Luang Prabang is the cultural capital of Laos (I think). Its a world heritage site due it seem to the enormous number of wats surrounding the city/town. We only visited a few, but certainly most that we passed were gorgeously resplendant in gold leafed eaves, shining mosaic tiles and beautiful painted entrances and walls. Some however are more decrepit and our trip across the Mekong river from the town took us to a cave in the hillside where they keep the budd...

Vang Vieng itself is surrounded by huge limestone edifices which jut vertically and spectacularly above the river and town - just beautiful. The town itself is a travellers mainstay - its a pretty tiny place but filled with bars and guesthouses and westerners drinking or recovering from their BeerLaos - mmm deliscious. Its kind of a shame really given that the place is so gorgeous but we're not gonna let that stop us from partaking in the most popular activity...

Here we are on Gilli Trewangan - a tiny island just off the coast of Lombok that has to be the closest to tropical paradise that I have ever been. Granted that in the high season this is a 'party island' and swarms with travellers, but here we are when there are probably less than 100 other tourists on the island - and its big enough that you don't see that many of them at a time either! Thats definitely a good thing for us as it leaves the beachside bars and ...

After our crappest journey so far - for too many reasons to go into here! We arrived on Java on our way to see Mount Bromo. This is in fact the wussiest of all the Indonesian volcanos to choose - and since we're not normally ones for declining a challenging activity I think I should explain: the various bouts of illnes that I've (Lou) had over the past few weeks and the associated lack of food haven't left me in the best state for climbin a massive volcano in t...

So we're happy to report that we were totally wrong about the weather in the South Island. Although apparently we have hit more freak weather - but this time an unseasonably warm winter, so we're not complaining at all. The sun managed to pull some great days out of the bag, not least the two we spent walking, sorry 'tramping' the Abel Tasman Track - fantastic beaches and sea views. We did most of the track through two days of hard 15 miles walking, but we man...