Vientiane

Currently in Vientiane, capital of Laos.  We arrived here after a couple of days at Viang Vang, a young, very young backpackers paradise, full of bars offering cheap cocktails, spliffs and bags of opium!!  I declined these offers in favour of the Lao beer but it's definitely not my sort of place.  I did get a cheap pair of Billabong shorts though so not all bad.  The main focus of Viang Vang is the tubing on the river passing lots of bars on the way.  I opted for the safe option of a stroll with the Barry., Pauline and Dennis, whilst many of the other ( younger) guys took the tubing option.  They all came back in good spirits especially Ben and thankfully in one piece. 
Vientiane is relatively small for a capital city but quite chilled and quaint.  A group of us hired bikes and cycled to the Buddha sculpture museum 25k out of town. Nice and flat cycling which was lucky on bikes with no gears and we only got lost once( apparently my fault!). Bit hot in places, at one point my legs started to sizzle, but good fun. Buddha sculptures were bizarre to say the least, but then I'm not very cultural.  Next couple of days will see us travel to the national park for hopefully even more great scenery.