Today we slept late (nice!) and didn't leave the hotel until about midday after arranging our bus tickets to Vang Vieng with the guy who speak English at our guesthouse. After the short walk into town, we stopped at one of the street stalls for a baguette. Still find it a bit strange that baguettes are so big in Laos, but then the French were here for a long time. We also had a delicious shake each - banana and Oreo for me and banana and Nutella for Laura! Then...

We'd booked a trip for today and were heading for a slow-boat ride up the Mekong River to some caves, followed by a trip to a waterfall in the afternoon, We got picked up at our guesthouse and were taken to the river where we were introduced to our slow-boat captain. We walked down some steep steps to the river, where there were a few small boats moored up. Our captain gestured to us to climb over one of the other boats get into his! They're very small inside,...

Today we were up by about 8am so that we could get some sight-seeing done before the heat of the day kicked in. Our first stop was Phu Si, a 100m tall hill in the middle of the city centre and not far from our hotel. At its summit is a 24m gilded stupa called That Chomsi, which is flood-lit at night and can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. We started the long, slow climb from the entrance opposite the Nam Khan river and stopped for regular rests on the...

When we arrived in Luang Prabang there was a tuk-tuk waiting to take people (only Western people we noticed, so locals must pay cheaper fares) to their guesthouses for 15,000kip each (just over £1). Too tired to haggle or shop around, we got in a soon arrived at the guesthouse we'd booked - Merry 2. We never know whether we'll be able to check-in that early (it was about 7am!), but always hope for the best. Luckily, they were just cleaning our room so we were ...