Hello everyone! As I type this, I realise that today is actually the day I should have been flying home - but thanks to the wonders of date-change tickets, I'm not! I'm actually in Vangvieng, having chilled out for a few days and drank copius amounts of Beer Lao! They have this thing here where you hire an inner tube of a tractor and float down the river in it! You stop off every so often to refill your bottles and jump off zip wires and bridges and other crazy s...

Hello everyone! Well - after one of the craziest weeks I've ever had I am now safe and well in Laos - a whole new country! The birthday sickness got really bad and I eventually had to go into hospital - spent three days there - being looked after in absolute luxury! I had my own room, with a hot shower, TV, fridge and air con! They never did really work out what it was but thought it might have been caused by a parasite in the dirty water that was being thr...