Hey all,

I have now successfully made it across to South East Asia and have spent the last week or so moving around a lot.

I arrived in Bangkok about a week ago and found a decent guest house just off the infamous Khao San Road, the place was itself quite quiet and had a decent resturant. So I spent a couple of days seeing bangkok, i rather expected something similar to the Indian cities and was very much mistaken by the ultra modern clean city before me. In the couple of days that i spent in BK i managed to get a decent feel of the place from the largest shopping centre that I have ever seen to the famous golden palace and of course the night life around Khao San Road.

I moved on out of Bangkok after a short time and took a train overnight to the northern city of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai was a more chilled out place with a decent selection of bars and eateries all harbouring a relaxed atmosphere, a nice contrast to the hecticness of Bangkok. The other nice thing was although much cheaper than the capital, the guest house where i was staying had a pool, a definite luxury. After Chiang Mai I thought I would try and see a small part of Laos, its easy to get into, just take a bus to the border and then you can get a slow ferry boat down the Mekong to the french flavoured city of Luang Prebang, so thats what i did, i got a bus the the Thai border town of Chiang Kong where I stayed the nights in a hut ran by a mexican-thai hippie, took an early boat across the river to the border check point where i changed some money and instantly became a millionaire (in Lao Kip), before finding the boat, a bargain at 95 grand, and started my trip down the river. Two days later here I am in Luang Prabang where against what i expected there are flash resturants and shiny cocktail bars line the streets and no one here seems to be particually poor- perhaps theres something in the Communist thing after all!

So the plan now is to make my way town the Vientiane (Laos capital) where I will take a Lao Airlines flight (hopefully not in a 40 year old chinese plane flown by a drunk pilot) back to Bangkok before coming back home to Blighty on Tuesday!

Take Care

Jon