I'm afraid we don't have many poductive activities to report this time, been keeping things fairly cheap and relaxed as we don't have long left :( Vang Vieng was great fun we found a brilliant, cheap guesthouse with Steph and Alex and basically enjoyed the bar and restaurant scene for a day or two. We spent a day doing the infamous (amongst the backpacking contingent) tubing. This involves floating down a river, with or without the aid of a tractor inner tyre a...

Luang Prabang was a great little place, we stayed in a hostel called Spicy Laos which was boiling hot but nice and sociable. The markets were great fun to wander, we had the best baguette sarnies jam packed with food for about 75p and fresh made juices (lime and mint was the best for about 35p). We survived on this for the few days we were in LP. We eventually met up with Alex and Steph and since it was raining when we met we had no choice but to get drunk........

We had the nicest bus from Jinghong to Luang Nam Tha, it was as rickety as any before, as dirty as ever and more jam packed with people and goods than we've ever seen, BUT, everyone was smiling and happy! I can't describe the feeling I got as we stood at the counter of the Laos border, the smells did it, lush, wet, vegetation....the smell of south east asia, it's good to be back. We drove away from the glossy, smart China exit through no-mans land and arrived wit...