Laos...

Last Sunday, me and Clare jumped on a flight (flight no. 21 of our travels, we seriously need to plant a whole forest when we get home!) to Laos. As my old buddy Grifter corrected me long ago, this country is pronounced Lao, not 'louse'. Pronunciations aside, we arrived in Luang Prabang in the north of the country, and after the usual immigration business, we were on a tuk-tuk bound for the 'city' centre, with our new buddy Natalia, a Ukrainian doctor from London.

Luang Prabang (LP) is a seriously chilled-out place. One of the larger 'cities' in Laos, and the former capital, LP is home to a mere 26,000 people, most of which don't want to sell you anything or try to blag money off you in a host of other ways, unlike it's neighbouring countries! The city is now UNESCO-protected, meaning no nasty high-rise eyesores blotting out the lovely French colonial architecture preserved here, and sits on the banks of the mighty Mekong River.

We spent a few days wandering around the craft markets, looking round old temples, drinking Beerlao (the local brew and very drinkable) and meeting a host of new people, including Erno. Erno is a 60-year-old Hungarian, who fancies himself as some kind of aging troubadour, serenading Natalia and referring to her as 'Chang Noi', which is Thai for 'little elephant'. Charming, and very amusing to the locals.

One evening, we sampled a spot of nightclubbing, Laos style. Loads of Thai pop, a smattering of techno, and lots of very drunken Lao kids dancing the night away, off their faces after about 2 beers. Come 11:30 however, the music is switched off and we're all ushered outside - early finishes are the law here! However, the locals have a solution - late night bowling and more beers!!

After a few days in LP, we jumped on a bus to Vientiane, capital of Laos. The 9 hour journey took us past overturned lorries on precarious mountain passes, past enormous jungle-covered mountains, through mountain villages and rice paddies, and eventually to the capital.

Vientiane is not a capital city as you'd imagine it to be, and certainly like no other Asian capital city. It's definitely not a smoky metropolis, with a mere 200,000 people and barely enough cars on the road to justify the wide boulevards running through the city. There's also hardly any buildings over 5 storeys high. But for these reasons, and others, I love the place. There's loads to see here, like Patuxai, the Lao equivalent of the Arc de Triomphe, built in the 1960's with concrete sent from America to build an airport, and Pha That Luang, a giant golden national monument, that resembles some kind of bling-bling rocket launcher when viewed from afar.

We've spent the last few days here with Natalia and Marcel, a Swiss traveller who Natalia met back in Thailand. It was Marcel's 30th birthday on Friday, so in true British style, we took him out and got him exceptionally drunk.

Today we leave Laos, taking the overnight sleeper train back to Bangkok. I think we're both sorry to be leaving here, it's such a beautiful, laid-back country filled with some fantastic people and great scenery.

More from Thailand, and some long-promised photos!

-Si