It's been an eventful few days... First of all, we travelled to Hue (approximately pronounced "whey", although it's endless fun trying to get the different nationalities in our group to say it), which is roughly in the centre of Vietnam. The optional trip we all took was for a motorbike tour. This involved sitting on the back of a motorbike and hanging on as the driver zoomed up dirt tracks, past obstacles such as bicycles or people. Much like the motorbi...

[Updated - the attached picture is now the dog one - see below for description] Well, this is a bit of a culture shock. Laos was a lovely country, pretty laid-back and gentle on the weary traveller. As the time came to leave Laos, though, things started to get interesting... Remember last time I said that this could be some kind of reality TV show and somebody would get voted off? We're now down to 10 people. Cath and Chris have had to go back to En...

I have just about got the hang of uploading photos, so here's the snake we had in Luang Prabang. I'm in Vientiane, but we must return our story to just after the bikes had been hired... The group dynamic (if I can use a poncey phrase like that) has developed as we've all got to know each other a bit. When it comes to free time, we tend to gravitate into different mini-groups with a similar approach, although people drift freely from one mini-group to anoth...

Right... I'm in Laos, and I'm afraid there are no photos to show you. This is because I tried to connect my camera to the USB port, and it tried to electrocute me. I'll hopefully get a whole load of photos on there soon, when I'm at a computer which isn't homicidal. After Chiang Mai we had a slow boat trip up the Mae Khong river, which lasted two days. It was extremely relaxing, you could dangle your legs over the side and watch the scenery go by. T...

Just a quick message, I'm here as last-minute decision so I don't have my assembled cables to transfer my own pictures from my phone/camera. Having met up with the group I'll be travelling with (led by Sam, a.k.a. JC because of his uncanny resemblance to a certain Mr Christ, although I don't think Jesus smoked). I'm the only Scot, apart from Sam there are two English people (living in Australia), three Kiwis, two Irish, two American, one Canadian (living in...