Vang Vieng. What a crazy place. The town is consumed predominantly by back packers of which there is a simple mix of wild partiers, mellowed druggies and drunken hooligans. Combine this with a serious lack of responsibility, authority and care and you can start to understand why it is such a crazy place. Yet, oddly, beyond all this misbehavior, the mix seems to work and everyone gets along. The main attraction here, beyond the lack of authority, is its beautifu...

After a few days in Koh Samui our scheduled time in Asia was rapidly coming to end. Our initial intention was to minimise our time in Thailand and rather concentrate on getting to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. By this stage, though, and with only four scheduled days left in Asia, we had only made it to Vietnam. It was time to test the bend of our flexible round the world air ticket and we got in touch with our travel agent back in Joburg. The results weren't grea...