Zut Alors

I was up and at it with the monks again... only to find .lots of bussed in tourists in holiday company ponchos were there....giving out rice to the monks and standing in front of them snapping away.. very distasteful... I almost wished I hadn't gone and shattered yesterdays wonderful image...still I am a tourist , and this is what we do to these countries...

Anyway today was our trip to the waterfall day !!! having had to wait 20 mins for our taxi... the 2 French people that we already in the taxi clambered into the front to get in front of the fans !!!! it was very very hot !!!!! and Brian was very very cross.... you can imagine the Irish mutterings that were going on and viva la France it was not !!! anyway we clambered up these waterfalls and took the obligatory photos and purposefully made the French wait for us like the battle of Trafalgar,  before clambering tout sweet into the front of the taxi ... in front of the fans !!! ha ha ... after lots of zut alors and very cross French , an silent uncomfortable journey home was completed with the final insult in the Agincourt Coffin of Brian slamming the sliding door in the French mans face ... by mistake...I walked away chuckling at the very cross hot frenchmans face wrestling with the door !! up yours frogs !!!!!

The next early morning brought with it our first long 6 hr bus journey, and in order for Lord Brian not to get the hump some strategic planning was in order ..... i mapped out where we should sit .... so .. sit on right better view - tick , check both seats recline - tick , sit forward of the loo - tick , check curtains pull for sun blindness - tick , beer, water and snacks in bag - tick , film downloaded on computer for Brian to watch with plenty of killing and blood shed - tick .. so what could go wrong ....oh yes this one had been planned with military execution, we arrived 40 mins early and I bagged those god damn seats and nodded smugly at my discerning fellow passengers....

Just as we were about to leave the frog eating, toilet squatting , garlic breathing, horse murderers arrived ... " excuse et moi , zat is moi seat " - lots of pointing at numbers and oh la la ing  later and huffing and puffing, I punched myself in the face 3 times moving our stuff- we found our seats - we were not aware the tickets were numbered !!! and oh yes you guessed it ... our seats were in front of our French friends from yesterday who were clearly enjoying our misfortune . Having finally settled down we were on our way to Vang Vieng - and with a final click of my reclining coach seat, i reclined into the knees of my goose force feeding French friends ... c'est satisfaction!!!!

So arrived in Vang Vieng .... getting down and keeping it real !! it was like well bad !!!... should have known really after listening to the most boring 3 uni students on their "garp yar " ... these kids don't stop talking but with absolutely no content to their conversation whatsoever .... and no one is laughing or havnig any banter ... what has happening... I was tortured for 5 hours so I want to spread that love ... it went something like this ... " I am like so comically bored " " ya I have a friend who was like really bored once and that " " I know it was like so funny yeah this thing, I was like crying with laughter " " I know I like laughed once so much I thought I was going to like wet myself " !!!!! no one asks what about or who or just ..... I had to quite literally stop my sides from splitting when the pinnacle of funny was told in this joke from one posho to the other ... Mum you might want to go and pop a tena lady in .... brace yourselves everyone..so " ya like this is the funniest joke you will ever hear ya "" I had a friend once who told a funny joke " " well .. what cheese do you use to get a bear out of the woods "? " I dont know " " Camembert (come on bear ) ... the posh bird says " what's Camembert " !!!!! for gods sake ..... So with so much hilarity you can imagine how disappointed we were to get off the coach... and disappointed we were... it was awful, I had been secretly looking forward to this place , inner tubing down the river, lots of bars...'happy shakes ' and magic mushrooms on your pizza!! should have known really... I have never seen so many stoned, drunk Kids in all my life, so stoned they had to lay in bars on wooden beds watching reruns of Friends on DVD on

 big screen tvs... not speaking ... I have never ever seen an episode of Friends and did not want to start in the middle of the jungle in Laos thanks... I was really disappointed and felt very old ... Brian thought it was very funny... its also the first time we have not felt safe , locked our bags and didn't sleep well after I found our window had previously been jemmied open !!.. we were supposed to stay 2 nights, but we got up at 9am and were on the bus by 0930 !!! got the last two tickets..   we were off to Vientiene the capital !!!

Very busy, very hot and very rainy !!!! that night went into a bar with live music and found some Irish girls we had met before so had lots of wine with them .

The next day we headed off to the Vietnamese Embassy to get our visas , these  should take 5 days to process but after being told an extra $5 we could get them done in an hour !!! corruption ... love it .... whilst waiting for the hour.. Brian stumbled across SE Asia cable network satellite station, and did a bit of retuning.. so hopefully we can put the whole TV concern to bed !!!! we also walked to the victory monument... Imagine you are in the middle of building the ugliest concrete monument to say thanks to the Chinese when suddenly you run out of concrete ... No problem... you halt the building of the airport runway paid for in US dollar aid, and use that concrete to finish your monument... you can't get out of the country as there is no runway but you can look at a concrete tower which plays nauseating Laos love songs ... lovely... After lots of walking around and more temples we were rewarded with a lovely sunset over the Mekong in warm drizzle... a very special  moment.