Its been a while... I am currently in Laos. (I say I, as things have changed since the last update, more about this in a mo) Laos is amazing, there are as many people in the whole of Laos as there are in Bangkok. Its so chilled out and the people friendly. Any must rewind back to China first. I'll do the highlights as not to bore you all. We left Xian on the train to Chengdu. We went to the Panda reserve and saw a load of pandas suprisingly. Chengdu is just another big town but the people friendlier and the chinese girls had better figures. We hiked up Emai Shan and James went to see the big buddha. I met a chinese girl there and spent some time with here, she taught me more Chinese and I taught her english... and some french!! I actually did not want to leave Chengdu, I could hve stayed and married Gau Yan and had some babies apparently. Nice to know I have options before I go down the Thai bride route. Anyways..down to Kunming..we flew straight from here to Lijiang - a beautiful town with cobbled streets in the old part and tibetan dressed women - however at night they all danced to techno which looked weird in Tibetan dress!! James and I went for a massage that came with more than we bargained. It was funny to see James running out the place pulling his shorts back on. We never did manage to get a massage in China! We went for a 3 day hike to tiger leaping gorge which was also stunning. From there we flew back to Kunming and then onto Laos (Capital Vientiane) Within an hour of landing in Laos we were on the river Meekong with a beer which turned into a 11 hour drinking session . This was at an outdoor street place that did food to.. James had two Thai green curries during the same drinking sess. It was so laid back compared to China. The next day a brother and sister who worked at the eatery took us up the Meekong to a restuarant that served you lunch on a floating bamboo raft. So the four of us boarded and ate fried crickets and LIVE shrimps!!! NICE! actually they were.. It was funny when the two Laos people were like "please eat more shrimp its good" and the words "I'll just take a few crickets" came my reply. I never thought I would say that. We visited the buddha park where a load of Buddha statues sat which was incredible. We then headed up to Vang Vieng on the bus (7 hours). It was like the best and the worst of Laos. Scenery amazing, right on the river with Limestone mountains and caves but the strip of bars played Friends all day and westerners were everywhere. I actually enjoyed the friends re runs. We did a day of Kyaking and caving.. the tour place said flip flops were fine.. It turned ot to be some of the hardest hiking/climbing I have done and flip flops were not ideal. We even had to swim into a cave and through it about 60m wading through bat sh*t. James cut his foot on the rocks and thought he may get an infection which was understanadble given the quality of the water. The next day we settled for lying in hammoks and drinking Lao beer and whisky - its a hard life. We left Vang Vieng to head to Luang Prabang - where I am now (I say I, because James decided to cut his journey short and has gone home. Reasons I am sure he will explain if he wants to. I am now finishing the rest of the trip alone.) Luang Prabang is beautiful too, I headed to Phu Si temple and then to Pak Ou caves where thousands of Buddha statues sit in the cave. (3 hours in a boat up the Meekong). Today I went to the waterfall and swam and chilled out. Laos is amazing and I would recommend anyone to come. I will be headed to Vietnam in a couple of days... I am getting eaten alive in this internet cafe and there are thousands of other bugs so I am doin one.. Take care all..