We had a day of kayaking planned in Lam Nam Tha. But this was about the only chance we would get for the next few days to get some travellers cheques cashed at the bank, so Dave headed into town on a tuk-tuk (the lodge was about 6km from town) to check out the 'Lao Development Bank'. It was great! Whilst waiting to become a kip (Laos currency) millionairre, the bank's TV showed Chris Benoit applying a 'crippler crossface' to William Regal, whi...

Up and away from China - we checked out from Mengla, and got a cycle ride down to the 'southern' bus station. Easy enough we were on our last Chinese bus - the 0900 to the border. We relented with the relentless money exchanger and changed some yuan into kip. Our 90 minute ride to the border was not vastly disturbed by roadwork incompetence this time - although we did see the teams of 'diggers' who were the root cause of the chaos. It appeaars tha...