Tuesday 13th April - Vang Vieng to Vientiane - VIP bus journey to Vientiane and we decided to check into a hotel room that can only be described as a prison cell. Brown walls and no windows - apart from the one on the door but that didn't count!)! Locals on the side of the road were good shots with the water as they were able to aim through the windows and soak us all! It was New Year's Day in Laos - the year of the monkey - year 2547 to be exact! Vientiane was a bit of a let down overall with not much happening and the food being very disappointing.

Wednesday 14th April - Vientiane to Hanoi, Vietnam - Visisted the Victory Monument in Vientiane, a concrete structure made from the left overs of the airport in 1962 and modelled on the Arc d'Triomphe in Paris but never quite got finished thought there was a good view of the city at the top . A 40 minute flight to Hanoi (the alternative was a 28 hour bus journey!) was incredibly empty with about 20 people on board. The local newspaper (Vientiane Times) report that the biggest football club in Laos were going semi-professional and had a big name foreign signing coming over soon - he is from Ireland! But they didn't say who - you heard it here first! Our hotel had a TV that was only changeable by ringing the porter downstairs who then had to decide which station was the one that most people in hotel wanted to watch at the particular moment in time!