Arriving in Laos is like a breath of fresh air (quite literally as there is something like 20% more oxygen in the air here compared to Hanoi!). Gone are the hectic cities with constantly beeping horns replaced by slow paced, relaxed and happy Laos. Arrived after day long bus journey up through mountains, dogding bulls & cows on the windy roads with amazing views for an overnight stop in Lac Sau. It's a small border town where we arrived in time for dinner at the towns only restaurant, imaginatively titled "Only One Restaurant". Diference between here and Hanoi is huge, it's so quiet here it's almost spooky!

Whilst waiting for dinner to be cooked we walked accross to evening school where they teach English and we all sat with a pupil for 20mins to chat & help them learn. Was really good experience as the girl i sat with was 17 and had just started learning English but was excellent & she was really excited and grateful to be talking to an English foreigner for the first time to test her skills!

Next morning set of for quiet capital of Vientienne where a few of us hired bikes and went exploring to temples, markets, arc de triomphe style monument ( city was under French control for a while) & visted MAG, an organisation that clears unexploded cluster bombs dropped by America during Vietnamese war. No small task as Laos holds title of most bombed country from this time and of the millions of bombs dropped there was a 30% fail rate meaning hundreds of people still get killed and maimed each year, almost 40yrs on from the UXO's. It's also one of the reasons Laos is struggling to pull itself from poverty as so much land can't be farmed. So we did our bit, bought a t-shirt & made a contribution which will help to clear some land.

Next stop Vang Vieng, home of tubing! Arrived early evening so went for dinner then hit the bucket bars for 1 very mesy night which left 11 of 12 of us very sick (sadly i wasnt the 1 that avoided it!). Got up next morning much too early for everyone's liking and started the day with some kayaking! Pulled in at a village at the side of the river and went on trek through farms to reach some caves, we were all just expecting prety scenery and saunter round mouth of cave so when we got there it was quite a shock to see the mouth of the cave was a 2ft gap above the waterline that we had to swim through! But armed with head torches & helmets we plopped into ruber rings and pulled ourselves along a rope system into the caves & turned out to be so much fun! Had to duck & dodge stalagmite things and abandon our tubes to crawl through tiny mud tunnels then paddle & swim our way when opened out a bit more, made some stone statues and did a loop to come back to our tubes and made our way back out into sunlight once more.

Got back to our kayaks to continue the 12km ride back to our bungalows. We were all sharing double kayaks and i was sharing with Cassie having great laugh flying over rapids etc until about half way through we managed to hit some rocks hidden beneath waterline in the rapids which sent us off course and in the direction of a reeded area. Scraped by a few of these then our luck ran out and we hit small tree side on, capsizing our kayak and draging us both under & downstream a bit til we managed to find our footing by grabbing onto reeds in slightly shallower area. Looked around for our kayak onyl to discover it still wrapped around the tree and worst of all, split in half! Spent next 5-10mins trying to keep our footing in the fast flowing current and panicking about if we'd have to pay for the kayak while we waited for the guides to come back and rescue us!

Eventually us and our sad looking broken kayak were rescued and caught up with rest of group so we went rest of way back in guide's kayak which we still managed to flip over one more time! Went down Mekong River through tubing area & saw all bars, swings, slides, zip wires etc. By time got back to the hotel was absolutely freezing as had been raining all day too and we couldnt wait for hot showers & hot food, broke my own rules and ate western food for first time on trip but i felt i'd earnt a burger!

After lunch was meant to be going back out on river tubing but accumilation of worst hangover & extreme tiredness as well as no desire to go anywhere near the river again today having spent so much time in it involuntarily meant me & Casie decided to foregore the tubing expreience. A few of the group went & said was brill but i was happy enough with having seen what it was all about at the time!

Following day is onto Luang Prabang, apparently a beautiful drive for scenery but it's still pretty rainy & misty so couldnt see a thing! After nights rest, got up in morning andset off for elephant trekking! Met our elephantsand went trundling off around village & farms & back before ending up once again in theMekong river, this time voluntarily to wash elephants!We were waiting in the river and the 3 huge elephants were bought in where we climbed on their backs getting frequently sprayed by their trunks! 2 of the guys in our group, Tom & Will, had a particularly stubborn elephant which was not willing to play ball and shook them off into the watertime & time again! Luckily ours was more than happy to settle for spraying is & the occasional dunking where we had to hold on for dear life til she got back up again! Was pretty surreal aswe'd just be sitting there chatting among us then realise we're actually sitting on the back of elephants, in the Mekong River, in Laos!

Got back to hotel for quick change to dry clothes then straight back out again to visit waterfalls. Was really impressive and beautiful, water was bit murky as just coming into wet season so was raging but we swam in bottom of one of the waterfalls for a bit& then worked our way up to the base ofwhere the biggest one falls & fought our wayaccross to stand in pounding spray that almost knows you off your feet from quite a distance it's so powerful!

From Luang Prabang we boarded a slow boat for a 2 day cruise along Mekong River, spent time sleeping,playing cards, reading, chatting and watching river life glide past, just generally recovering.Stopped overnight in small riverside town Pak Beng then continued on next day. Captain bought a fish from some kids on the river that had just caught it & the family that lived on our boat cooked it up for our lunch, was really good! Also pulled in at a tribe village & hada look around the small community of bamboo houses & met the locals before boarding the slow boat again to take us to the Laosborder.

Following morning drove to Chaing Mai where we only had afternoon to explore as catching overnight train back to Bangkok. Had an explorearound the city and hit the market for an impromptu spending spree! Would've been good to have some more time in Chaing Mai as wanted to visit long neck hill tribes but i guess it's something to come back for!

Back in Bangkok we went out for our farewll dinner & drinks, can't believe tour is over already i's gone so quick!Saying goodbye to everyone next day was really sad, got used to spending almost 24/7 with new friends over the last month so really weird to think won't be meeting up withthem all in morning again! Had fantastic month though, seen & done somuch, met some amazing people & got so many memories from it!