From Luang Prabang we moved down to a town called Vang Viene, every bit the 'Brit's abroad' holiday hell we try to avoid. Vang Viene; a long line of restaurants all showing friends, and another long line of guest houses and hotels. The attraction here is the floating inner tubes, bar-crawl down the Mekong river which ends back in the town centre. It rained non-stop for the two days we stayed. We were asked to leave a bar because we didn't want to buy a meal, ju...

The town of Luang Prabang, the monk capital of Laos, they are everywhere in the city. The streets are a colourful mix of crumbling French colonial architecture, guest houses, restaurants and tired looking Lao housing. Lads aged six to fourteen walk along in their tango orange robes, skinhead hair cuts and school bags always looking solemn and serious. Smiling is clearly forbidden. They walk around town, going into stores, checking their hotmail account and keep...

After crossing the river into Laos, customs, immigration, 1 night in a 1 street town, and a long bus ride we finally land in our first stop off, the known as Luang Nam Tha. We sign up for a 2 day trek, (a month in Nepal just wasn't enough) to walk into the green hills of Northern Laos. We met our group in the morning which include, Steve from Nottingham who has been teaching in China for the past four months. Stephanie from Australia who is traveling t...