27th - 30th June 2009 First we stopped at Dong Khong and found there wasn't much around so Matt and I rented some ridiculously clapped out scooters and rode them around the island like we had stole them. We rode down single tracks jumped them and dodged water buffalo and chickens then headed back to drink some beer but on the way I ran out of petrol. We made a hook out of a branch and Matt towed me back to town. That was the first time I have ever ran out of p...

24th - 26th June 2009 We took the 12 hour night bus from Vientiane to Pakse, our first night bus with actual beds. We had to share a bunk about the size of a king single but not as long. It was a lot better than any of the other seated buses we had caught even if it was a little cramped. After settling into our hostel we went for a walk around the town. We went to a market which sold just about every useless thing under the sky. We were about 2km away from o...

21st - 23rd June 2009 We arrived in Vientiane on a local bus from Vang Vieng. It was our first local bus in a while and made for a very hot and sweaty ride with no air con. Vientiane is the capital of Laos and it'd be fair to say that there's not a whole lot there. We spent our first day riding around on pushbikes trying to arrange our Cambodian visas. On one of our rides we stopped off for some lunch and ended up eating noodle soup with pig's blood. Sammy was...

16th - 20th June 2009 On arrival in Vang Vieng we walked from the highway across an old runway used during the war into a pleasant little town we had high hopes of. The room we found had leaky taps blocked drains and faulty wiring but we liked it none the less. The manager was a strange pommy fellow. He came into our room to fix the power point and I tried to make conversation and said to him 'How long have you been in Vang Vieng?' He looked at me funny and sa...

13th - 15th June 2009 Nikki and I really felt like we had arrived in the middle of nowhere after the long boat trip when a man met us at the shore with a sign with our names on it. The air conditioned van back to the resort could have been a limousine it was such a change. On arrival Nikki's strange mood of excitement made sense as Mum, Dad, Ben and Mojgan were waiting for us at the lovely resort that Mum and Dad had arranged for Nikki and I to stay in for ...