Katie: What a day... We were up ready to go at 6am. Our \'rude boy\' driver wasn\'t. Eventually he surfaced & we began our rather random & never ending day to Vietnam. After 1/2 an hour he had to stop as his own driving had made him sick... never a good sign. We then stopped a few minutes later for directions - consisted of him saying \' Vietnam\' and the local just pointing down the road. Our faith in this man was rapidly diminishing. He then proceeded to play s...

Katie: Having heard many great & wonderful stories about Luang Prabang, we were thoroughly disappointed... we had 2 thunder storms & 3 of us 4 hardened travellers were struck down with a bout of sickness. Em was the only survivor, avoiding such illness. Not pleasant. We didn\'t get up to much (compared to our Vang Viene adventures). We did hike what felt like Everest, about 10,000 steps to the top of a hill to watch a sunset which was well worth it - including ge...

We are in Luang Prabang at the moment, which is in Northern Laos. I thought i would go back a few days though, and give you a little account of our adventures kayaking the Nam Song in Vang Vieng. We booked ourselves on a little kayaking trip and after a tuk tuk ride to the river they gave us a 3 second lesson on paddling. We managed to grab a couple of double canoes and split up: Katie and Em, Alyson and I. Well, as it turns out Katie is a pro kayaker and Em spen...

Katie: You\'ll all be pleased to hear that we made it safely to Loas. No bus crashes. Our long journey of 12 hours on a bus was somewhat lengthy, but we had lots of room thanks to the Thai lady from the bus company who told us we were fat & so gave us a double seat each. Many thanks to her. The journey was somewhat nerve racking as the driver decided to drive the bus as fast as it would possibly go - I went for the \'close my eyes & hope for the best\' option. It...

Julie: Well, we are back in Bangkok again and we are starting to feel quite at home really. Someone even stopped us today to ask for directions somewhere so we think our fantastic tans (and dirty clothes) made them think we are well travelled backpackers!. Tonight we are getting an overnight bus to the Loas border and onto Vientiene, which is the Laos capital. Apart from the fact that a nearly 12 hour journey on a bus is never fun (although Katie has kept me e...