We decided to stay 2 days in Pakse and use it as a base for day trips to the Bolaven Plateau and Vat Phu Champasak. The Bolaven Plateau Our tour guide for this trip was a camp pop singing university student called Jack. He set the scene straight away by making the 'family' introduce themselves and then singing us a song. He did actually tell us some really interesting facts about Laos: 1. The 4 main industries are now as follows - Tourism, gold and silver ore,...

We decided to take an overnight bus from Vientiane to Pakse and I can't even start to describe our excitement when we discovered that our 'King of Bus' had beds on it. Ok so they resembled a tarts boudoir with studded red plastic walls and they were quite snug but it was still a bed and we were on a bus!!! (see photos) We arrived in Pakse at 6am and immediately jumped onto a public bus to take us down to 4000 islands unfortunately the bus stopped continuously p...

Instead of opting for the standard minibus journey to Vientiane we decided to be more adventurous and 1/2 drive 1/2 kayake down the river. What could have been a really cracking day turned out to be a really low key and quite frankly quite boring day as the other people on the trip were just so quiet. After 3-4 months of travelling we are used to everyone chatting and dare I say bonding over these excursions so it was a bit of a shock to us that everyone was so q...

The journey to Vang Vieng from Luang Prabang was really enjoyable - you hug the side of the mountain all the way and see some really spectacular views. As usual it is the people you see on the way that's most interesting - it seems so weird that all the villages are built up around the main road so there are children playing, animals roaming and people just generally conducting their everday life as trucks, buses, pickups and motorbikes all go thundering past. Wh...

After many games of 'guess the time we'll arrive in Luang Prabang' we did eventually arrive to the most beautiful sunset over the most beautiful town. The Lonely Planet was way off the mark with it's room rates - in fact we spoke to one chap who had been here 4 weeks ago and was shocked at how much the prices had increased! Luang Prabang is bordered on both sides by rivers - the Mekong and the Nam Khan - and it's so picturesque! It has quaint buildings from its ...