Hey guys sorry it has been so long since I updated, not really had the time or the good internet connection. So this is what we have been up to:


We left Chiang Mai on the 17th of Feb to head further north to Chiang Kong to cross the boarder into Laos. We entered Laos on the 18th and from here we jumped onto a slow boat and believe me it was slow. This boat consisted of wooden benches a hole in the ground (toilet) and a weird bar thing.There was no room to move around which became quite annoying when on it for 8hrs. But still we met people, a lovely couple called Tom and Amy from Portsmouth who we ended up spending lots of time with. We stopped off in a small town where the electricity turns off at 10pm, can you imagine. Then back on the boat for the second part a 6hr trip down the Mekong to our destination Luang Prabang.


Luang Prabang was lovely, although the first guest house we looked at and agreed to was vile. Rhiannon and I had a shower and then changed our minds and moved to another one. Oh well! There was not much to do here so we hired bikes and decided to bike to some small waterfalls about 15km out of the town. But the problem was the heat, we managed to make it up and around the mountain there, on the way back however, Rhiannon and myself nearly died. So we hitch-hiked a ride on the back of a truck with a man that spoke no English just to the top of the hill, downhill was easy! HAHA!


We left Luang Prabang and headed down Laos to Vang Vieng, a place we had heard lots about and somewhere I was really looking forward to. The journey there wasn't the easiest, a 7hr bus journey up and around mountains, I had no idea that there were so many mountains here but it made the 200km distance a long and painful one. Vang Vieng is backpacker central to Laos. Here the idea is to drink lots, have fun and tube. So we did. Our second day we hired tubes (inner ring of a tractor tyre, much like the rings at water parks), then on a tuk tuk to the top of the river and you basically float down the river stopping off at bars on the way. At each bar there are zip wires and people jumping into the river. I only did one zip wire and it seriously hurt my arms. One of the bars had a mud pit which I was wrestled into by an Irish guy we had met, my shorts ended up being a different colour, lovely I know. That night my hangover started kicking in about 6, so the only way to sort it out was to drink more. Onto the buckets, as it is, a bucket of drink. Good times! The following day we did the same thing but didn't hire tubes, decided to swim and save money, was just as good fun. Whilst sat at one of the bars, I saw a loads of guys from uni that I went skiing with in 2nd year, and a guy from Dunmow. It really is a small world.


We left Vang Vieng the following day, and I was really quite sad because we had met so many great people and it was the first time we saw loads of people doing the same sort of thing that we are and was good to talk to other people in the same situation. From here we went Vientianne (the capital), again another long, very hot, hungover journey, not pleasant. Vientianne didn't have much to offer and with the temperature hitting about 40 it was far too hot to do anything.


Whilst in Vang Vieng we decided to book flights to Vietnam instead of taking the 27hr bus journey. But when we arrived at the airport it was like deja vu, we were told we were not on the flight. Late found out we had booked a flight for the 28th of march not feb, bad times! :( But after lots of trials and tribulations we managed to get a flight out later that afternoon, and we were back on track.