The last week has been pretty crazy, involving a lot of travelling and a lot of drinking!

We got a minibus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong and stayed overnight in a hostel right on the Mekong River. The people on our bus were all pretty cool and easy going and we were sharing a room with a german called Stefan who had done the same trip last year and gave us some pointers on where to go in Laos and Vietnam.

The slow boat to Louang Prabang took 2 days meandering down the Mekong but it was amazing. The scenary along the river was awesome and although the boat was pretty uncomfortable, we had made our best purchase of the trip so far by buying cushions for 80p each at the port.

The first night we stayed at a small village along the river and found a decent guesthouse with 2 girls from the bus, Lauren and Paula, who were from New Zealand and doing a similar trip to us. In the morning the girls went early to the boat and saved us 4 of the 8 comfy seats on the boat (they were seats from a van which had been fixed to the floor).

Once we got to Louang Prabang it was hammering it down so we jumped in a tuk tuk and went to a hostel with the girls. It was a bit of a dive so we decided to pay a bit more and get a room with aircon. We were pretty hungry so we went to find somewhere to eat and within a couple of minutes of leaving the hotel we bumped into Michael from the hostel in Chiang Mai, so the 3 of us went for some dinner and a few drinks. The dinner was the most disappointing eating experience of my life! We each ordered the "meat platter to share", which suggests that there is enough food for 6. It came out and there was a sausage each and some beef jerky and that was it! There were more sauces than meat.

The next day the 3 of us decided to be a bit more proactive so we climbed to the top of the hill in the centre of town to see the temple on top then got a tuk tuk to a waterfall. The waterfall was amazing, we climbed to the top and then went swimming in the pools at the bottom. That night we met with Lauren and Paula and went for a meal. Lauren has invited us to stay with her when we get to New Zealand which is a bonus.

On Friday morning we got up early and took a 5 hour bus trip (which actually took 7) to Vang Vieng. Michael was only going to be there for 1 day as he has a tight schedule so we got up at the crack of 11 on Saturday and went tubing.

Tubing has been one of the most fun, most memorable and most dangerous experiences of my life! FACT

For 3 days we sat in tyre inner tubes floating down the river being given as much free whisky as we could stomach and occasionally stopping at a bar to play mud volleyball or tug of war or to go on one of the massive rope swings, zip lines or slides. We met so many people during our time there that there are to many to mention but every day we met more and more people that we could party with on the night times.

Regrettably, we left Vang Vieng yesterday but we felt that if we didn't leave we never would. We went to the bus stop at 7 o'clock to catch a bus to Vientiane. The bus turned up at 11:30 and was full but we had to get on because our flight to Vietnam is today. We ended up sat in the aisle on plastic chairs and were the only foreigners on the bus. I had a fella asleep on my left shoulder and a woman breast feeding a little boy sat to my right! At every stop the women would get off, stand too close to the bus in my opinion, lift their skirts and casually wee on the roadside. I didn't know where to look!

We finally got into bed at a hotel at around 4 this morning and we are just sat in the airport about to board. Looking forward to Vietnam and meeting up with Michael again in the middle as he travels north and we travel south.