Laos - part 3

As I said travelling in Laos was very easy.
Mind you we had done a fair bit of research before we went away.

Thanks goodness for the Lonely Planet guides!

We had 3!

When I first thought of doing this trip I bought "Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and the Greater Mekong".
It has a great overview of the region and I used it to plan the basic shape of our trip.

Fly to Bangkok, fly to Luang Prabang, fly from southern Laos to Siem Riep in Cambodia ('cus we werent sure about land crossing), fly from Phnom Penh to Bangkok, fly home!

We filled in the details as we went.

I also bought Lonely Planet books "Laos" and "Cambodia", because they had more detail.

Another very informative site is Travelfish.
Travelfish has acccomodation reviewed and rated by travellers and is fairly up to date.

the view from our room at the Elephant Crossing Guesthouse at Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng was the second place we stayed in Laos, reached by a 5 hour road trip through the spectacular mountains of northen Laos.
We stayed in the scenic Elephant Crossing with views across the Nam Song river to the limestone peaks.

The second morning we woke up to see a herd of water buffalo on the opposite bank.

blue lagoon swimming hole, near Vang Vieng

Being typical limestone counrty there are lots of caves.
We hired bikes and rode to some caves out of town and were doubly rewarded to find this delicious swimming hole. Vang Vieng is a bit of a party town, but I would have liked to stay longer and explore some more of the surrounding hiils, lanes and caves.

going to work in Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is a bit of a party town, but it wasnt hard to escape the crowds and I would have liked to stay longer and explore some more of the surrounding hiils, lanes and caves.

But we had to push on to Vientienne