So, today was a very long day. I've been in Dahab for a few days now (another entry on that later) but today was the day set aside for visiting Petra. We had to leave Dahab at 5:00 for the two-hour drive to Taba. Taba is one of the areas along the coast where you can see four different countries at the same time: Egypt to the west, Israel just to the north, Jordan and Saudi Arabia across the sea to the east. At Taba we went through Egyptian immigration and bo...

Well, the trip into Thailand wasn't as bad as it could have been. I guess that's saying something. At least the roads were sealed. Have I succeeded in frightening you all away from trips to Laos? Anyway, a tuk-tuk arrived at my guesthouse right on schedule to bring me to the Northern Bus Station. I arrived, changed my receipt into a bus ticket - presto! - loaded my bag onto the bus and tried to find the most comfortable place to sit. Technically, everyone ...

Hello from Laos! The sleeper bus to Vientiane wasn't too awful, fortunately. It wasn't a proper sleeper bus with converted bunks but it was a comfortable coach bus that got us to the border bright and early. When we arrived at the Thai side of the Friendship Bridge most of us passed through without a hitch - one guy, however, had lost his departure card and held us up for about twenty minutes at the border. Then we drove over to the Lao side where we handed o...

Hello again! Sorry this entry took so long, I've been distracted by all the photos I've had to upload! Well, the bus from Siem Reap wasn't exactly the scam bus, but it certainly wasn't what we'd paid for. It was more of a chicken bus. Anyway, it brought us to the Thai border where we spent almost two hours waiting to clear immigration. There were separate lines for Thais and for foreigners and the foreigner line was out the door. The Thai line, on the other...

Hello from Cambodia! We left the floating hotel in the Mekong delta and sailed up the river. It was a beautiful day - bright and sunny, and the delta was so lush and green. We arrived at the border a couple hours later and dropped our passports off to complete the exit from Vietnam and to obtain the visa for Cambodia. After spending the last of our dong on drinks and snacks we boarded the boat that would take us the rest of the way up the Mekong. Two other girls...