Hello everyone, Brief update from Laos... it's a truly beautiful country and the people are wonderful. After having spent a few days on various buses travelling around, I have concluded that it looks a bit like it's from A Land Before Time... just stunning. Unfortunately, two issues have sort of spoiled it for me a bit... first the stress with getting a new visa for China, which worked out okay, thank god, and I'm off to Kunming and then Chengdu on Su...

Hello, Laos is proving to be much more stressful than I'd expected. Having stress with getting a new Chinese visa, which means I haven't got an awful lot of time to travel because I need to be back in Vientiane by Friday. Bus journey from Vientiane to Luang Prabang sheer and utter horror... only curves, curves, curves, sharp curves, blind curves. For 9 hours, we hardly ever spent more than 5 seconds going in a straight line. I still feel sea sick. Plu...

Hello everyone, I've made it to Laos, yeaahh!! Had a bit of a shock at the airport in Siem Reap... I'd banked on getting a visa to Laos on arrival at the airport, but when I re-checked the Lonely Planet it said one could get a visa at 'Vientiane or Luang Prabang airports', no mention of Pakse, where I was flying to... and I'd already made it through the security checks... so I figured I might be in for a nice few hours of debate with Lao immigration officia...