Well hello again! Sorry for lack of updates over the past few weeks. This has been mainly because we have been in areas where there is barely any internet access let alone electricity, but also because we have been having far too good a time to waste it in a sweaty internet cafe! It's been so long since we last did a journal that I don't really know where to start so this might be all a little disjointed i'm afraid. Right now we are in northern Laos in a town called Vang Vieng, famous on the backpacker circuit for tubing (floating down a river on a tube whilst drinking copious amounts of beerlao/whisky). Stupidly tho we both flung ourselves off a 15m rope swing yesterday during our kayaking trip and now feel like we've been in a car crash (Jammy slightly chipped his tooth!). So we've had to put our sensible heads on and skip tubing. Gutted. As for the kayaking trip tho this was stunning as the scenery here is like something out of Jurassic Park. However I discovered that I really don't like caves with water in them and after hurting myself on the ridiculously high rope swing (see photos!), I went on and slid down a mud embankment and whacked my hip. But it was a really good day, promise! The day before was definitely more pleasant tho when we went out on bikes and found a small lagoon with crystal-clear water and nice (sensible-sized) rope swings. Sensible is definitely the way forward. Well for today at least! Other than this Laos has been really nice so far although we haven't been able to do as much as we would have liked as we have to get to the far north for volunteering on the 4th July (Tuesday). We had a great time in the 4000 Islands just on this side of the Cambodian border doing pretty much nothing for 5 days. This place is so laid back it would make Jamaica seem intense i reckon. However we did move our lazy arses to go and see some river dolphins and to go on a fishing trip where jammy somehow managed to catch 2 eels. However they didnt quite live up to to the taste test and made him want to be sick, nevertheless he was still very proud. There is no electricity on the island we were staying except for between 6 and 10 at night but never fear - we still managed to watch the England-Sweden game at 2 o clock in the morning by getting a local to turn on his generator so that us and 3 swedes could watch the game in his front room, quite random but we did it for England! We then experienced one of our more 'interesting' journeys so far which included sharing our 'bus' (read truck with benches) with several baskets of fish (some of which escaped), a bunch of semi-alive chickens that had been strapped together and flung under the seat, and a bag of some kind of dead animal that was dripping with blood. Unfortunately, as this dead animal was dragged from the bus it got dropped on Jammy and left his foot covered in blood-nice! This took us to Pakse where we visited the Bolaven Plateau on an adventure which left us hitch-hiking home with a Malaysian guy who took us to see his coffee plantation which was actually pretty interesting. One of the waterfalls we saw on this day (Tad Fan-2 100m high vertical drops) was amazing and definitely worth the trouble of getting back! The next day was equally as adventurous. We got back on the mopeds after a couple of weeks off and headed to an ancient temple (Wat Phu). This time we had safe roads but didnt leave ourselves enough time to do the whole jouney so ended up only having 15 minutes there before having to come back in order to beat sunset. Although the temple was pretty nice, the highlight of the trip was definitely when a guy rode onto our boat on his moped but went too far and fell off, literally over the handlebars, into the other side of the river along with his bike-hilarious! After heading to the capital city Vientiane on a posh VIP bus (no animals allowed) we decided it was time we had a bit of luxury and checked ourselves into a posh hotel. This made us remember how good it is to have the luxury of a hot shower and a comfy clean bed. So much so that I was quite scared I couldn't go back to living like a scum bag! (Oh and Jammy got beaten at pool by a lady boy!)So that brings us up to date i think although make sure you check out the second Cambodian entry as I've only just done that now and I don't want this to go on any longer. Tomorrow we are heading to Luang Prabang which is one of the main tourist places to visit in Laos before heading to Luang Namtha to start our volunteering on Tuesday. So if you bother to read this far down pleeeease leave us a message on the message board or send us an email as we love hearing from you all! Lots of Love mel and Jammy XXX ps please note how lazy Jammy is in the fact that he hasn't bothered to write anything yet and therefore deserves a torrent of abuse from everyone!