Entry No. 9 By Clare

Day 83, We left for Na Hin early by bus, we had to catch two buses to the nearest bus stop from the town and we luckily got a free lift from there (40km from the town) by a man who had a guest house. We politely stayed as he had been kind and also stopped at a beautiful view point of the mountains on the way too. We found a small market, lots of empty guest house's and not much else. We found the tourist info, all the trips they arrange seemed to be very pricey. We decided we would sleep on it and think about it tomorrow. We deciding the following day to visit a waterfall, 3km walk each way through the jungle, we swam and it was very peaceful with no other people there. We left Na Hin the following day. The guest house tried to charge us 50,000kip for our 'free' lift but we refused. We arrived in Vientiane after about 6 hours by bus. It was really touristy and quite expensive. We spent $10 on a room but it was quite nice, really clean but no TV and shared bathroom. In the evening we just went for a little explore and a drink. We walked out to the market, its really really big and sell everything you can image. We found a locals restaurant which is veggie and for 20,000kip you can get all the veggie food you can image, amazing. We went to a book exchange and got a really good deal of $5 per book so we walked away about $13 dollars richer and 2 new books. We went to the stadium and found a girls football match about to begin so we stayed and watched. They had linesman and everything, took it really seriously. The stretcher was used 7 times. The end score was 11-0. In the evening we went to an English pub and watched the Man U-Blackburn match. We visited the National History Museum, it wasn't so interesting. We went to the famous Arc afterward and got some beautiful photo's over Vientiane. I send another bundle of postcards also. We found a really crappy bowling alley and the lane was really uneven. Needless to say we both did really badly, the winning score about 70 points. We also played pool at the bowling alley. We had to sort out our Thai visas on Monday morning, this took about 2-3 hours waiting and just spent the rest of the day reading and playing cards. We had to go back the next day to collect our visas which took equally as long. Later we went along the riverfront visiting local shops, seeing lots of people selling fabrics and handicrafts. We left for Vang Vieng the next morning. The bus took about 8 hours. When we arrived in took a while to find a cheap room but we got one for 30,00kip (under $4) and went out for some drinks. Vang Vieng is full of bars and restaurants. We ended up having quite a lot to drink and I
went to bed very early. Josh went out for dinner in a restaurant nearby that plays family guy all day. The following day we went tubing. I felt pretty bad so didn't drink too much all day. (Tubing is when you are given a doughnut ring and float down the river for about 6km being pulled in by bars along the way. lots of spray paint, loud music, water slides and swings). It was really fun, we met lots of cool people, you have to finish by 6pm to get a deposit back so we just went to a local bar after. We did miss the 6pm deadline by ten minutes also. The next day we relaxed by the riverfront most of the day, reading and paddling. We booked a day trip for tomorrow too. We went for a day trip to a local cave first which we went tubing through it in a group of about 15 people about 15km from town, then had a really nice lunch of vegetable kebabs and rice. After we drove to the riverfront and went kayaking for the afternoon about 10km. We stopped half way at one of the tubing bars for a drink and some people went on the slides etc, it was a really fun day and Josh and I were the fastest kayaks by a mile. We went tubing again for our second time the next day. This time was much better for both of us. We went by tuk-tuk with a group and mainly stayed with them for the day. We played mud volleyball, went to some really cool bars and got back by 6pm this time. We went out after for a few more drinks and dinner after. The next morning I woke up early to get Josh and I bus tickets to Luang Prabang for that morning. We left at 10am and its only just over 200km distance but it took over 8 hours because the road are in such bad condition, you just travel on the edge of the mountains most of the time and the air-con didn't work so it was really hot. We found a room after about an hour of looking around, everywhere is really expensive, $30+. We managed to find a Twin-bedded room for $10 which was good enough. We went out for an explore and looked around the market, its really nice handicrafts, fabrics, jewellery, clothing and foods. It got to around 10.30pm and everything had closed. We later found out that its illegal not be within the property you live in after 12am for locals and they get heavily fined for having bars etc open later. We went back to our room then after.