Arrived in Vientiene earlier than anticipated which is very strange in this country! The prices for accomodation here are double that of the rest of Laos, and the city offers little for tourists. It is more built up with quite a few cars on the roads, more high end hotels and restauraunts and of course a few temples thrown in! My room has a TV which gets BBC news, so know a little more of whats happening in the world now! Seen the presidential palace and a coupl...

Vang Vieng is an interesting place designed around the tourist industry. Peple come here to tube, which is exactly what i did. You hire a large inflatabel tyre and float down a section of the mekong river in it, stopping to drink at the numerous bars along the way. Everything gets very wet, and the bartenders are used to exchanging dripping wet money for buckets of drink (how it is customarily served). Many of the bars have big swings and one has a massive sl...

Luang Prabang is known as the most beautiful town in South East Asia and is a UNESCO world heritage site. Located in the forests and bordering the Mekong it was calm and peaceful, with an 11.30 curfew within the town. On the first night 18 of us (representing many countries including but not limited to New Zealand, Canada-french and English sides, USA, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Australia, Ireland and UK) met for dinner and found a lovely restauraunt loca...

Left Chiang Mai on a mini bus, but only two of us in contrast to what i had been led to expect! A comfortable 6 hour drive to Chaing Khong a border town, where we stayed for the night. Had dinner at the guest house and met a lot of other people heading for Laos on my boat, and spent the night sampling Thai beer (Beer Chang) The next morning we left for the border which looks very unofficial but we managed to get visas and through. The time of the boat varied be...