Usually a blog entry from the world famous Vang Vieng in Laos would be very colourful indeed, however mine is going to be very dull in comparison. I still wasnt feeling on top form. Even though I had gone to bed at 4:30 the day before I was still feeling really tired so the idea of tubing wasnt appealing to me at the time. So whilst all my friends got ready to go tubing, which involves riding down a muddy river on a rubber tyre tube and stopping off at many river...

We woke up nice and early and headed down to the river. Today we were travelling by long boat to take a picturesque ride down the Ou and Mekong Rivers. The boats were like long wooden canoes with a roof over it. We were taking two boats. One boat had seats similar to a childs car seat and the other one had small, child-sized wooden chairs. The boat I was going in had the small wooden chairs so I was already feeling hard done by but then i was the second to ...

I woke up after a much better nights sleep under a warm duvet and went to the cafe next door for the cooked breakfast we had all ordered. Then we boarded the bus and set off through the beautiful Lao countryside. On the way we stopped to visit another village. In this village the houses were built on the ground instead of on stilts. Once again the children slowly came out to peep at us. They gathered in a little huddle and nervously smiled at us. They only came ...

So after a cold night we woke up early to a chilly start. Charlie cooked us pancakes for breakfast and made us a cup of tea. We carried our bags down to the border and got signed out of Thailand. To get into Laos we had to cross the Mekong river. We did this on a long wooden canoe boat. We all got in with all our bags as well, its amazing how it didnt sink. It only took 2 minutes at the most to cross the river. We then had to climb out of the boat with our bags a...

We checked out of our hotel in Chiang Mai and met outside. A few people werent coming with us as they were staying in Chiang Mai longer and we had some new people joining the group that had already stayed in Chiang Mai longer. Our method of transport for the day was mini bus or two infact. We divided into two cars and set off on our way. About two hours into the journey we stopped at a market place in Chiang Rai. There were many stalls selling clothes, jewelery a...