Yesterday was my first positive experience on a motorbike! After wandering aimlessly around Vientiane first thing in the morning I decided to make my way up to one of the big temples on the edge of the city and then to a park about 30ks out of town full of Buddha statues. I could have got to these places by tuk tuk or maybe even bus but I decided to rent a motorbike as it was pretty cheap to do so. Vientiane is pretty small so it was easy to navigate my way around on a bike, plus I'd walked a lot of the city already so I knew where the one way streets were. I made it up to the big gold temple no problems and then headed out of the city towards the random park. I even managed to successfully fill the bike with petrol!

The road out of Vientiane was good quality as it is the road that links the capital with the bridge over the river and across the border into Thailand. The other side of the bridge section the quality wasn't quite as good but it was still nowhere near as horrific as the roads in Vietnam. It was like a smaller country lane might be in the UK - a few bumps and minor potholes but nothing major. There wasn't too much traffic and any that I did encounter obeyed the rules of the road as I know them. The road followed the Mekong river along the edge of the country and eventually I came to the Buddha park - it was basically a field full of stone statues. It was something a bit different and was worth it for the biking experience alone. I also explored some little country dirt roads on my way back into the city but I was wary of getting hopelessly lost so I didn't venture too far.

Today was a shocker of a journey to Luang Prabang. It was so long! And the whole journey was accompanied by Thai karaoke videos blasting out of the sound system. I was supposedly on the VIP bus - it looked nothing like the other VIP buses I'd seen in Vientiane with fully reclining seats etc but I guess they were maybe the buses to Thailand. Still, the bus had relatively comfortable seats and a toilet that was actually usable on board so it wasn't so bad I guess. The journey took us up and over the mountains. The mountains seemed to be never ending! After descending down from one we'd come round a corner and see another mountain to be crossed. The roads were really windy but thankfully there was no Vietnamese style driving - no overtaking on blind bends or speeding or any of the other crazy things Vietnamese drivers do. The journey was just soooo long a took two hours longer than advertised - I think it part this was due to the rain we hit about halfway here - the driver slowed down on the wet roads which I was really grateful for when we rounded a corner and saw a car balanced at a 45 degree angle over the edge of the cliff face. I guess all the occupants had managed to get out of the car but it was just balancing there over the edge of the road looking like it would roll over at any minute. Maybe the driver was Vietnamese?!

Was grateful to finally get to Luang Prabang and I joined the other Westerners from the bus on a tuk tuk into the centre where I dumped my stuff at the first decent guest house I came to and headed out for some desperately needed food. I then browsed the night market and bought a really pretty elephant embroidered throw!I looked at a couple of tour options too and tomorrow I'm going to go book some stuff - a trip to some caves and a waterfall, and a day at an elephant place trekking and looking after them. Elephants!

Must go now so the guy can close up his internet cafe!