Hello all,

So....Laos is amazing.....everyone is sooo friendly and smiley and the kids are the cutest by far!!! Everywhere you go people say 'Saibadee' and wave.....

Arrived in Luang Prabang after two days on the slow boat from the border floating down the Mekong River along with a million other backpackers and a giant tarantula in the toilet! Two very lazy couple of days just watching the world go by, drinking Beer Lao and stopping off at villages where everyone stared and waved at the all the strange white people crammed like fools into the boat.

Luang Prabang is very elegant, very french and very pretty. All the buildings have wooden shutters and balconies and people spend their time playing boules and eating baguettes with Laughing Cow cheese!?

Did a days kayaking downstream and even managed not to capsize in the rapids despite our general ineptitude involving any kind of sporting activity. We (we meaning Tim) even managed to row the whole way back to base even though the rest of our group hitched a lift with a local fisherman!

Also got up at 6am to feed the monks! It is the world's longest procession of monk receiving alms.... Very odd experience kneeling alongside the local Laos people feeding them rice and sweets into their pots, but felt very good about ourselves for most of the day!

Spent the evenings drinking Beer Lao and the nasty local firewater Lao Lao with two Irish birds Deirdre and Nicola who we are hopefully meeting again in Vietnam.

Also heading south for a few days at Vang Vieng....which is a typical backpacker haunt. Slightly odd place full of TV bars and irritating fellow travellers who insisted on practising their circus skills/juggling/monkey charming/fire-eating on the street.....on the plus side the scenery was incredible and the Nam Lao disco was kicking.

Met some really fun people, Rich and Elaine and Claire and Lexy, and spent few days chilling out with them before we all meet up again in Hanoi next week.

Highlights include tubing down the river and being fished out by the riverside bars with bamboo poles only to hurl ourselves back in down massive zip lines and rope swings.....all very entertaining and vaguely terrifying....

Also scored massive after finding a flyer from a top notch posh hotel requesting people to come and chill in their riverside infinitywhile pool road testing their cocktails for free during staff training. Reluctantly we agreed to assist.

We also had our first roast dinner in over four months.....hurrah.....it was the business....lamb, yorkshire pudding, roastie potatoes, cabbage and bacon.....the works....and all swilled down with a G and T. Naturally, darling.

Have now headed back to Luang Prabang to meet up with Jo, Alex and Charlie, will write soon,

Love Deb and Tim xxxx