Laos!

Hey everyone!

So we arrived in Laos after a looong 16 hour journey. The minibus was meant for 12 passengers, but they decided it would be more cost-efficient to try and fit 13 people in, which meant this poor english guy was stuck in the middle at the front with literally no legroom for the whole journey, because he was being a "gentleman" and offered to switch places with a French girl moaning! So after that experience me and Sarah have decided never to get on an overnight minibus again, and we'll be travelling by sleeper trains or planes from now on!

Once we finally arrived in Laos, we checked into the first hotel we could find, which turned out to be the dirtiest too, but for only 1.50 pounds a night we thought we'd try it, and headed down to the river to check out the tubing. For those of you who don't know what tubing is, it's basically a bunch of young travellers sitting in rubber tubes to go down a river, and stopping at various bars along the way to get rather wasted! The first day we got here, we swam down it instead of getting tubes (as it was already pretty late and they fine you if you give the tubes back after 6) but yesterday we did it properly and hired tubes for the day. The atmosphere was awesome, it's all so chilled out and everyone's so friendly. They have swings, slides and zip wires at each bar, and although there have been a few horror stories of various health and safety issues, after quite a lot of dutch courage and peer pressure everyone had a go at them!

The partying then continues on into the night around the bars in Vang Vieng, then people are up around lunch time the next day to do it all again!

I always hear stories of people meeting other people travelling who they know from back home, and randomly that happened to me yesterday!! I was in one of the bars down the river when I bumped in to a Senior Physio who I was on placement with at one of the hospitals in Birmingham last December, who was also with one of the other physios from that hospital! So we spent most of the day and evening with them and they're off to Cambodia today.

We decided to stay here an extra day than planned as we're enjoying it all so much, although it means I am literally getting eaten alive by mosquitos! They all seem to love me no matter how much repellent I use. But we will be leaving tomorrow to get a sleeper train to Bangkok, and then down to some beaches in Pattaya. Those who have me on facebook, I'm currently uploading a few photos from Thailand so far, so you can check those out, otherwise I'll see if I can put some up on here.

Anna xxx