We had planned to go tubing again today (without the drinking!) and take our camera this time, but when we woke up we really couldn't be bothered! We left the hotel around lunchtime and headed to our favourite bar, which has a big menu, free wifi, and plays Friends constantly! We spent a few hours there on the internet, trying to catch up with the diary, and of course watching classic Friends episodes! On the way back to the hotel we picked up our souvenir Van...

Tubing day! We were awake quite early and after getting ourselves ready we headed to a nearby café to fill up on breakfast. I went for another American (i.e. English) Breakfast; there's not really much choice here as the Lao people have rice dishes for breakfast and we still can't bring ourselves to eat chicken fried rice as the first meal of the day! Then we walked down the road to the tube rental office…we were instantly presented with a waiver to sign to...

Time to move on from Luang Prabang - we've had a great few days here, best place in Laos so far…but we're off to Vang Vieng which is a bit of a backpacker 'must-do' destination in SE Asia. Everyone goes there for 'tubing', where you hire an inflatable tyre and float down the river, stopping at riverside bars along the way. We've heard mixed reviews about it but decided that we have to do it! The town is supposed to be very backpacker oriented and nothing at a...

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,...