Widely documented as 'Asia's greatest city', Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, was our first base. A day didn't go by in Laos, Kenya, even Thailand, where the skies weren't picturesque blue and the sun didn't shine. Thang Long (Hanoi - City of the Soaring Dragon) however, had different ideas. We emerged into the grey gloom from our hostel and explored the 'Old Quarter', an area where people play chicken as they cross the roads, challenged by scooters, taxis and ...

Vietnam. A country America put on the map and in many cases, also blew it of it. With the stunning islands of Halong Bay, maybe the freshest food available on the entire planet and the country's amazing heritage, this is the place I've been looking forward to visiting for many years. We had two options for how to get from Laos to Vietnam. Road or Air. The road journey is known on the backpacker trail as being gruesome, long and uncomfortable - in many cases las...

I like Laos. It's different. I can't help but think I wish I could of backpacked South East Asia 10 years ago when more of the region would have been untouched, like Laos is. The only problem I've found with the country however, there isn't that much to do. I write this as I'm sat in a half decent, hotel like accommodation, watching films on tv. Not because I particularly feel like doing this, but even in the capital (Vientiane), there isn't that much to see....

We've arrived in the land of the 'tubing', the only problem being, the tubing was killed by the government late last year. You can still pay and rent a tube, but all the things that made tubing great (and in some cases, dangerous) have disappeared. For the time being at least. This left us with the 'other' option of things to do in VV, watch friends all day! It's strange... You're walking down the road, bars on your left, restaurants on your right and all you ...

The only time we seem to get up early on this trip is when we have a bus to catch, this time to Vang Vieng. We left at 08:30, actually let me rephrase that. We were supposed to leave at 08:30, but actually left some 45 minutes late. Initially we were picked up on a tuk-tuk and all of shared the opinion that surely this couldn't be our 'minivan' for the next 5 hours, could it? Thankfully it wasn't and it dropped us off at the station some 15 minutes later. T...