Been a while, Im in Laos now!

Right, well its been about two weeks since the last update and my...what a lot has happened!!!
To be honest I cant remember two weeks ago so that will save everyone from a lot of reading!
Well I crossed the border into Laos from Thailand with the bike and funnily enough, none of the officials had no idea what they were doing when it came to allowing the bike across. This basically resulted in a couple of hours of me being sent to room 5, then room 8, then as they were out back to room 6, they didnt want to speak to me so back to room 5 again, then sent downstairs but on the way downstairs met another official who sent me back to room 5 AGAIN!!! This time I decided to press on the nice lady that perhaps it may be her job as everyone seems to be pointing me to her!

After a phone call and me showing her all my papers, she took me outside and told me that my carnet did not cover Laos so that was that! I then pressed upon her that Laos was not meant to use the Carnet I only showed it to her for her information. She then took me downstairs to some head od dept who decided he would use the carnet (by the way, this is a passport for the bike that needs to be stamped when the bike enters the country and then stamped again when the bike leaves the country. This way it saves me from paying and having to recover all import duties). He then proceeded to stamp the section saying I had exported the bike from Laos! Not the most useful of official stamps but after tearing a page out and starting again, we eventually got it sorted! Anyway I got my own back on them by confusing the whole situation when I managed to check out of the country instead of checking in! This basically meant my 30second old visa now had USED stamped across it and I had a departure stamp in my passport! To help matters, the bike was now in eventhough I was now out!!! Who wants a simple life anyway!
The result of this was alot of people shaking their head at me and getting out the 'official' tipex and tipexing out the USED stamp and writing something in Laos next to it! They then stamped cancelled over the departure stamp! I have no idea what will happen when I try to leave this country but they assure me I will be fine! Like they know anything!
Anyway, Im in and enjoying it. Well, up until yesterday but I'll get to that later! I spent a night in Vientiene (which is home to probably the most depressing guest house accommodation in Laos!) and fortunately met a bunch of people in the evening looking for guest houses and then again in the morning. Following this I got an invite to have breakfast with a bunch of them who had travelled on some 20 hours bus journey.
Anyway, had breakfast, exchanged emails and organised to meet up in Vang Viang so off I headed on an amazingly scenic ride for about 5 hours.
Anyway Vang Viang is Laos's version of Tnerefie's Playa de las Americas! But not quite a crazy as everything closes at 12. but basically there are an awful lot of tourists there.
The next day about 8 of us went tubing (floating down the river in a tractor tyre's inner tube and stopping at riverside bars along the way. I cannot explain this experience and do it justice so I wont bother. Lets just say I had a great day and wasnt going to leave VV without doign it again! Which I didnt. In fact 3 days later I was floating down the same river, again running so late the company refused to give us all our deposit back because we arrived an hour after dark. Although a stupid thing to do...floating down a river in the middle of Laos on an inner tube in the dark is surprisingly good fun! Anyway, between these tubing escapades I went full on rock climbing and exploring caves but thats dull in comparison so I wont bore you with that!
Then we all headed to Luang Prabang (another 5 hours on even more scenic roads!). When here we only really had a day together so went to a beautiful waterfall that you can swim in and a bear sanctuary!
So, this morning was time for the group to dispand and we all headed our separate ways. All I can say is that I hope everyone elses was not as bad as mine. After heading North for about two hours and having a lovely ride, the back end started feeling a little slippy eventhough the roads were bone dry. Anyway I had hardly had time to think about whether to do anything about it when on a righ hander it slowly but surely drifted away from me and I gracefully slid down the road on my arse! Anyway, I picked my self up and carried on. Only to be thinking about why it happened and not concentrating on the job in hand...which was missing the minibus full of french tourists thaat had come around the corner in the middle of the road! Dont think Im passing the buck here, I too was in the middle of the road as thats how its done here! However, its every other drivers automatic reaction to swerve to the RHS as thats the side they drive on. The problem arose when I swerved to my LHS following my English reactions! Anyway, my thoughts of 'oh shit, this guy is drunk!' turned into, 'oh no, Im on the wrong side of the road!' but unfortunately just a little late! Luckily I decided to take on the verge rather than try to right myself as otherwise I would have gone through his windscreen for sure. The result of this choice was being struck on the RHS of my bike just forward of my leg I think. I then got bounced off the minibus and ended up lying on the LHS a few metres from the minibus! Anyway, the photos show the damage to the vehicles and the damage to my self is relatively minor. I was struggling to walk a few hours after the accident but I think thats just some tissue/ligament damage to my left knee and other than a sore right knee, both elbows, neck and slight headache I am just tickety boo!!!