Laziness had kicked in big time. Maybe Vientiane's lazy reputation had rubbed off on us or maybe that was just a convenient excuse for us to put our feet up and do nothing in this quiet capital city. Forget any of this try new things nonsense, let's just take it easy we thought. Pre-Vietnam we had a total of four days to kill in Vientiane and many had warned us that the city had nothing much to offer. They were wrong. On the surface the city looks simple. There ...

I sit in a hostel surrounded by confused, agitated backpackers. They all look down at their laptops, iPads and smartphones bewildered. Comments such as 'Whats the wifi password?' , 'why isn't it working?', 'this is a joke!' ring out around me while I sit there isolated, on my tech-free island surrounded by a sea of technology. For the modern backpacker soap and toilet paper may be optional but wifi is a must. The same people who complain about everything being to...

Fear is a strange feeling but as I stood on a tree branch peering nervously over at the cloudy blue water awaiting me eight meters below I had little time to reflect on such feelings. A row of keen adrenaline junkies waited patiently behind me, all looking as nervous as me as they waited for me to plunge into the cool water below. We made a few jokes and gave each other words of encouragement but now it was time for me to get on with it. I didn't mind the height ...

When we first arrived in Luang Prabang I wasn't too sure how I felt about the place. We arrived at our accommodation, the Kounsavan Guesthouse, where Ro and I shared a four bed dorm with Christoph and a newly acquired "friend", Steve. Christoph wasn't impressed with our choice of accommodation (he's obviously travelling on a different budget to us). He was kind enough to take it a step further and compare our room to a German prison. Apparently prison is better f...

It was time to leave beautiful and calm Chiang Mai. What better way to enter Laos than on a 3 day, 2 night journey via a slow boat. On day 1 we drove up to the border town, Chiang Khong where we were put up in a pretty cool hut-style accommodation. Approximately 50 metres from our resort was the Mekong River, overlooking Laos. It was surreal, here we are on Thailand soil with our destination country only a stones throw away. We were lucky to witness a free rive...