Hi everyone,

The last leg of our journey began in the capital of Thailand, Bangkok. Having come from India we found Bangkok to be a bit more relaxing and laid back. It definitely wasn't as hot anyway! Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist country so most of the touristy sights consist of Buddhist temples and statues. In contrast to that, are the bright lights and the bars that seemed to populate all the streets close to our guesthouse. There is one area of Bangkok where most backpackers, including us, decide to stay. This area had pretty much everything close by including restaurants, bars and even the pharmacy Boots!

We only had two days in Bangkok as we plan to spend some more time there before we fly home. The two days were spent visiting some amazing temples (known as Wats here) and statues. One of these was a huge statue of a reclining Buddha painted in gold. The Wats were spectacular; really well cared for with no expense spared in the decorations! Our evenings were spent sampling the local Chang Beer (600ml bottle for less than 2 euro) and eating some gorgeous Thai food!!

From Bangkok we took an overnight bus to Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand. The bus journey was a bit of an event in itself because we both got eaten alive by mosquitoes every time the bus stopped for a break. On top of that the bus' air-con seemed to be on the blink so the bus got totally steamed up with the humidity....making the plastic (fake leather) seats moist with sweat!

Chiang Mai was a lovely town, much smaller than Bangkok but had lots to offer. It was here that we decided to indulge our taste buds so we signed up for a cookery course. The course lasted a full day and involved us first visiting the local food markets to learn about our ingredients. We then went to the cookery school and cooked a total of six dishes! We also tried our hand at carving vegetables into shapes. As you can see from the pictures we weren't very successful at the carving bit! The rules of the cookery school stipulated that all food cooked had to be eaten....let's just say we didn't have any problem with that rule!!! We even skipped breakfast in preparation for the feast! Thankfully we were given recipe books so we will be able to make you some lovely Thai food when we return.

Chiang Mai is a popular place for foreigners to come for Buddhist meditation courses. The minimum course was 10 days so unfortunately we didn't have time for this. We did however, get to spend a really interesting evening chatting to a group of young (early 20's) Buddhist monks. We asked them loads of questions about their religion and their life in the monastery. They even found time to teach us some meditation techniques. Chiang Mai is also a really popular place to start treks into the northern hills and villages of Thailand. We decided to pass on trekking, as our time in SE Asia is limited and we needed to push on to Laos.

We flew from Chiang Mai to a place called Luang Prabang in the north of Laos. Laos was once ruled by France and there is a definite French influence here. It's great because there are loads of tasty baguettes everywhere! The French were the ones that added the 's' to Lao even though it is a silent 's'. So the local beer here for example is called Beer Lao. Laos is a communist country although you wouldn't know it as a tourist. It just seems like any other country politically with plenty of problems.

We spent a short two days in Luang Prabang and we wish we could have stayed longer 'cos it was a lovely town especially in the evenings when the night markets opened. We visited some cool waterfalls and even got to swim beside them. There was a rope swing there too so we both tried our hand at being Tarzan!

A 5 hour bus journey south took us from Luang Prabang to our current home Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is known to backpackers for three things....Tubing, drinking and restaurants that play re-runs of Friends. The town itself is totally geared towards backpackers with very little traditional Laos culture evident. The town is located beside a big river and people can hire big rubber rings and float or go 'tubing' down the river, stopping at bankside pubs along the way. There are also some rope swings and slides into the water to keep people entertained. We'll hopefully do this towards the end of our time in Vang Vieng 'cos everybody raves about how much fun it is.

Our main reason for coming here is to teach English to local kids in a village outside Vang Vieng. There is an organic farm on the outskirts of the town and the owner of this set up classes for the locals some years ago. This has gone from strength to strength and they currently have 500 kids on their books. We are only here for two weeks unfortunately, we'd love to have more time. We have just finished our first week and it was great. The kids range from 11 to 20 years old and are all really keen to learn. Linda thinks it is a dream to teach kids that are so enthusiastic! For me it is a whole new kettle of fish....a complete contrast to the lab! I am really enjoying it though and it's a great insight into what real teaching must be like. Luckily my biggest class only has 9 kids in it so controlling them isn't much of a problem. We are both really glad we decided to come here and do some volunteer work.

After a tough week of work a good auld Beer Lao went down nicely (less than 1 euro for a 600ml bottle)! It's nice to have the weekend off! ;-) We have another week here and then we go back to Thailand for our last 10 days. It's mad to think that we have such a short amount of time left!

Hope you are all enjoying the heatwave over there. It's the start of the monsoon (not the shop) over here so it's raining more often than not!

Thanks a mil for all your lovely messages. We'll update you all again when we finish our teaching.

Lots of Love, Ger and Linda xx