We are now in the town of Nong Khai on the border with Laos. Definetly a chill out place, it is impossible to feel hurried or agitated here. Food is so good at the hotel that we have planned to stay an extra 2 nights before heading over the border to Laos on Friday. NK is very much a sleepy little town and to be honest there isn't a great deal to do here other than relax on the banks of the Mekong river, enjoy the food and perhaps have a massage or two. Which is exactly what we did. Thailand is probably known best for two things, it's food (which is awesome) and Thai massage. Having experienced plenty of the first we decided to have a go at the massage. It is very different from the normal arrangements at the beauty salon at home. The massage table is about the size of a double bed at home and they give you pyjamas to wear. This turned out to be fine for Carol but Chris couldn't work out how to tie the bottoms up and so had to keeping grabbing them when asked to turn over - as he said "in case he made the women jealous". Much to Chris' disappointment there no naked young women involved, and as it was a reputable place, he wasn't asked if he wanted 'extras'. The masseur actually gets onto the bed with you and just about uses every part of her body to apply pressure - knees, elbows, arms, feet were all in action as she identified the pressure points and stretched our limbs into the right places. Not all of it was comfortable at the time and you could certainly hear a few bones cracking, but at the end we agreed that it was probably the best massage we have ever had. A bargain at 2 pounds for the hour. Now that we are completly recuperated we are going over the border to Lao where we think there will be a bigger change yet.