Dear Readers!

Well, we are now in Laos and internet is not as omnipresent as aus and nz.

Started se asian adventure in hanoi - where weaving amongst the millions of scooters obeying no road rules was our most challenging adventure so far.

We visited the mauseleum of ho chi minh (Graam just thought they'd spelt museum wrong until we got inside). Quite an experience having to hand over your camera, remain in exact single file and keep walking at a constant speed all through. Lynz was ordered to take off the shades, and Graam was ordered to 'stay on the red walkway'.

We met up with our tour and travelled to a border town just inside laos. The highlight was an amusing game of petanque with the locals - linds forming a seemingly unbeatable partnership with the ronaldo of the laos petanque world.

Vientiane is the capital city which has a very french colonial feel so we took a break from rice meals to enjoy a quick croissant from the many bakeries.

Next morning we boarded the 'happy' bus to vang vieng - best described by ali as tacky. We gave tubing a miss (travelling down river in a tube stopping at loads of riverside bars - objective seems to be to get drunk and hurt yourself looking at the state of others). Instead we went exploring a cool local cave used to hide from the warring chinese in the last century.

And now we reach luang prabang (ancient capital of laos). More relaxed than vang vieng with a cool night market. Today we went to an elephant rescue centre and rode an asian elephant rescued from years of abuse carrying logs. Linds did ask the question but apparently even graam isn't as big and heavy as the logs they used to carry!

Tomorrow we board a boat for two days, and set sail up the mighty Mekong river heading for Thailand. We make a short stop in Chang Mai before the overnight train to Bangkok. See you there for the next blog!

G n L xxx