Back in Bangkok, again after a while of not updating this, so heres the last few weeks for you...

We left the North of Thailand with our friends and travelled across the Mekong into Laos. Laos is a country made entirely of bamboo huts, where a simple bus journey of 150km takes 6 hours and where stepping of the beaten track probably results in stepping on a landmine. In Luang Namtha we headed out on another trek, this time in kayaks (which i am even worse at controlling than a mountain bike).

We spent the dy kayaking down the river, and feasted on Laos food inlcuding raw buffalo, worms (again) and chicken heads and arrived in the Kamu village that evening. We stayed in a family's hut and having been only the third group of foreigners ever to have visited, we were quite a novelty to them. Another day kayaking took us further down the river to another village who had NEVER seen foriegners and were soon surrounded by hoards of children who would poke the kayak and then run away screaming and adults who just stood and stared with disbelief. Trekking finished and another epic bus journey later we arrived in Luang Prabang, a very pretty, little town, where they had fancy wine bars and decent wine....for the first time in 4 months!!!!!

Next the Plain of Jars....a plain with many jars, that no one can explain and where thin paths are clearly marked as the only safe places to walk due to landmines.

After a cultural tour of Laos, we moved on to Vang Vieng, a place full of bars constantly playing Friends DVD's, so much so that when I asked one of the owners if he actually liked Friends he sadly shook his head and just said "we have played these back-to-back for 4 years". But theres more to Vang Vieng than Friends, its the home of tubing, an excellent hobby which involves hiring an inflated tractor inner tube and heading to the river. When I say river, I mean bars, and more bars, with seaside plastic buckets of cocktails and rope swings into the water. When you get bored of one, you float 20m downstream and get lassooed into another. 5 day later we had to leave the tubing as the thought of one more episode of Ross and Rachel was too much to bear.

So Bangkok, last chance to do some cheap shopping, we visited the River Kwai yesterday and took a trip on the cheerily named "Death Railway". Tonight we head down to Krabi, for some sun and a beachy Christmas. Hope your all ready for Christmas!!!!

Rich and Em xxx
(lots and LOTS of photos to come soon)