Laos Laos LAOS

Well we almost reached the lazy and over the blogging stage and I thought NO we will carry on.

So a little catch up of our recent adventures which have being long, tiresome, hard but at the same time amazingly refreshing and a eye opener!

We crossed over to Laos By stopping at Chiang Rai and crashing the night in a cheap as guest house that was the colour of grass, josh treated himself to a few drinks with some new found mates and I had one or two but my headache situation had not improved at this stage so bed and family guy seemed the best option for myself, we woke refreshed the next morning (well i did) and grabbed a bus to the Chong Kong border crossing, this was a two hour trip and we both felt sick the whole time due to a lovely young lady in front who had decided to go all natural and her leg hairs were as long as joshs head hair and her arm hair was the length of my head hair  and it was black as a cat(slight exageration) I did not understand as good on you if your the feminist type whatever floats your boat but this girl had makeup on and clearly took  pride in her appearance elsewhere...This was seriously a good 6 months worth of backpacking and been to tightarse to puchase a 5 cent razor!

Back to laos, we crossed the river on a five minute boat trip and "Hello Laos" we had every intention to crash the night here and then catch a public bus to Luang Probang and then got suckered in by the all convincing commission workeres that we should get the "VIP" bus now which leaves at 5pm and arrives at 4am in the morning, our logic for the slightly high prices was that we would not have to pay for accommodation and our travelling is organised so we go ahead. THIS WAS THE TRIP FROM HELL many would say it was an experience and I will argue this! Everything about this trip was awful from the:
Fact our knees wouldnt fit in the seat and we have brusing from them being pressed into the seat infront
The bastards who put there seats down in front so we had less room and my knees were actually up in the air
The 40km/hour speed limit the bus seems to follow
The stopping every 30mins in the middle of nowhere to do god knows what
and I wont bore you with every detail but worst off the fact that it was not a 11 hour trip BUT a 18 hour trip...We have heard that Laos roads are terrible(mainly due to the fact that they are a bumpy dirt track more then a road) but this was awful.

We arrived quite disgruntled into Luang Probang and went straight to a guest house to shower and freshen up, eat and stretch our legs, it took about a day to get over our anger and soreness and by then we had come to love this tiny place. It is oh so charming with french Villas at every turn the amazing array of foods and beautiful night markets that have lantins lighting the way and i purchased a very special gift for myself which I have wrapped expertly in half my clothing to avoid breakage! Here we took a visit to amazing waterfalls where we swam and Josh swung from ropes on trees to land in the emerald waters and while swimming you cringed at the little fish you could feel biting your feet and legs, we also witnessed some black bears at the adoption centre which kept me happy:)

 We chilled out pretty much just eating and takin in this amazing place and meeting fellow travellers to discuss travelling stuff, until after 4 nights we decided we best head onwards, those who know Laos one big highlight is tubing in Veng Vieng ( you hire a tube get dropped so many km up stream and float down while bars throw ropes to you along the way pull you in and sell you an assortment of alcohol, weed and mushroom skakes and you float all the way back down and have yourself a lovely day) we actually passed this up as not only was it too time consuming but deaths happen often and we spoke to a few people who had either being present or had family present when death had occurred to friends or people they had met that day by drowning from a concoction of all things above and some just plain bad luck, obviously its wet season as this river flows fast and strong. So we travelled onwards, yes on another bus though this one was actually VIP and they stopped for food and we had plently of room, it still took 2 hours longer but you just come to expect this here, in Laos they really dont rush and that brings us to now in Vientiane pronounced wieng chan, we found super accommodation for 80 000 kip a night ($13) and decided to book another night as it includes breaky and we actually like the look of this capital city, so today ( its only early morning still) we will see a few temples...maybe:) and check out what this place has to offer.

I had all these things I wanted to right in this blog but as I let too much time slip past unfortunatley I have forgotten it all so I'll just say instead  the food is amazing here, indian, french, thai and lao is the main cuisine you find at every turn and last night I was so full from eating the best Indian ever! 

The country is one of the poorest you will go to in Asia and the people are still so friendly and happy with their simple lives that it honetly makes you feel like the most selfish person in the world, the streets are dotted with temples, french villa's and monks dressed in orange robes holding umbrellas to avoid the extreme sun walk the streets that are lined with monastry walls covered in moss add a magical ambiance to the country, the jungle is so think it takes you straight back to a movie like predator, you cant tell apart one tree from another!

85% locals live in villages and it makes you smile as you drive past these bamboo huts with no electricity or if they have electricity you see 30 village locals crowded around the one TV on the side of the road. I would defiantly reccomend seeing this amazing place though be prepared as it is still only new to tourism so everything is slow and long but in the end its defiantly worth it:)

Will keep you up to date

Nat and josh x