Our overnight journey on the double decker 'King Of Bus' was notable only for the pink and yellow flourescent strip lighting, the tempestousness of the air conditioning and the unappreciated 'opportunity' to watch 'War Of The Worlds' (the Tom Cruise version). A tuk-tuk, a bus and a river taxi later and we had set foot on Don Det, one of the Four Thousand Islands which sprinkle across the Mekong at its widest point (14km). The number (and s...

Off we headed to be reunited with our passports (see Luang Prabang). Imagine our joy when we were told that they had not been received till Saturday, and that the Cambodian embassy woudl not be open till Wednesday to process our applications! We head off to the 'Four Thousand Islands' tonight much further south, so some passport pick up logistics have been arranged (fingers crossed) and we should be in possession of them by Thursday morning. We spent t...

We checked out of our VV hotel and took our bags into town. We were headinbg for the capital Vientiane but the idea was that we would still make it an activity based day by kayaking part of the way. So the van was loaded up with lots of big backpacks and off we drove. Almost 2 hours later it was time to start the kayaking (our 3rd time out in Laos, A-M still firmly in the 'steering seat' at the rear. The start of the dry season seems to have taken the sti...

Today we were on a combined trek and kayak day of activity. We hopped on to the van which took us and Lisa (USA), the 3 Crazy Belgains (Belgium) and John & Caroline (USA) off into the countryside surrounding VV. Our first stop was to explore some of the caves which surround VV. We had forgotton to bring our headtorches, so we were wired up with some 1950s style car battery type affairs which hung round our necks like cow bells, whilst a few watts of power was...

We caught an early 'VIP' bus from Luang Prabang down to Vang Vieng. VV was supposed to be a backpackers haven and a 'must do' on the south east asia trail, allegedly. A 'VIP' bus does have many advantages compared to other Laos bus. It is priced to attract tourists (ie is quicker, less inclined to break down, but more pricey) so there were no bags of rice on the floor this time. We also had a VCD to watch 'Windtalkers' (Nick Cage)....