We have finally arrived in Hanoi after 1 hour short flight, with a nice inflight meal and a very nice welcome at our guesthouse. The owner came running out of the hotel to greet us, and is constantly very excitable! We didnt want to leave Laos, but had a very nice last evening at a local bar where they put on a Ethnic Fashion SHow and some young boys performed a hip hop breakdance. They were brilliant. We would love to go back to Laos, and we felt bad towards the...

We seem to have done so much since our last blog entry. The elephants in Luang Prabang were a real highlight to Laos. We ended up booking with a local agent who specialises with the elephant tours - paid a little more but most the money went to the elephant camps in looking after and protecting them. The other agents didnt seem to care too much about this!!! When we first arrived we had to get a small canoe like boat across to the other side of the river, with ab...

We finally built up the courage to do tubing. After serveral death stories and roughly 80% of Vang Vieng with eye infections from the river, we decided to risk it as it was the main activity to do. Even our guide book talked about the deaths on the river!. We bought our tube (a big tractor tyre) and jumped on the tuk tuk. Even on the journey to the river, people were talking about friends who had accidents, head injuries, hospital trips etc!! We did wonder what w...

Hi, Been a while since we updated our blog. We have been a week in Laos now and its brilliant - everyone is so friendly and go out of their way to make it enjoyable. The locals are fab, children are great, speak very good english. The first 5 days, we spent in Vietianne, was a lovely city, but I spent most of the 5 days in bed as I was very sick - we have started our malaria tablets and Martin is having no side affects, and typically im having loads. Now in Vang ...

Well, we have arrived i Kunming after another 18 hour train journey, with a 3 hour delay! Have a flight leaving to Laos tomorrow morning, cant wait to get there. WE have had a real problem getting usd dollars in China, was nice and straight forward in Chongqing but because we were only allowed a little at a time we thought we would do the same in Kunming. Seems not!! To get USDwe had to draw out Chinese RMB and then transfer it, meanin two different exchange rate...