Good late evening England and hello now from Bali, Indonesia as I write this in the soaring heat. As any of you that still read this are aware I have fallen somewhat behind partly down to laziness and the other due to just basically having a good time.

Re-tracing my steps back to about a week (although it actually feels longer due to country hopping), I can safely say I loved Laos. After the boat adventures and sights of Ha Long Bay it was going to take some beating but Laos literally pulled down vietnams pants and gave it a good spanking.

First off the biggest change for Tina was the food and seeing her face light up at the sound of green curry, yellow curry etc.. Was a sight to behold.
We tried stuff like the local food of river mekong seweed, vegetable dishes, all sorts of fish and their other speciality of buffalo. I have to say we didn't have bad meal in Laos and when you know that you tend to be more open to new things. We changed the dirtier streets of Vietnam and it's hectic hard selling markets for a more tranquil setting.

Although Laos is land-locked it still has the feeling of a coastal town as it's main and seemingly only major street is separated by the Mekong river one and a beautiful flowing river the other. It is a tiny mountain kingdom and has been
for more than a thousand years and was designated a world heritage site in 1995. The French/Italian vibe was back in abidance with river hugging cafes a dime dozen, small Market stalls and everyone on bicycles rather than motor transport.

We arrived on Christmas eve to our more upmarket hotel, although we were originally dropped off somewhere different to done kind of derelict hotel. How the motorbike like tuk tuk drivers don't know the names of the hotels escapes me considering I could cover the place on a bike. The hotel was large, clean and with swimming pool. As always it's never that simple as the pool was colder than the north sea, drinks in the hotel were a disgrace and we seemed the only occupants meaning we felt odd when just walking around the hotel. I also have to have to add my annoyance of seeing a buffet set up for breakfast which got me excited for Christmas day but this never materialised and I still have anger in my heart reserved for that.

Let's get the basics out if the way and tackle Christmas day. It was really a non event not helped by Tina not getting any presents. Like a small child she stamped her feet at this and I am sure she will delight in telling people for years to come of that fateful day. In my defence we spend 24 hours with each other and Tina often holds the money, plus I told her it's not in santas remit to cover Laos and he will bring her extra next year.

We ended up at a coffee house called Joma, who were doing Christmas turkey sandwiches for brunch with gravy. This helped with gaining kind of a Christmas spirit and the rest if the day was spent by the pool in soaring heat with a bottle of red wine. Not a bad Christmas to me and it was nice to speak to our respective families via skype which gave us both a Christmas feel.

The day after Boxing day and we moved hotels to a rather odd cheaper hostel more central and just outside of one of the temples. As we walked down one of the small Italian like paths a small boy came running out and hugged both us, so pleased to see visitors. I won't lie and say I didn't check my pockets afterwards but it kind of summed up the loatian people who are very friendly and just basically pleased to see you. The place was not a hostel but more someones home who rented out one of the rooms. No lock on the door but merely a bit of wood to go across it. As we slept, outside the door was their dinning area which felt odd keeping our voices down for them as it felt like we were house guests rather than customers. Down the road they rented bicycles which we duly took advantage of, plus they had a ringing bell which brought me great pleasure ringing at everybody I saw despite the lack of response.

Although we initially stuttered around on the ancient bikes we soon found our motion and there is no better way to get around luang prabang taking in the small towns sites as you go along. We parked our bikes up outside our favourite cafe by the riverside (mainly as they served bottomless coffee to my pleasure) and make the decision to cross the very ominous looking bridge over the Nam Khan river to the rather unpopulated otherside. The bridge looked like the bridge out of Indiana jones and the temple doom
minus crocodiles, which made for my poor Indian jones impressions that Tina just shrugged off. Never a good sign crossing a bridge which strong river currents underneath and your foot goes right through the bridge. I felt I got my monies worth due to this, given that I paid 50p to get across and they will have to repair that hole. The 'otherside' seemed a small village reminding me greatly of cayman brac and it's occupants were families going about their farming business. Every child you past seemed to be fascinated by us and we smile and wave manically, unfortunately I didn't have the bell on my bike to give them a little ring so I also returned with a wave and a smile. We found a bar which wrapped around the river and spent the afternoon with beer and playing scramble. I will briefly mention that i seemed to always get letters such as q,w, x, v etc... I suspected foul play on tina's part but I thought it best not to mention it given that it would only lead to issues regarding Christmas presents.

A brilliant day was had in Luang Prabang we both felt so chilled out. We completed the day with some wine, food and football on tv for myself at a local bar. We took in the sights of the temple on the highest cliff face at the end of the island and Tina finished shopping on the market buying numerous silk scarves which she continues to tell me how amazing they are.

We moved hostels again to a scenic place which the name escapes me. They had a quiet courtyard and free coffee where we planned our next stop in vang Vieng and the 'tubing' was nearly upon us. We took a day trip via a small longboat which first stopped at Pak Ou caves. I did my usual thing of falling asleep on the small canoe like boat due to the early morning rise and it's hour long journey along the Mekong. I have to say although Laos was hot in the day, the early mornings and evenings were extremely cold so the mention of swimming in waterfalls later did not excite me at the early morning juncture. We got to the waterfalls after the extremely dull caves and I have to say we were both pleasantly surprised. The water fall named Kouang Si, flowed down into different step like levels each with a beautiful blue gleaming pool all in the forest like surroundings. Many pictures were taken before we proceeded into the water. Tina didn't last to long due to almost paralysingly cold like water but I just seemed to paddle about or about 40 mins probably more due to delirium set on by cold. I absolutely loved it though and is hippy like as it might sound it felt great to swim about in something that was all nature and not man made. As always I looked to spoil the moment by wanting to dive bomb off the high rocks into the water but Tina to her credit stopped me in my tracks. We finished the trip stopping at a small village with the inhabitants of the Ban Xang tribe. I tried the local 50% alcohol which is made from fermented sticky rice which is noted as whiskey. Bloody awful but made the boat trip more interesting given that I drank tina's as well. As we finished the tip in a mini-van all the kids from the tribes came out to see us and wanted presents from us. They just wanted to touch you (not in the Michael Jackson sense though) and just see you but it could turn into mob mentality if they didn't get something quick. I only had my iPhone which could probably change their way of life overnight if they saw angry birds so Tina gave them some ritz crackers. Suddenly like locusts they all started to surround the van so he just gave them the packet and the driver stepped on it.

To be honest there is a lot more I could say about our time in luang prabang but Tina has just bought me a cold beer by the pool so I will stop it here.

I have to write vang Vieng next and kuala lumpur so Robbia c out for now.