We have spent just over a week in Laos. It is a gorgeous country - really underdeveloped and not too tainted by tourism...yet. It is really charming, with little shanty villages and people wearing pointy hats walking buffalo down the roads!

At our first stop, there was a lady holding a monkey on a string and then the owner of our geusthouse came to check that our room was ok, and to try to sell us some cannabis - welcome to Laos, where anything goes.

We also survived Route 13, a 7 hour drive notorious for shootings. Always a bonus.

Laos is famous for tubing - and whoever thought of it is a genius, although I'm not sure any other country would allow it. You basically sit on a rubber ring, float down a river, and get pulled into bars 'hook-a-duckie- style and drink all afternoon. At the stops, there are all sorts of make-shift trapeezes and rope swings to fling your drunken self into the water.

In the midst of beerlao and gin and tonic, we lost track of time (and my flip flops),and it was getting dark. Unfortunately then you can't see the stop sign so we had to haul our asses out of the water and hope for the best. Oh and this was during an almighty thunderstorm, but I guess that although we were touching water, we did have the rubber ring as protection.

Now for the most horrific story... we accidently got a naked massage. We thought we'd treat ourselvelves to an aromatherapy massage. We had to take a shower first, fine, then as we started to put on some underwear, they instructed us to keep it off.

Argh, now I'm the biggest prude since, well, Mrs Minky, (sorry mum - you know you are) so when I had to flip over, I was trying to protect my modesty, and it all went wrong. Bits flopping out everywhere. Much the masseuses amusement. Then she started mocking me as I had a bite on my bum (mosquito - to clarify). I felt totally violated and had to pay six pounds (including hefty tip) for the priviledge!

Tomorrow we fly to Hanoi in Vietnam, so once again we change currencies, languages and probably seen another million temples. But hey, it's all good fun!

Hope you're all well, Katherine xxx