Today we set off early to go into the hillside on an adventure Kayaking day. It was a beutiful day and not too hot (ideal conditions for a day on the river and rapids). We stopped along the way at a hillside village where we were shown around and told about their way of life. The kids of the village giggled and followed us the whole time (see photos). I had to stop Claire smuggling a couple into the back of the truck as we left. After 2 hours o...

Today was tubing day. This basically involved sitting in an inner tube from a tractor tyre and spending the day floating downstream on the Nam Xong River. For the more adventurous you could opt to leave your tube to climb up onto one of the wooden constructions to jump or swing into the river. As you can imagine it was a highly stressful affair and to combat this our group of 9 had to have regular stops to drink some Beer Lao. On some occasions it was just to...

A sweaty 4 hour bus journey - no air con and tiny windows along with a stinking hangover - found us in Vang Vieng and at first glance it resembled a building site as they are constructing a new road both around and through the tiny town. We flip-flopped our way through the mud and rubble to find a guest house which was a bargain at US$4 per night before hitting the road (or mud path) to explore. It was only as we made our way down to the river that we actually ...

We took the bold decision to fly from Siam Reap to Laos as the 48 hour bus ride just held absolutely no appeal. The write up in Lonely Planet for Laos Airlines did not fill us with confidence but this journey is all about us taking some risks I guess! We did survive the flight in case you're wondering....it was one of those twin propellor jobs, no life jackets under your seat (but then we did only fly over 1 small river) and some questionable seat belts but he...