Left Bangkok on the overnight train, wasn't quite as glamourous as we anticipated, in fact rather hot and sticky. Nevertheless I slept for about 10 hours, even though they left all the lights on all night - my free little eye mask from British Airways did a stunning job of making it seem like night until about 9 a.m. when someone thrust a plastic tray of rubbery eggs and a cup of coffee covered in clingfilm under my nose.

We arrived in Nong Khai, the border town with Laos at about 10 a.m., took a tuk tuk to the border at the 'Friendship Bridge' queued for visas, queued for passport control, queued to pay 35p to enter Laos and we were in!

More of our usual taxi haggling and we got them down from 300 to 200 baht, we're getting quite good at this we thought. Until we saw the taxi; it definitely came from the back of the rank. About 25 years ago. It came complete with it's own resident mosquito (moing moing) that did it's best to get us en route to Vientiane. We only started taking our malaria tablets this morning, so Bri was doing a fair bit of leaping about tring to eradicate him before he zapped us.

Checked into our hotel, it's a bit of a step down from the 5 star luxury we have become accustomed to. Instead of lavish scented toiletries we now have a bar of 'Hotel Toilet Soap'. Boo hoo. Met some of our fellow travellers, a mixture of English, Aussies, couple of Americans and a lone Norwegian, Irving, who has a different beer t-shirt for every day of the week. Irving confided in Bri that the Norwegian Government do not advise malaria tablets for Laos as a matter of course, but that they act as a good medicine if you do get malaria - you just take 3 or 4. Can you believe it - Bri has now announced that he is no longer taking malaria tablets! After all that kerfuffle of the last two weeks. Apparently if it's good enough for the Norwegians........

Irving has more worldy advice: - 'beer before wine, you'll feel fine, but wine before beer, you'll feel queer'. A sound recommendation maybe, but it hardly qualifies him as the mouthpiece of The Lancet.

Wandered around Vientiane, it's a lovely town, but hardly capital city in the true sense of the world, it's a bit like wandering around an Asian version of the Isle of Wight, very laid back, sleepy and a bit like stepping back in time - no constant hassling to buy things, just the odd laid back tuk tuk driver muttering at you as you go past 'Want tuk tuk?' but not in any sense of meaning they want to leap up from their horizontal position and actually drive you anywhere. As there are only about 3 roads there's probably little point.

The next day we flew to Luang Prabang, in the north and arrived after dark to a twinkling of fairy lights, pretty cobbled streets, wooden buildings and streets full of laughing Lao people selling ridiculously cheap trinkets from rainbow coloured sarongs that they had lain on the floor and lined the street to our hotel with. I think I have arrived in heaven..........