The first thing I noticed about Laos was how underdeveloped it was and how poverty stricken it is. The people of Laos do not seem to be used to tourists and can cone across quite rude, I think this is partly due to cultural differences but I also think that some of those that work in the tourist industry don't do so because they enjoy it but because they need to put food on the table and with a lack of well paying jobs in Laos, they maybe have no choice but to interact with tourists taking over their towns and cities.
Anyway my first stop which was Luang Prabang was a very small town, with your usual markets and street food. The best thing to do in Luang Prabang is visit this beautiful waterfall. The water was so blue and you can swim in it which is cool. Two days was enough in Luang Prabang, so next stop was backpacker central Vang Vieng. In Vang Vieng they have Friends cafes where they play episodes of Friends all day long which I very much enjoyed going to. Vang Vieng is pretty much all about the drinking and nightlife so had a couple of really fun nights out. I also did the tubing down the Mekong river, stopping of at two bars along the way (there used to be about ten bars open for this tubing activity but a lot of tourists actually died from drowning after drinking too much.) It was during this activity that my phone drowned (luckily it was the phone and not me!!) for some reason I decided to take my phone in the river i don't know why. This is explains the lack of pictures going up as I was using my phone as a camera so have a bit of a gap in pictures unfortunately. After a fun couple of days in Vang Vieng it was time to head to the capital city of Vientiane. To be honest I didn't do anything with my two days here, was feeling a bit ill and it wasn't a great place at all, not much to do and lots of things closed especially at the weekends. I had some nice dinners, some really tasty Indian food and on my second night Pizza 🍕 So Vientiane was just a stop over for me, to prepare myself for the sleeper bus down to the south of Laos. The sleeper bus was pretty much the most awful thing ever. You have to share a ridiculously uncomfortable single bed with a stranger for the entire journey. No option to sit up on a chair or anything. I couldn't sleep at all because I had about 50cm room and the roads were way too bumpy. Never again. I arrived into Pakse which was the town where you can travel to the 4000 islands from. Thank goodness I treated myself to a hotel in Pakse with amazing air con, my own room, bathroom, everything. Not much to do in Pakse but I had a good walk around and I also met up with my friend who I was travelling down to the islands with. The 4000 islands are scattered across the Mekong river, we went to don det island which caters for backpackers. Our accomodation was a little bungalow, which looked very nice but it was almost too hot to breath, we coped for two nights before having to move to a room with air con (and no cockroaches). Don det is by far the hottest place I've been to so for some reason we decided to do a bike ride in the midday heat. It's fair to say I nearly passed out but we made it down to a beach on a separate island for a nice swim. There is a little bit of nightlife on don det, mainly for Bob Marley wannabes... But was still fun to head out to one of the three bars on the island. We also took a tour of the waterfalls and a boat trip to see the rare breed of dolphins that live on the Mekong. Our 'tuk tuk' was actually a motorbike with a tiny side car but we still managed to get the three of us on there, I was slightly scared for my life. Don det was fun for a few days but the heat was too much so we were very ready to get into Cambodia. We managed the boarder crossing on foot, after the hearing the horror stories we didn't know if we'd make it but it was ok, only had to pay an extra $2 on top of the visa which was defo going straight into the guards pocket. Feeling very happy to be in Cambodia, loving Siem Reap already!
J x
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