So I found Pandy in Bangkok, he's being a good influence and attempting to reintroduce me to meals. Well kind of…within a couple of hours of arriving, he'd managed to convince me to indulge in some crispy insect pic'n'mix and so we were snacking on giant grasshoppers by the side of the road at 1 in the morning. Crunchy. Yum.

We explored an ancient city full of miniature replicas of amazing architecture from all over Thailand and experienced the floating market which has lieterally been turned into a tourist trap - they attach your boat to the side of their stall so you can't float away and then try and sell you things! We also had the pleasure of experiencing a motorbike taxi…they dodge cars like it's an extreme sport. I saw some things it'll take me a while to recover from and I'm glad to be out of Bangkok - it's sooooo hot there you feel like you're slow-roasting even in the shade.

In Thailand you meet travelers and they inevitably want to know where you're from - and the name of a country doesn't satisfy them. They'll push for more details and wait with curiosity in the hope that they'll have heard of your town, know something about it or better yet, have met someone else from there. On the off chance that they do have some remote connection to somewhere near you, you'll both feel extremely pleased with yourselves and exclaim what a coincidence it is! Also, anyone you speak to feels obliged to ask how long you are away for. This serves the sole purpose of making them feel smug about the 2 months they managed to blag off work or to paint their face with envy when you tell them with a casual shrug that you have about 7 months to play with.

In Vang Viene, Laos, no one cares where you're going or where you've come from. All the tourists are either wasted, on their way to get wasted or recovering from being really wasted. Alcohol is sold by buckets, other drinks are sold on how 'happy' they'll make you and food is served in front of tvs that play a constant stream of Friends episodes. Surreal just doesn't cover it.

The main attraction in this sleepy village (apart from the cement factory) is 'tubing'. Tubing consists of floating about 5kms down the river into town on an inflatable choooob. And being fished for by people (usually tourists that have had the pause button pressed on their 2 day 'passing through' for a couple of months and have lost all concept of time...they'll have massive trouble being reintroduced to society if they ever manage to escape) working in the 'bars' (wooden platforms with alcohol and loud music).

I can't do the scene justice by describing it but it's something like agiant playground fror adults with a lethal combination of alcohol, flowing water, 10m high wooden platforms, bamboo ladders, precarious rope swings and a lack of any kind of supervison or sensible thoughts at all for that matter.

It's like an alternate reality where the concept of Health and Safety, if it ever existed here at all, dyed from a heart attack a long time ago and Risk Assessment drank too many mushroom shakes and is now floating down the river hallucinating that the trees are friendly dragons that come to life and save people from drowning. Which they don't.

There's a clear social hierarchy; the more parts of your body covered in permanent marker and obscene phrases, the higher your status. If you've survived the chaos for more than a few days and haven't aged 10 years in the process, you're doing well.

But we didn't get stuck there and we've just arrived in Vietman after spending 2 days on a bus where our tickets bought us the conmfort of something that was trying to be a bed but mostly was a seat and in the end failed horribly at being either. It's cold here and I have to go as we have lots of things to plan because we need to get all the way down the coast somehow without missing anything exciting.....