The 2-day boat trip from hell
Well, what can we say... the words, painful, disabling of the legs, sore bum and passive smoking all spring to mind. The 2 day slow boat to Luang Prabang is recommended by all the guide books as the "best way to travel to Luang Prabang and see Mekong river life".

The real truth is that 66 passengers were squashed into a boat which could comfortably fit 33 Westerners with much longer legs than their Lao counterparts. We then had to endure two 9-hour days with a pack of paraletic Swedes chainsmoking. Not a serene experience.

The best thing to come out of the trip were the friends that we made - Harriet and Ronan from Brighton and Chris and Rose from Cheshire. We went on to spend many entertaining nights with Harriet and Ronan all the way through to Vang Vieng. We hope to meet up with them in Cambodia and tour together.

On the first night of the 2 day boat trip from hell we stayed overnight in a small village called Pakbeng and Ronan pulled out his mosquito zapping tennis racket. This device is battery operated and delivers a high voltage charge to those pesky mozzies when swatted. Andrew wants one!! We also tried the local whisky Lao Lao, courtesy of a restaurant owner - quite heady stuff. That night was our first introduction to Lao beer. At 5% alcohol it was lighter than the Thai Chang beer and much easier to drink. It has become Andrew's favourite beer for the trip.

It was also in Pakbeng that we encountered the difficulties of a three currency nation - you can pay in Lao Kip, Thai Baht and US Dollar. We found it makes more sense to exchange Baht for Kip every few days as we were losing out to 'flexible' exchange rates at restaurants and hotels. A lesson learnt that we can use in the two currency nations of Vietnam and Cambodia.

Luang Prabang
An extraordinary beautiful city. It's no suprise it's a UNESCO World Heritage site. It's like taking a step back in time to the height of French colonialism. Pate baguettes sold on every street corner, wonderful little streets of French architecture, fantastic cakes and lovely candlelit restaurants playing Lao traditional music. And to top it all off, a glorious night market with millions of things to entice you to spend you dollar. It's somewhere we want to return when we're older (and richer!) and stay in one of the lovely mansions overlooking the Mekong River.

We loved Luang Prabang so much that we didn't bother with any of the day excursions out of the city as it was just great to wander around and take in the atmosphere. Early morning and sunset were the best times. Andrew got up at sunrise to see the monks receive their daily alms (receiving food from the locals), and at sunset you can listen to the monks chanting and afterwards chat with those wanting to practise their English.

We found a lovely restuarant called Indochina Spirit that played Lao music and served excellent cheap food. The only blight is the curfew here for hotels. You have to be in by 11 pm and restaurants generally close by 10.30 pm - so you have to get the drinks in early on!!

We succumbed to shopping fever at the night market. Four girls aged about 13 sold us a lovely duvet set for US $20 (see gallery for picture).

Vang Vieng
This is known as the adventure capital of Laos and we were expecting something like Pai in Thailand but it was not as pretty. But it was still quite spectacular with the karst mountains surrounding the river.

The food was quite bland as they seemed to cater too much for the burger/fries/pizza crowd. It's a place where you come to hangout, take dope/magic mushies and tube down the river. We found it a little quiet and slow for our liking.

We took a day trip which could have been done in half a day (lots of waiting around). The highlight of which was sitting in an inner tube and gliding through a cave submerged with water for 2km and back. A very special and unique experience. In the afternoon we kayaked back to the village.

We did a day of the ubiquitous tubing and topped up our tans. We spent 3.5 hours on the river and were pretty exhausted as its a very slow moving river, and you have to paddle with your arms a fair bit. But it was a nice way to spend a relaxing afternoon. We made one beer stop at a riverside bar playing 80's music and Zoe did an impromptu dance to "Agadoo"!! Andrew disowned her. When we got to the final rapids we were escorted by 5 children who jumped on our tubes (with us still in them) and took a free ride through the rapids and then they carried our tubes the final 500m to the end of the tubing section in the hope of some small change. Some people spent 5/6 hours on the river stopping at every bar, they were still coming in when it was dark. There are around 20 places you can stop for a beer and do some jumping from platforms and rope swings into the river.

On our final day we hired bikes and along with Ronan we pedalled to the countryside to a cave called Tham Phou Kham and its blue lagoon. The roads were very bumpy and it was a hot, sweaty ride. It was a very steep climb to the cave, but the inviting blue lagoon was very refreshing. The town of Vang Vieng is quite boring but the further away you go into the countryside the prettier it got.

Vientiane
A very small place for a capital city, easily walked around in an hour. The guide books recommend that 2 days are enough here and we think that they are correct as we have spent 3.5 days here. Plenty of Wats, gorgeous food once again but the highlight was the concrete Buddha Park. We had to catch a local bus 27km from the city to the park which was filled with Buddha statues - a photographers paradise (see the gallery - it's full of them).

We spent quite a bit of money on food here as we loved the a/c surroundings and newspapers of the Scandinavian bakery!! Real cheese for the first time in a long time. We spent Valentine's night drinking beer outside on the bank of the Mekong watching the world and his moped go past.

Food
Fruit shakes are so cheap here, less than 50 cents. Our faves are watermelon, pineapple and orange ones.

Indochina Spirit in Luang Prabang was the best restaurant and the food Zoe had - deep fried bamboo shoots stuffed with minced pork and served with sticky rice - was gorgeous.

Second fave restaurant was Taktenkham in Vang Vieng which had really nice and cheap yellow curries.

Bakeries galore and of course pate baguettes.

Landscape
Luang Prabang was stunning, the architecture and town planning was out of this world. Vang Vieng was more like the wild west in comparison. Vientiane is like a very quiet Paris.

People
Friendliest yet, always smiling and manners are impeccable. Really great with tourists.

Toilets
Fantastic, very clean. Rooms cleaned every day with new towels, toilet roll and even free drinking water in Vientiane. In Vang Vieng we had free hot drinking water so we got stuck into the Ovaltine at bedtime!

Health
Andrew had a cold for a couple of days in Luang Prabang, he probably got it from the 2 day boat trip from hell as there was a lot of coughing in a confined space. Pate made Zoe's stomach a bit squiffy. Very strong sun here, very easy to dehydrate. Temperatures permanently in the 30s.