Hi all,

Keith here, writing from an internet cafe in Vang Vieng in Laos. We've all been away from civilisation for the last few days so we've been unable to keep you updated with what has been going on. It is nearly my bed time - time to brush! so i will keep this as brief as i can and summarise Kathryn and Zoe's adventures over the last few days..

We all arrived in Laos after 16 hours on an overnight train, Zoe the insomniac didn't sleep a wink, whilst Kathryn who could sleep anywhere that she could sit or lay slept most of the way! After crossing the boarder and getting a tuk tuk to the town Vientiane we all went and had a spot of lunch overlooking the Mekong River. The girls had been trying their best to get in touch with the 'Gibbon Experience' which they had been told about so they could monkey around in the jungle for a few days but after failing miserably they went into a travel agents and booked up the first thing they saw (all a bit too hastily if you ask me!) - an overnight trekking, cycling and kayaking adventure in Laos for the next day.

That night we went for dinner and started chatting to some fellow ravellers, we all ended up in a really busy bar making new friends and hanging out - Kathryn got me out of her handbag a few times which went down really well with everyone!

The next morning we all got picked up in a tuk tuk and taken to a car park where our new adventure began...We got loaded into a big tuk tuk with our bags on the roof for a 2.5 hour drive - on route the driver picked up and dropped off various local people and also goods e.g. cucumbers, beans, chickens and a live pig which was tied screaming to the back step. We all got dropped off on a dirt track with our heavy bags and pointed down a small path - alone in the jungle we wandered for about 5 mins before finding PARADISE! What the girls didn't realise when they booked this trip was that they would end up the only visitors to a 'Eco Village' in the middle of the jungle, by the side of the river, staying in a beatiful bungalow with no one that spoke very good english!

The next 3 days were spent laying in hammocks, walking the 'nature trail', cycling some of the cyle route (we had to stop and turn around as a small river ran through our path) and our favourite activity - kayaking! There were no guides in our village so we had to do it all alone - fine on the walking and cycling but the kayaking we thought would be a different story! We got driven to the main road where we were put in a tuk tuk with more locals and goods, after a while we were told to get out and pointed towards a shack next to a bridge - here a man gave us 2 kayaks, 2 life jackets and pointed us down the river in the right direction. He told us it would take about 2 hours and that there was only one rapid which if we fell in we were to hold the boat and keep our legs up (we interpreted this from his broken english!). Scared and alone on the river we started our journey, it was surprisingly easy and gentle and at the sign of every fast current Kathryn (who was in fancy dress as hulk hogan) got really scared thinking it was the rapid! We made it one piece through the rapid which wasn't actually that big or fast and after a really enjoyable few hours we expertely paddled our way back to our bungalow!

We all left paradise today and have arrived in Vang Vieng - the place in Laos where you hire the inner tube of a lorry tyre and jump in the river and ride it down stream - along the way you stop at all the bars and drink lots of beer so you can pluck up the courage to jump off the cliffs into the deep parts of the river and other crazy things that they have set up for the tourists to enjoy!

Yours, Keith the teeth