What an exhausting day! Our guide Tu met us for an early start to show us the morning local market. We some particularly peculiar things - like big beetles and grilled rats. Also, these beautiful tiny birds in cages designed to be set free - pretty cruel for a Buddhist country... Then we went to the royal palace and temple, just beautiful! Then up a mountain for a gruelling trek to another temple with a stunning view of the city and its two rivers, then down an...

Tiring trip from Melbourne with a 6 hour stopover in Bangkok where we had shoulder and foot massages and Tom yum soup. We arrived in Vientiane at lunch time, and lazed around the pool before heading into town for drinks, a fabulous orange manicure and then rather unusual meal of morning glory and quesadilla's which was surprisingly delicious. Vientiane is pretty dirty and busy but has its charms!

Our last full day at the resort and I'm frantically trying to finish this stupid essay which I have left to the last minute as usual. 8 years as a Uni student and I have never managed to change my bad habits... Freddy drags me away for a 3 hour adventure to one of the nearby islands. It's the island where they filmed Castaway, and it's beautiful. A surprisingly choppy half hour boat ride gets us there and before long Pita is getting us to climb to the peak. A ju...

Unfortunately Freddy came back from his fishing trip very disappointed... 4 hours in a boat miles off land and no fish! This is the second time he's been deep sea fishing and both times gone home empty handed... He vows to never do it again, I heartily agree and remind him the experience is valuable. He's got to know Pita the captain well tho and we've been invited for a kava session for our last night. We spend the day relaxing, sipping cocktails and snorkelling...

After yesterday's drama, I can now relax in this idyllic paradise. The beach is crystal clear, snorkelling superb and staff is friendly. I finally got to SCUBA dive today and it was totally breathtaking! Jerry the dive master (funnily enough Dr Tikko's best friend!) and myself went down 15 metres and spent an hour under the sea. We saw 100s of beautiful fish of every colour and pattern but the standouts were a giant turtle and a metre long barracuda! Poor Freddy ...