If we wanted something different and off the tourist track, then we certainly have that in Nong Khiaw. I'm not saying that we're the only the travellers here, obviously not. But it's certainly a far cry from everywhere we have been so far. The small town is set around both sides of the river with dramatic limestone cliffs and mountains completing the pretty view. We are staying in an extremely simple bamboo bungalow, with lots of insects, only a squat toilet, no...

After a week in Luang Prabang it's time to move on. Not least because our room has become a get together place for cockroaches and giant ants. Ben has been a hero taking them on! Today we took a slow boat up the Mekong river to visit the Buddha cave. We stopped on the way at 'Whisky village' where they make whisky believe it or not from fermented sticky rice. You could try a shot but it was about 9.30am so I passed. The Buddha cave is actually 2 caves, full of ...

Luang Prabang is beautiful. We have been staying in a lovely wood panelled cabin that looks like a ship. We are upstairs as well so we have large wooden chairs outside our room on a communal balcony where we can sit out in the day or night. There is also free water and green tea. The tea keeps Ben happy. Our journey here wasn't the most fun. It took around over 8 hours and there had been a few landslides on the roads that wind round the edge of the mountains. Th...

Our journey to Vang Vieng took around 5 hours, winding up the beautiful Laos hillside. The scenery is just stunning. The rain evaporating up from the hills looked like smoke from lots of little fires and we passed through villages where cows and water buffalo casually crossed the roads, children waved at us and chickens roamed free. Happily we saw no bandits which apparently run that route, though I think that's more of a traveller whisper, something that happene...

So, we arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos 2 days ago. The malaria tablets have been going a few days, the mosquito net is up and I'm drowning myself in DEET. You can't even get malaria here! Oh well, good practice! After getting back to Hanoi after Halong Bay, we caught up on our sleep and looked at our options to get to Laos. We went for the easiest-a 22 hour bus journey. Ouch. Before leaving Hanoi, we met up with Dan, a local who is a big fan of Ben's ...