We've been stuck in Vientiane for 4 nights, as the earliest flight we could get to Hanoi was on the 31st January. There's not a huge amount to do here so at first we were disappointed but we've not had a bad time for two main reasons: 1) the food here is delicious and 2) we have cable TV with HBO so there's been a good film on each night. In addition, the locals are lovely and there's a nice, relaxed vibe. It's certainly the calmest capital city we've visited! T...

On Tuesday 24th we went tubing in the Nam Song River with the couple we met on the way down from Luang Prabang. To tube the river, you have to each pay 55,000 kip (about £4.50) plus a 60,000 kip deposit. You are then driven 4km upstream and dumped by the roadside with a bright yellow rubber ring tucked under your arm. Most people buy a drink at the first bar before they even get their feet wet (guilty) then jump into their rings and head down the river. It is no...

We spent three nights in Luang Prabang before getting the minibus from hell (more on that later) down to Vang Vieng. Luang Prabang is a very pretty UNESCO World Heritage City with lots of temples, French colonial buildings and flower-draped archways, definitely worth a few nights. They offer elephant treks and trips to waterfalls but we'd done both in Chiang Mai so gave the organised tours a miss. Instead we set out to spend a day exploring the town, finished at...

Our minibus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong took about six hours, with a couple of stops along the way: at a cashew nut factory for an enforced lunchbreak (I wonder how much commission the driver gets for that) and at Chiang Rai's White Temple. The temple was indescribably lovely and ornate, even if it did look a little like a giant marzipan wedding cake. When we pulled up outside our hostel for the night we were pretty pleased with ourselves. The hostel's resta...