Bus Wars Back on the bus for another journey - this time to the Plain of Jars, a world heritage site set deep in the mountains and full of large stone jars of unknown origin.Popular opinion says that they were probably funeral urns but no-one knows for sure. The jars are impressive but my attempts to get Brian to climb into one for photographic effect came to nothing, the best I could do was get him to crouch behind one in a silly hat, which he thought was extr...

Luang Prabang (apart from being shopping heaven) is a world heritage site so it's well kept and clean, even the potholes in the roads are artful. Smokers are publicly frowned upon with a 'tut' and everyone is in bed by 10.30 p.m. But now that we're getting on a bit, and having to get up at 7 a.m. most mornings (which we are soooo unused to), going to bed before 11 seems almost hedonistic. We are so enchanted by the place we have spent most of our time just wa...

Left Bangkok on the overnight train, wasn't quite as glamourous as we anticipated, in fact rather hot and sticky. Nevertheless I slept for about 10 hours, even though they left all the lights on all night - my free little eye mask from British Airways did a stunning job of making it seem like night until about 9 a.m. when someone thrust a plastic tray of rubbery eggs and a cup of coffee covered in clingfilm under my nose. We arrived in Nong Khai, the border to...

Back in Bangkok, just for a couple of days to prepare for our trip to Laos. Travelled back on the rattler from Hua Hin, aircon class this time, so we were only half an hour late back into Bangkok as opposed to the normal hour and a quarter. Tried to get laundry done, but honestly there's just no Widow Twanky around when you need one, so we decided to make do with the thousand t-shirts we still have left, and frankly once you've lost your sense of smell with thi...

Left Bangkok on some day, it's getting hard to remember days of the week now to be honest. Anyway that and the fact that I was feeling a bit ill with a sore throat didn't help. We arrived in Hua Hin to a tropical downpour, lashings of water, flooded streets. Just getting off the train and to the shelter of the railway station ensured that we were soaked through, an umbrella would have been laughably useless. All that remained then was to haggle the price of a ta...