It was steamy last night, the air con worked overtime and the windows looking over the mountains fogged up this morning. Walk outside and glasses and cameras fog up immediately.

Not sure if I’ll be going to the Blue Lagoon, I had a bit of Vang Vieng belly early this morning and have taken imodium to slow the flow but not confident its sorted just yet. I’m leaning towards not going and being certain it’s fixed so I can go kayaking this afternoon. Too much information I know, but this is my blog not yours.

So I have a shower, relax in the air con and call the home office, The Navigator and The Mechanic who are in Sydney shopping. The Melanoma Institute has given them a clear card, just the excuse she needs to take her poor suffering son shopping. I also call Sister 1 and Sister 2 and give them a look at the view for the room window which is spectacular. Sister 1 travelled to Laos a few years ago and loves Laos, Luang Prabang in particular. Sister 2 and family have booked Thailand (refundable) for Christmas but have not yet booked flights as The Waitress has just started a full time job and not 100% certain she can get away.

I’ll insert some of The Maintenance Man’s photos of this morning activities that I missed.

OK, its late afternoon now, TMM (remember him?) has returned from the Blue Lagoon and apparently they did the kayaking up there already and if I go kayaking it will be by myself, so I have decided to make today a full rest day. Should I throw a little sooky fir – nah, not orth it! My belly feels good now, so we head the the bakery for a snack and a coffee lunch, I’m looking forward to an iced cappuchino – twice today I’ve ordered iced cuppuchino’s and got hot ones and bugger me dead it happens again. TMM gets a mango shake which is large, cold and nutricious, he feels, not as nutriscious (how do you spell that word – what I have looks wrong) as a coke and I have to help him drink it to cool my core temperature down from all the hot coffees today. Hot drinks in this part of the world at this time of the year are not the best decision, don’t they speak f….g English up here? Sorry, just realised most of them don’t, so its my problem not theirs, as it gets pointed out to me by TMM (remember him?)

Its dripping humidity, and a storm is forecast for late this afternoon, its late this arvo now and it has only just drizzled then stopped. No wonder they call this time of the year psycho season, it could drive you a little around the corner. TMM and I go for a walk around Vang Vieng, there isn’t a lot to see besides restaurants, massage places, small shops, adventure tour operators and other odds and sods of business’s and like a lot of these places the streets are pretty dirty lots off plastic and rubbish but it is a third world country,very poor, but offset by gentle natured people living in a beautiful country. A massage is order of the day to kill an hour.

Dinner tonight is 7.30, mystery venue yet to be determined. I’ll go easy on the guts tonight, don’t want a repeat of last night. Late mail – we’re at Luang Prabang Bakery tonight, so I’m going to see if the buggers can get the iced cappuchino right this time.

OK, dinner tonight I decide to skip Iced Cappuchino and go for a beer, my gut is telling me it’s all ok to proceed with the fine amber fluid as its cool, refreshing, has no caffiene to keep me awake and is most likely to turn up as it should in a bottle thats not f….g hot. As well as a low risk drink I go for a low risk meal in Bagun Beef Burger & Chips, “Bagun” is Lao for bacon – I’m almost multi lingual with all that free time today, it wasn’t all a waste of time.

It’s a great night, great company and good fun, a few poems and a few shared memories of our lives. The trip seems to have gone so quickly that it only seems like yesterday that we met at the hotel in Bangkok, with a little bit of trepitdation wondering if we’d like these people, where they came from, will it be fun, the answer has been yes to everything except for one person who never participates in anything. I’ll miss the company of young people and people not so young, who share the passion for travel, seeing new things, challenging themselves to see new things in the world. Its been a wonderful trip, although tomorrow nights final dinner will be a lot of fun, I’m looking forward to that.

Tomorrow we are on the road for 3 hours heading for Vientiane, the capital of Laos, back on the Mekong River again with Thailand just across the river.

Cheers & Ciao from Vang Vieng, Laos – Pauolo the failed coffee consumer