Compared to Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang is a very quiet laid back countryside town. After being able to drink until dawn it was surprising to find that all bars and restaurants had a strict curfue off 11pm. Our three nights here gave us the perfect opportunity to detox and recover from our tubing experience. On our first evening we went to the nearby night market and browsed the stalls and sampled the very cheap street food. Whilst here we bumped into a Korean guy...

3 things about Vang Vieng... 1)The scenery is spectacular, 2) Every restaurant/bar has a flat screen TV showing back to back episodes of either Friends or Family Guy and 3) By tube is the only way to travel. We spent 2 crazy nights in Vang Vieng, where the bars are open air and serve until daylight. During the day the main attraction is tubing. This basically involves you hiring a rubber tube to float down the river. The river is lined with bars on wooden platf...

The bus ride from Siem Reap into Laos was going to take us a full day, from 5.30am to 6pm. We were prepared for this and ready to sit on a bus for over 12 hours. What we were not prepared for was the change over to small, old minivan, with a cracked windscreen and no air con, with a driver who felt it necessary to go on a long detour to deliver planks of wood to a farm in the middle of no where. This wasn't helped by the fact that 15 of us were squeezed into 12 s...