11-16 April The bus ride from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang was the worst one yet! It was supposed to take seven hours to go just under 300km, but it took ten. The bus (with no a/c) snaked up through the mountains and picked up locals along the way, sitting them in the aisles on plastic chairs. There were no safety barriers along the roads and the back of the bus kept coming off the the tarmac. It was quite frightening at times, but the scenery was simply breat...

9 - 11 April It was a short ride to Vang Vieng from Vientiane and when we arrived we quickly found a lovely room to stay, it had a balcony overlooking the river. Vang Vieng was a town just full of restaurants, pubs and travel agencies, it was a traveller's haven, but it seemed to have lost its soul a bit since I was last there. The area's magnificent natural beauty was now overshadowed by half dressed, drunks. Our first day we took it easy and we watched a few...

5 - 9 April The sleeper bus was greta, it was made up actual beds for once! We arrived in Vientiane about 7am and then caught a tuk tuk into the main town. We had to have a real look around to find somewhere to stay, the prices there were crazy. We settled on a guesthouse that was a bit scummy and our room was right next to the drain where everyone's poo went out, so it stank rotten. We didn't really do that much in Vietiane as it was that expensive. I was als...

- 4 April We caught a boat down the river from Don Khong to Don Det. Approaching the island my stomach was doing flips and my head hurt so much, anxiety was exploding out of every pore. Stepping ouff the boat onto the shore, I could tell already that Don Det was no longer the place that Mark loved so much and I felt a sigh of relief. I knew I had scattered him in the right place, Koh Phi Phi, in Thailand. We hunted up and down the island for cheap bungalows an...

29 March - 1 April I wish we had taken the time out and spent a few days in Stung Treng. It was a lovely relaxed place off the tourist trail. It was so sleey and the people were very warm and friendly. We caught a bus from Stung Treng to the border and then caught two more buses and a boat to Don Khong, the largest of nearly 4,000 islands in the middle of the Mekong in southern Laos. The island had about 10,000 inhabitants and was 32km in diameter. It had abou...