Hi all,

After a long silence finally a new message from us (or actually only Micha). Rose had some dodgy food yesterday and is suffering from a small food poisoning attack and taking it easy today: she is already feeling a lot better so nothing to worry about.

We have travelled the north of Laos in the past 10 days and tomorrow we are going down south to the capital Vientiane. The internet is even slower here than in Thailand so I have not uploaded too many pics this time.

After a bumpy start (wooden asses on a 2 day boat trip over the Mekong) we finally have seen the charm of Laos. The first impressions were more like 'damn these folks up here are greedy' but once you get out of the main tourist attractions it appears that Laos is beautiful and the folks are really genuinely friendly.

Highlights of our activities so far in Laos:

• A mountain bike trip (what a tough workout here in the hills)
• A visit to tranquil Muang Ngoi and a trek to some nearby small village through rice fields in the middle of nowhere
• A visit to Tat Kuang Si waterfalls
• Beer Lao which is served everywhere and comes in 64 cl bottles and costs between 60 and 80p!

Once arrived in Vientiane I hope to find a bit more bandwidth to publish some more pics and detailed blogging messages.

At least you all know now that we are still enjoying ourselves and alive.

Blog ya later,

Micha