Vientiane take 2

Hello!

Thought I would drop in and say hi before we head off to Southern Laos on our way to Cambodia. We are planning on staying a few nights in the 4000 island region of Laos as we've heard from other travelers how beautiful it is there. Our original plan was to head back in to Central Thailand and East to Cambodia as the border is a bit more, how could you say, legit so to speak. The border that we are planning to go through isn't really governed appropriately as there has been talk of paying US$1 for 'stamp tax' twice, which i think is Cambodian speak for drinking money, either way I'm sure we'll find out!

We've just come back to Vientiane after spending the last week and a bit in Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang for the Laos New Year (which is for the year 2551!). There isn't all that much to do in the capital city which is why we are on the internet. I would be drinking beer right now but since we have a 10 hour bus trip ahead of us through the night maybe it's in our best interests not to! Really though Laos has definitely been one of the highlights for on our trip as the Laos people sure know how to party for their new year! They practically have about 7 days worth of solid celebrating and 3 of those are spent soaking the crap out of each other with water pistols, buckets and pretty much anything that will hold H2O! We had a blast joining in on the action and although after 2 days of being dripping wet, by the third we just really wanted to be dry for a change - but the people of Laos waiting for us down every street we took had other ideas.

Well the weeks are surely flying by right now and Jess and I are constantly checking and changing our plans to make the most of our time, which is about approximately 3 weeks I think? It's funny that we have truly lost all concept of days of the week as just this morning Jess asked me what day it was and I thought it was Thursday, then Wednesday only to finally figure out that it was really Friday! We amuse ourselves like that. Haha. We won't be in Cambodia (or as we have heard travelers call it "Scambodia") for very long and will visit Angkor Wat and then back to Phnom Phen to get in to our last leg of our trip through Vietnam. We have made a Korean friend who we are going to meet up with once we are in Na Trang after spending some time in Saigon who is going to show us around and mentioned something about a mud pack, so we are very curious!

Well I hope you guys are all OK back home and can't wait to see you! It won't be too long before we do! Can't wait!

Love and miss you! xoxox

Gavin & Jess.