We've passed the halfway point of our trip. April 20th was our 50th day on the road. To celebrate, we took a vacation from our holiday and headed down to Vang Vieng for a few days.

My first impression of Vang Vieng wasn't great. We got dropped off on a hot dusty road, with plenty of construction going on. What a dump, I thought. The first hotel we stayed in wasn't great either. It was a bit out of town, but we could hear music blasting until 1 AM - it was the monks at the local temple still celebrating the new year.

We moved onto the wonderful Malany Guesthouse - a great place to stay. Big rooms, big beds, big balconies, and great views of the town, and of the crazy airstrip built by the US Airforce years ago.

In Vang Vieng, we went caving, cycling, and tubing down the river. A lot of drinking Beerlao, hanging out, and watching DVDs. A perfect break from the travel we've been doing.

Next is a two day slow-boat to Huayxai. It'll be the third boat trip on our journey.

Photos of Pii Mai, Lao New Year, festivities. Happy 2549 on the Buddhist calendar.

A huge party took place on a sandbank on the far side of the Mekong river. Dozens of boats ferried thousands of people to the event.


Back in town, people were cruising the streets of Luang Prabang.


Being splashed by water by someone is considered to be a new years blessing. The water wars were great fun to watch and participate in.


It's not only water that's used, but also red dye, tapioca starch, and some kind of black greasy stuff.


The usually mellow locals start drinking beer in the morning and party on all day. Dancing, drinking, and splashing.


The ultimate party vehicle. This car has been around longer than any of the guys in it. It fell apart years ago, but it's still sort of working.


Sorry no photos of me in this set. I'm just not photogenic enough to make the cut. Will try to get a decent picture of myself and post it up soon. Sabaidee Pii Mai Lao.

Finally a post that lives up to this blogs name. Where to head next?

The usual route for backpackers is to head down to Vang Vieng, then onto Vientienne and the Thai border. Others head out to the Plain of Jars, and hit the south of the country en route to Vietnam or Cambodia. We're doing something different.

Our plan is to head south to Vang Vieng - we've heard to many good things about this place not to check it out. But then we'll backtrack right back to Luang Prabang, and hop on a boat to Huayxai in the Northwest of the country. We've heard about a cool eco-tourism project where you spend a couple of nights in a treehouse up in the canopy of a forest preserve. It sounds too cool to miss out. From there we will cross into Thailand, and head towards Chiang Mai.

In the last couple of weeks the plan was changing everyday, but now we're ready to commit to this route. The neat thing is that apart from the detour to Vang Vieng, we are pretty much following the route we planned out in Japan.

More pictures will be up soon. I'll be sure to include one of myself. Happy Lao New Year.

We told you about the hobbitses, now see for yourselves. These guys do love their beer, and they even have hairy feet. Very nice folk from the Shire.

Here's some photos of Lunag Prabang, a World Heritage city. They include the wat (temple) at the former royal palace:


We also visited some artists who were making paper made from mulberry trees:


Buddhist new year is in a few days, and one of these girls will be crowned Miss Pii Mai Lao and lead the parade in town:


The people celebrate new years here by having a big waterfight. The kids have started early, and we've come back to the guesthouse totally soaked for the past few days:

Mmm, Beer Lao. The tastiest beer in Asia. 8,000 kip for a big bottle. That's 80 US cents. The locals don't mind plopping a couple of ice cubes in to keep it cool, but we have sourced the coldest fridges in Luang Prabang.

We picked the hottest time to travel in SE Asia. Today in Luang Prabang it was sunny and the temperature went up to 40 degrees celcius - that's 104 fahrenheit. The forecast is for more of the same. The evenings are a comfortable 22 celcius, and the occassional shower is a welcome, but temporary relief.

Nobody rushes around here, nobody wears a jacket or tie. Sleeping under a tree is the favoured post-lunch activity. We got it, made in the shade.

Next week is Pii Mai, Buddhist new year, and people celebrate by getting into a huge 3 day water fight. It's already starting, and we've been soaked with waterguns by kids. I'll have to get me a super-soaker to defend myself.

And now we find ourselves in Luang Prabang. After 5 days in the glorious beauty of Luang Nam Tha, kayaking through nature preserves, going for herbal saunas and traditional massages, and enjoying Beerlao (did I mention that it's the best beer in Asia?) we have arrived in the prettiest city in SE Asia.

Buddhist new year celebrations begin soon, and we'll be celebrating them here. Photos and updates soon.

An update from Hania:

In Kunming, China, we met up with the Hobbits, Ben and Mike, two guys we met on the ferry from Japan and who we saw again in Yangshuo. They actually resembled Sam and Frodo from the Lord of the Rings movies, especially when they were carrying backpacks, so the nickname stuck. We all considered going to Dali and Lijiang, two towns deep in Yunnan province, but we were all pretty tired of long bus rides and Chinese trains. In the end, the decision was unanimous, to cross over into Laos.

We bought bus tickets, (our dislike of busses temporarily dissolved) then hung out in Kunming for the day. We wandered around a neighbourhood full of foreign students, bookshops, small boutiques and cafes, and sipped our coffees from a balcony overlooking the whole scene. The weather was hot and beautiful, so after our break we went to Green Lake park and watched ducklings swimming in the ponds and listened to the bamboo creak and sway overhead while we enjoyed some of our last Chinese beer.

The next afternoon, we boarded the 4:30 bus; an altogether different story. The first thing we had to do was confirm that the bus was going to drop us off in Luang Nam Tha. Nope: the ticket seller had charged us the full cost of a trip to Luang Prabang, but the bus would only pass within 65km of Nam Tha. No big deal about the price, but the communication with the driver was a little difficult.

The sleeper bus was crammed full of neon green sheets, blankets and pillows: passengers like giant catterpillars lying in their bunks. No toilet on the bus but smoking was allowed. The ride went a little like this: take a Gravol to prevent motion sickness... driver leaning on the horn to blast away oncoming traffic... sleep... can't sleep... too hot... too cold... air too smoky... bumpy road... toilet stop (side of the highway)... more Gravol... sleep... noise... smoke... ugh...

Even still, the first few hours were OK. Sometime in the night I woke up to feel the bus lurching around on some bad roads. They kept getting worse, and our express bus slowed to a crawl in places. We expected to arrive at the border in the early morning, but time kept ticking by. We started getting nervous: where was the bus going? There were even moments when the driver didn't seem so sure, backtracking a couple of times, and unsuccessful in two attempts to buy gas. Great, we'll be stranded in the Chinese countryside. Around noon we reached Mengla, a border town where we stopped for lunch and communicated that we wanted to be let off at the first town in Laos. Success.

We made it and Pete negotiated a trip into Luang Nam Tha for us, the Hobbits and a Japanese guy named Jun. The driver wanted $20 US - ridiculous, but he was the only guy that would take us there. Pete tried to lower the price, but the guy wouldn't budge. OK, so we got in the back of the truck (yes, sometimes the local bus is the back of a truck), but the highway was closed for two hours for construction. So we took the opportunity to try the fabled Beer Lao, and were not disappointed. We sat in a roadside restaurant surrounded by bougainvillea and squawking roosters.

The ride to Luang Nam Tha on an open bus was cool: we had to stop for dynamite blasting on the road ahead, so we marvelled at the countryside and took photos of our first Lao sunset.

Our 65km trip seemed rather long after an hour and a half, and when night fell, we started to feel the same kind of worries as we had on the Chinese bus, perhaps more acute. We were in the middle of rice paddies. Nothing else around. Was the driver taking us to Luang Nam Tha? Where would we spend the night if we got stranded? Were we being taken out to the middle of nowhere to be robbed? Every light in the distance signaled hope that we were on the right road, hope that faded along with the lights of dimly lit homes. Then at last, a signpost, and in the distance, Laung Nam Tha. Two hours after our ride from the border began, the not so bright lights of the provincial capital of appeared.

We pulled up to a guesthouse, checked out the room, did not argue, and took our bags upstairs for a much needed shower and rest.

We knew that getting to Lao would be hard, yet here we are, alive, glowing and loving it. More tales from the trip to come...

I anticipated that the hardest part of the journey would be crossing from China into Laos. The border crossing wasn't as difficult as I expected it to be, but the journey was a long haul.

The next post is Hania's account of the adventure. Enjoy.

Questions about Comments. People have been writing to say that they have been unable to leave comments on the blog. I have fixed the settings so that anyone can post their thoughts without going through the process of becoming a registered user. Just choose the "other" option and type away.

Sorry for the delay, but all the computers I used in China had chinese operating systems. Here in Laos, it's an english OS and I can even see the blog. Hurray!

So please send us a note; we have enjoyed reading your feedback.