Wobbling out of bed at 7:30, I rushed around packing the last few things and grabbing breakfast. I fell into he same mealtime-related trap as I had prior to the waterfall visit and had far too little time to eat (and check my email *ahem*) than I needed. The one thing that’s irking me right [...]

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Roz, by some miracle as I felt as knackered as she did, turned up at 10:00 on the dot to go for a wander round the town with me. Out came the Lonely Planet, I flipped to the page with the recommended city walk and off we plodded. We stopped at the post office to [...]

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Luang Prabang is pretty laid back so excuse me for not having a vast amount to write up about the next two days! It’s so laid back that it’s nigh-on impossible to get a meal served in less than fifteen minutes, so if you happen to book a ticket for a trip make sure you [...]

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Another night with little sleep (abed at 4:30am, awake at 8:00am) before rushing around packing everything, changing currency and scoffing some breakfast. I had to walk to another hostel where a tuk-tuk was to collect me to take me to the bus area on the old runway. In honesty, I’d have been as well walking [...]

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Very little sleep tonight, partly due to the availability of free wireless internet and partly as it took me over thirty minutes to fight of an invasion of flying ants – nature’s most stupidly-designed insects. There was a small gap between my room door and the floor and as soon as the light in my [...]

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This has been touched on a couple of times, but another one I’ve discovered is that the machines in Laos (well, the one in Vientiane that takes foreign ATM cards) charge 20,000 Kip ($2) per withdrawal. This is in addition to any charges your own bank levies. The single ATM in Vang Vieng will only [...]

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The rather aptly-named Bun Bang Fai is an annual festival marking the move from dry to wet season. It’s an apt name as a large part of the festival, in Vang Vieng anyway, involves firing rockets into the air to wake the gods up and ask them for plenty of rain for the forthcoming rice-growing [...]

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A group of us had arranged to go tubing this afternoon, but late in the evening Nick (who runs the hostel) told us that the best time to start is morning as you can spend the whole day doing it. Instead, some of the girls went while Jo, Heather and I loafed around watching telly [...]

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Yet another day on a bus. There’s a local service you can catch for as little as $1.50, but for a change I wanted to be sure I could stretch out and not play “battery hen” for three hours. As such I paid $6 and wasn’t disappointed with the experience. The pickup was on time, [...]

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That’s a false statement. I did it in less than a day. Laos is like Thailand in that all the people are friendly, helpful and – on the whole – honest. The language is also rather similar, with some of the bordering regiions understanding Thai mainly as a result of TV stations filtering over. However, [...]

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