"I was there the day the strength of men failed".-- The Fellowship of the Ring The VIP bus from Vientiane to Pakse was, for once, a VIP bus. That it to say the air conditioning worked, and there wasn't a man on board with a Kalashnikov. They also gave us some free food, a free bottle of cold water, and in the morning (for t'was a night bus) they gave us a refrigerated napkin with which to mop our brow..... Now that's class. True, not all was perfect; ...

"Accept no substitute"-- Jackie BrownLuang Prabang proved to be a rather delightful place (and I apologise for using the word delightful, but I promise to swear later on to balance it out). It was by the Mekong river, lined with palm trees and mosquitos, populated by westerners either buying tat at the night markets or opium from taxi drivers. At night we would meet up with our new group of life-partners (Fred, Chris, Andrew and Will) at the sports bar which, to ...

"It's this whole other country"-- Forrest GumpLaos.... country number 16 on our fair trip around the world. Another language, currency, culture, horrible road network and method of going to the toilet.We left China first thing in the morning and decided to walk across the kilometre or so of no-man's-land between the countries. The landscape had been changing slowly as we wound our way south of Kunming, and long before we reached the border we found oursel...