Up at 11:15 this morning and I was on the boat over to check in with immigration in Laos by nine. Torrential rain all morning. The slow boat down the Mekong to Pak Beng took 8 hours; quite uncomfortable, given the crappy wooden chairs. Although, I was hanging off the side with my feet in the river most of the time, as I had started on the Berr Lao before leaving the dock and by finish I had drank about four litres of the s*** - well gunned. I could still fo...

Woke up hungover at 11:30: I didn't get that f*cking wake up call I payed 10B for, b*****s. Said goodbye to the all the boys and girls at the hostel and I was on the bus upto Chiang Khong by twelve. No time for a shower, or anything else for that matter. We were all crammed in the minibus like sardines and the five hour journey was just about bearable. Arrived in Chiang Khong at 17:30 after a long and sweaty journey. It's great to see Laos in view over the r...

Feeling slightly hung over this morning. Just in the stomach. Had about four hours sleep. Received a 600B bill for all the booze I had on tab last night. Can you believe that - I was in the f*cking jungle!! At 09:30 we all jumped on the raft I helped to build with the locals (A fine vessel, if I don't say so myself!) and set off down stream. The sail was great - you could see the forest tuen to jungle the further south we became. Nearly everyone was in the...

I was the first to get up this morning; miraculously no hangover - must be the fresh feeling of sleeping outdoors....Hmmm Ahhhh. After breakfast (scrambled egg and toast) at nine a.m. we all set off on a four hour treck to the elephant camp. The walk wasn't anything too vicious: I was expecting some serious jungle blades and a plastic map. Some found it testing. On the treck we passed over paddy fields and up steep hills, through villages and into thick vege...

Up at the crack of dawn, relatively no hang-over. We (Barney, Jorge, Yong Jon, Kate, Clare, Jackie - all nice guys - and I) set at nine and on our way up stopped at a market (I grabbed some beers and a bottle of Sang Song for the campfire) and a small village for some rice. Everybody I was travelling with seemed cool, including the guide, Pong, who was Karen (hill-tribe) and from the area we would be travelling through. The first treck was about four hours ...