Writing up todays entry at 2pm as Hels has gone off for a massage and I was uploading photos onto the blog but the camera battery has run out. No plans for today as we need to get everything together for packing, in preperation for the boat trip tomorrow. We have to be at the pier ( concrete block ) at 8.30am so breakfast at 7am. Still no news a...

Oh My, the last time I actually updated, it was like probably half a month ago! Anyways short update! Our trip to Laos Our trip to Laos involved two days of actual travelling and staying by the river! Firstly we had to cross over to Laos and get our passports stamped, then it was dumping us into this slow boat, that just went on and on forever o...

It turns out that there were plenty of people ready to head south the next day. 22 backpackers and three locals who would hop off at stops along the way piled on to the boat that usually travels with eight to 12 people. The ticket man told me the max was 15. I don't think they go with this many very often. We all settled in and made ourselves co...

Hi Everyone, Sorry about the 're-send' on the last few blogs, but the computer we had used in Hanoi had been acting up so we thought we'd best send them again. If you saw them once - great - if you saw them twice - lucky you! Here is some new stuff to view... We arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos on Saturday evening and we are loving it. This is a g...

We are now in Laos! It took some courage to leave the comfy surroundings of the easy, bohemian lifestyle in Chiang Mai. What a wonderful place and still so much we could have done and seen. We spent our last two days with a rented motorbike and went to a wood craft village and hot spring. The hot spring was a beautiful area and we kept seeing si...

A 7 hour bus journey took Jon and I from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong (on the Lao border). This was probably the least comfortable so far, as they'd managed to fit 5 seats abreast into a normal sized bus. Thais barely fit, westeners most definitely did not. Still, Chiang Khong was nicer than we'd expected and we got a great hostel overlooking the ...

Luang Prabang is such a pretty town. Laos is an old french colony so the buildings here are really nice. they have delicious crusty baggettes too, Ive been craving real bread for ages! Getting here was really cool. i went on a two day boat trip from northern Thailand. The scenery along the mekong river was absolutely stunning. the boat was prett...

Despite ditching the hammer and sickle from the National seal here, the emblem still flies on flags here and the t-shirts are in abundance (but maybe that's just for backpackers keen for some communist memorabilia). Over my croissant this morning I read the Vientiane times (in English, obviously) which on one page has a letter of thanks to 'The ...

There are loads of temples in Luang Prabang, and we saw none of them! Actually this was mainly due to us hurrying through and trying to get on a boat ASAP. We did see some of the morning alms on our way to catch our boat, so I don't feel like we missed out too much. So the big question was: how to get to our next destination ( Houei Xai ), our o...

The Slow Boat to Luang Prabang sounds romantic - it might be if you did it in a nice comfortable boat with plenty of space, but our boat was bloody uncomfortable, wooden benches, no leg room and nowhere to by any proper food. The second day was better - we took our own food. Despite the transport the journey down the Mekong is stunning passing t...