Leaving Vientiane on our mini bus we made the four hour journey north to Vang Vieng. It was an interesting journey as the roads are more like dirt tracks with some paved sections. Our driver was keen to arrive on time and so we had a few close encounters with cows and some driving manouvers which in England would make it onto Traffic Cops!! The driver dropped us very close to our accomodation Thavsansouk Bungalows right on the Nam Xong river which had a perfect ...

Leaving Bangkok we boarded the overnight train to Nong Kai, we both had top bunks and they were pretty comfortable for a train bed! The journey took us twelve hours and we finally arrived in Nong Kai a little bleary eyed. We had to catch a Tuk Tuk to the border crossing with Laos, where we then had to pay for a bus to take us from the Thai border control to the Friendship bridge and Laos border control. $70.00 lighter we had our passports stamped and walked thr...

Jo and Rich told us the spring rolls were good in Laos and we can now confirm that indeed they are excellent and the beer is not bad either!

The flight from Sydney to Bangkok was fantastic thanks to the last minute upgrade to bussiness class given by the BA staff! We were both enjoying the extra leg room, free wine and eating with a proper knife and folk! We arrived in Bangkok late and didn't make it to our hotel until midnight. Feeling refreshed after a good nights sleep we ventured out into the city for our first day of sightseeing. First hurdel was to haggle for a Tuk Tuk to take us to the Grand P...

Happy New Year to all our friends and family. Saying goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012 in Sydney was pretty cool. New Years eve we woke early and caught the ferry from Manly into Circular Key and walked the short distance to the Botanical Gardens. Both of us feeling fairly confident that we had arrived early enough to get a good spot. When we walked into the grassed area of the Botanical Gardens we couldn't believe it our hearts sank as we saw that several tho...