JK - Today we had another long bus journey to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. It was only 4 hours this time, but I kept myself amused listening to Colin Cotterill's 'Anarchy and Old Dogs'. This is one of a lovely series of books about a coroner/detective/spirit host in Laos - so very appropriate. Vientiane has been controlled by a number of Countries, but most recently France, when it was named as the new capital. The French settled as a hub of Indochina, and ...

TK - Five of us signed up to do a kayak expedition. We were taken up river 12 KM then walked through rice fields and villages to a stream that was coming out from a cave. The guide gave us rubber rings and we jumped in the stream and paddled into the cave. The water was just about warm enough, but even so there were plenty of screams from the girls! We were all taken aback by the sheer size of the place, we pulled ourselves along by a rope and marveled at the st...

TK: I woke before dawn and headed out with Jules, Lindsey and Julie to watch the giving of alms to the novice monks. It was a fascinating spectacle where devotees line the road with offerings of sticky rice, dried food or money, the monks process past with the lid off their alms bowls in silence receiving the offerings. They cannot touch women. Sometimes their bowl is full before they get to the end, so they give some back to young boys who wait in line. The mon...

JK - Our day started with a walk up Phu Si, which is 100m above Luang Prabang. The views from the top are amazing, so good that Tom went back later to get in some sunset shots over the city. We then went to TAEC a museum set up by an American woman and a Lao woman. Here we learned to distinguish between the many different tribes of Laos including Hmong, Akha and Khamu and all the different smaller tribes within these. It was far more fascinating than I expecte...

TK: today was a free day, and most of the group went on an excursion to ride elephants. The rest of us (Jess, Victoria, Jules and I) planned to hire mountain bikes and go exploring. Unfortunately Jess had food poisoning, so took it easy and stayed behind. The three of us cycled to the tad se waterfalls, 13kms from the city. Once we got there we saw some elephants and were able to pet them, they are such gentle creatures for their size. We then trekked up river p...