept us entertained for a few minutes and then we decided to go and have another look at the waterfall nearby. We didn’t stick around too long as we had a bus to catch to see yet another waterfall nearer to Pakse, so we jumped on the back of a motorbike to the bus stop 2km up the road (it was very hot, but yes, we are lazy…).

Paxuam Waterfall was to be the last stop before we got back into Pakse, and it turned out to be a brief stop at that. We arrived after reading great things about this place, impressive tree-houses, tribal villages, nice waterfall etc. Unfortunately as there was no large Thai tour based there at the time, the villagers were all elsewhere and there was only one tree-house which was surrounded by little bungalows! The waterfall was nice but I think we had seen too many in the past two days and so we jumped back on a bus to Pakse and were back in no time.

Don Det (Four Thousand Islands)
Due to the fact that Don Det only has electricity from 6pm to about 10pm our options were quite limited here! We were staying on the quieter side of the island and getting back to our guesthouse in one piece was highly unlikely in the dark!

We were here on the island for about 10 days, and out of those 10 days only about 3 were spent doing any sightseeing! We mainly sat in our hammocks reading books and drinking whiskey, not a bad lifestyle really…

While we were there it was the main harvest time for rice and so as you can imagine, walking around and taking a few snaps took up most of our spare time! We did make it to a waterfall but it was more like a giant set of rapids. Sorry there isn’t more to say for this place but all you need to know is that it was extremely relaxing and we had a great time walking through the rice paddies!