Laos or Magaluf?
After Bangkok, we flew to Laos just for something to do for 10 days whilst some other stuff was going on in the background. We found a flight from Bangkok to Luang Prabang, which is a decent bit north of Laos' capital Vientiane. Sometimes when we fly to capital cities, it's a bit of a letdown for the first impression of the country - they're usually too busy and loud, so finding a flight to a small town sounded decent.
When we got there, nobody tried to rip us off at the airport, nobody harassed us, nothing, it was calm. We walked around the small town, which was literally just full of elephant pant wearing Europeans, who aren't too annoying, but kind of annoying to look at. I've never understood the elephant pant thing, locals don't wear them, so where did they come from? It seems to be some sort of rite of passage for gap year students, but whatever, they're alright if they're quiet.
Luang Prabang was a nice quiet town, and we went to visit some waterfall as you can see in the photo above. It was super touristy but actually as nice as you see on the photos. It was dead cheap too. We just walking into a souvenir shop and they happened to offer the transport, it was like £4 each for a return trip - mad. Looks like people in Laos haven't decided to start pointlessly ripping off tourists yet - it'll come though don't you worry. That same trip will be £20 soon.
After Luang Prabang, we jumped on the new Chinese train to Vang Vieng. I had read something about some drug fueled river tubing experience, that I had no intention of doing, but I wanted to see if it was actually true that you could buy opium tea and magic mushroom pizzas - turns out no.
Vang Vieng is a dump full of Brits being loud as fuck, screaming over each other, walking around topless (men), just generally being Magaluf style lads. Girls included, they're not quiet here either. Anyway, that's it - go there if you want Magaluf in Asia, don't go there if you don't.
We jumped on the same train to Vientiane.