Well, I left Luang Prabang on my own and headed to Vang Vieng on the government bus. I was there far to long. It was OK but as I'm pushed for time I wish I had moved on sooner.

Bus journey was ok. I got the cheap governemnt bus which has been a target for terrorsits in recent years. Luckily we had a guy with an AK47 sitting in our bus in case anyone tried anything. It was strange to see someone carrying a gun but not wearing a uniform. I said this to some french girls I was next to on the bus and they had never even seen anyone carry a gun before so it was really strange for them.

The bus took about 5 or 6 hours and arrived soon after dark. I didn't have a clue about Vang Vieng so the french girls from the bus took me to their guest house as they had been there before. After getting settled at the guest house we headed out for dinner and afew drinks and I got my first good look at the place.

I expected it would be biger than Luang Prabang but I was wrong. It much smaller. In fact its only really about 6 streets in the middle of nowhere. By streets I mean arrangements of buildings as the roads really arent up to much. 3 of them are sealed and the other are just rocks. It does however feel like there are more bars in Vang Vieng and definately far less families than in Luang Prabang.

All the bars have exactly the same menu as each other, all photocopied, with the back page having the "special menu". And all the bars have TV's in the which either show movies or episodes of friends. The friends bars are dangerous because if you sit down you get trapped! I sat and watched consecutive episodes of Friends for 9 hours on day. Its easily done, you just sit there all day, eating, drinking and watching season after season of friends. It's really comfortable as all the tables are on raised platforms and you have lots of cusions to sit on.

While I was here I drank with an Irish guy I met in Luang, and a couple of Swiss girls he met in Pai. Drinking and watching Friends is about all there was to do in Vang Vieng, although all the bars close at 23:30 for some reason. There are a coulpe of other bars on a little island which are open until about 3am so thats where everyone goes when the main bars close.

I met up with the Israeli girl I had been travelling with previously while in Vang Vieng, the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi!"
Her: "Hello, how are you?"
Me: "Fantastic!"
Her:"Are you sure? I saw you at Island Bar last night but you were unconscious."
Me: "Yeah, it was a good night!"

I think the best thing about Vang Vieng had to be the tubing. This is where you get a lift a couple of miles up the river and are then droped off with nothing to get back with other than and inflated tractor inner tube. There is no organisation as you would expect with something like this back home. They just drop you on the rode and point you in the direction of the river. Some of the guys were holding back, expecting someone to come along and tell them what to do, but I just threw the tube in, swam after it and jumped on.

Along the river there are various bars for the tubers to stop at. I saw bars but they are little more than afew sticks hammered together and a cool box to keep the beers cold, although some had a straw roof to. When you float towads them the staff get really excited and shout "Beer Laos! Beer Laos! Beer Laos! Beer Laos!" and if you wave to indicate you want to stop for a beer they throw a huge bamboo at you with a rope on it and shout "Bamboo! Bamboo! Bamboo! Bamboo!" for you to grab on and get pulled in.

Tubing down the river with afew beers was very relaxing even though it poured with rain most of the time, and the scenery is beautiful. Some of the bars had cliffs you could jump off into the river, about 15 foot high, so that kept us occupied for alot of the day to.

One of the things I have noticed about Laos is that there are some really funny traffic signs.

No Horns

Look out for women crossing the road.

I think my favorite observation about Laos is the way they love to spit. The don't just spit, they really hock the phlegm up from the back of their throats as loudly as possible and gob it on the ground. If you are in a busy place you will probably here someone do this about every 15 minutes. It's funny to think that this is frowned upon in the west but acceptable in Laos, a county where public displays of affection (such as hugging) are considered rude.

I left Vang Vieng on my 5th day there, again to long in the one place. After a 6 hour bus trip to the capital Vientiene I was supposed to meet the coach which would take me to Bangkok which I had paid for. This did not go as planned. For some reason, just at the bus reached Vienetiene it stopped, turned around and started driving back the way we had come. It was also driving at a ridiculous speeds and there very nearly some collisions with on coming traffic. After about 20 mins of going back the way we had come, the bus stopped for 10 mins then headed back on course. This ment my bus to Bangkok had left 30 mins ago.

After complaining to the driver for a while who spoke nearly no English they put me on a minibus with 4 Israeli girls (There are alot of them here) and the driver drove to try and catch the coach at the Thai-Laos border. This was even worse than the bus and he was driving the whole way with his horn and and lights flashing, trying to get through the traffic. One time he went the wrong way round a round about in order to beat the traffic in front of us to the last exit.

We did eventually make it to the border and the coach was still there, it taking a while for all the passengers to get stamped out of Laos and into Thailand. Once back in thailand the scenery quickly changed. The dirt roads became tar, cars drove on the left, people had new clothes, all the roads had street lights and the wooden huts of Laos were replaced with the modern stone buildings of Thailand.

10 Hours later I was back where I started, in Bangkok. I decided I didn't want to stick around. The writer of The Beach described Bangkok as a decompression chamber for those who have just entered, or are about to leave Thailand, and this makes alot of sense to me now. So I jumped in a taxi and headed to the airport, with no ticket but the idea that I wanted to be in Ko Samui asap.

I arrived at the airport at 6:40am, and by 7:02am I had found the ticket desk, bought a ticket, checked in, passed security, and boarded the plane. Fantastic! None of the 1 hour before check in nonsense we get back in the UK. No hanging about in the gate buying over priced food and drink. Fast and efficient.

The plane looked very cool and was the first propellor plane I have been on in a long long time. When we got to Ko Samui airport this was even better, the airport building was just some palmtree trunks supporting a straw roof.

So I got to the town and booked in to some very over priced accomodation. I thenhired a motorbike and toured the whole Island. Most of Ko Samui is very beautiful and I headed up to the highest point, 625meteres above sealevel. The map wasn't to be trusted though as the road I was driving on quickly disappeared and I had to take the road bike I had hired off road on some really dodgey roads. It was worth it tough as I got to see most of the island including some massive buddah statues.

So that was it for my travels in Ko Samui. After seeing the island I went to a taylor to enquire about having some suits made. The first guy seemed nice but I wasn't too impressed with his catalouge. Went to afew other places then found an indian gy who did me a good deal on a couple. Had my first measurements today, have to go back on Tuesday for more, then pick up suits afew days after that. Was really good fun as I got to choose all the materials for the suit, trousers, shirt, jacket lining and describe the kind of cuts and fits I wanted in various places. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished products, if completed to my specifications they should be quite unique!

Tomorrow I am off to Ko Pha Nga to get some good accomodation before the Full Moon Party. Will update again soon!

Cya